Mary Nienow

Dr. Mary Nienow, Ph.D.

Director and Associate Professor, School of Social Work, NMSU

Dr. Mary Nienow is the Director of the School of Social Work at New Mexico State University. Dr. Nienow previously served at St. Catherine University in St. Paul, MN where she was the BSW Program Director. Dr. Nienow received her PhD at the University of Minnesota and has over twenty years of experience in macro practice social work within higher education, state government, and nonprofits. Dr. Nienow was the co-founder of Grasstops, a nonprofit advocacy organization that assisted nonprofits and small community groups with their policy and advocacy goals.  Her extensive practice experience also includes Policy Consultant for Hennepin County Medical Center and lead researcher on Health and Human Services for the Minnesota Senate DFL Caucus.

Dr. Nienow is a member of the Board of Directors of the Special Commission to Advance Macro Practice and served as the Macro Practice Licensing Chair for over five years, leading this group in exploration of licensing practices and partnerships with a variety of diverse stakeholders.  She currently serves as treasurer of the New Mexico Social Work Workforce Consortium and chairs the licensing workgroup. She is a member of the advisory board to the Office of Family Representation and Advocacy.

Dr. Nienow is co-author of the book Whole Person Librarianship: A social work approach to patron services. She recently co-edited a special issue on social work regulation in the Journal on Social Work Practice. She also co-authored an article for the journal on racial disparities in social work licensing exams. Her research interests lie in social work regulation and anti-racist social work education. She recently completed a six-month sabbatical exploring anti-racist social work education within HBCU’s.