Nance Lucas

Nance Lucas

Nance Lucas

Associate Professor

Ethics, positive psychology, and leadership

Dr. Nance Lucas is Executive Director of the Center for the Advancement of Well-Being, Associate Professor of the School of Integrative Studies, and former Associate Dean of the School of Integrative Studies (formerly New Century College) at George Mason University. Her teaching and scholarship interests focus on positive psychology and leadership, well-being, and ethics. She is co-author of Exploring Leadership: For College Students Who Want To Make A Difference (1st, 2nd, and 3rd editions), a best-selling book of Jossey-Bass Publishers, and contributing author of Leadership Reconsidered and The Social Change Model of Leadership Development. Nance was a co-editor of the Journal of Leadership and Organizational Studies for special issues and former member of the Journal's Editorial Board.

At Mason, she is the co-founder of Leading to Well-Being programs, the Leadership Legacy Program, and MasonLeads while also serving as the senior leadership scholar of the Leadership Legacy Program. She leads Mason's well-being university initiative in collaboration with colleagues across the institution. Dr. Lucas is an affiliate faculty member with The Gallup Organization and the Higher Education Program at George Mason University. Prior to her appointment at Mason, Nance had previous appointments at the University of Maryland and Ohio University. Nance served as the creator and convener of the 1997 Global Leadership Week Program (a world-wide leadership program initiative spanning five continents), co-founder of the National Leadership Symposium, co-founder of the National Clearinghouse for Leadership Programs, and a past chair of the National InterAssociation Leadership Project. She served on the W. K. Kellogg Foundation Leadership Studies Project Ethics Focus Group, W. K. Kellogg Foundation College Age Youth Leadership Program Review Team and the Kellogg Forum on Higher Education National Dialogue Series Planning Team.

She received a Ph.D. in higher education with a concentration in leadership studies and ethics at the University of Maryland, College Park. Her Master's degree in college student personnel and Bachelor's degree in industrial and organizational psychology are from the Pennsylvania State University.

Dissertations Supervised

Kevin Anthony Christian, Examining Factors that Lead to Persistence of African American Male Student Athletes in Community Colleges (2018)

Brian S. Melton, The Impact of Missionary Service on the Spiritual Development and Psychological Wellbeing of Mormon College Students (2017)