Dr Dorothy Marcic
Dr. Marcic is a playwright, professor at Columbia University, and a former professor at Vanderbilt University's Owen Graduate School of Management, with a total of 25 years full time in academia.
She was a Fulbright Scholar at the University of Economics-Prague, teaching MBA students and practicing managers. She served as advisor to the US Ambassador of the Czech Republic and was a delegate to both the United Nations Economic and Social Develop Summit in Copenhagen and the UN Commission on the Status of Women. Her degrees include a bachelors in Radio-TV-Film, a Masters in Educational Media, another Masters in Public Health and a Doctorate in Organizational Behavior.
She is the author of 19 books, including the best-selling Understanding Management, Managing with the Wisdom of Love, RESPECT: Women and Popular Music, and the recent Love Lift Me Higher, as well as numerous articles and research studies. Based on her qualitative content-analysis research of how women are depicted in Top-40 music, Dr. Marcic wrote two hit musicals, RESPECT, which has played 220 performances in 20 cities and SISTAS, currently playing Off-Broadway in New York City. She started her career in the arts as a production assistant on the TV program, Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, while in college. She has appeared on C-SPAN, CMT, and Bravo Network.
Where scholarship meets storytelling.
Dorothy Marcic has spent her career exploring how people grow, lead, communicate and make meaning.
She is an author of 19 books, a playwright whose productions have been performed in more than 100 cities, a longtime professor of management, and a creator whose work spans theatre, music, true crime, film, leadership and women’s lives.
Her career has never followed a single path. Instead, research has often become writing, writing has become theatre, personal experience has become investigation, and decades of teaching have become new ways of helping people understand themselves and one another.
From Academia
to the Stage
Dorothy is currently on the faculty at Columbia University and previously taught at Vanderbilt University, the University of Wisconsin and Arizona State University.
She was also a Fulbright Scholar at the University of Economics in Prague, teaching management to MBA and undergraduate students. She holds a doctorate and three master’s degrees, including one in creative writing. After years in full-time academia, Dorothy increasingly turned toward playwriting and storytelling.
Her research for RESPECT: Women and Popular Music examined the changing depiction of women through popular music. That work eventually moved from the page to the stage, becoming theatrical productions that traced women’s changing lives through the songs generations grew up with.
Stories made to be experienced.
Dorothy’s theatrical work has been produced in more than 100 cities. Her Off-Broadway musical SISTAS ran for more than nine years and was also broadcast on BET-TV.
Her work around RESPECT similarly brought together music, research, social history and women’s experiences — demonstrating a recurring idea throughout Dorothy’s career: stories can entertain us while changing the way we see ourselves.
19 books. Many different questions.
Dorothy’s books move across seemingly different subjects — management, women and popular culture, spirituality, crime, relationships and aging.
Among them are:
Understanding Management
RESPECT: Women and Popular Music
Managing with the Wisdom of Love
Love Lift Me Higher
With One Shot
and her forthcoming book, Blooming.
What connects them is an enduring curiosity about how people live, change and relate to one another.
When the story
became her own.
For years, Dorothy carried unanswered questions about the murder of her uncle, former detective LaVerne Stordock.
Her search for answers eventually became the true-crime book With One Shot: Family Murder and a Search for Justice.
The story later became the Wondery podcast Manslaughter, which attracted more than 2.7 million listeners and became the #1 podcast on Apple in its first week.
It was a very different form of storytelling — deeply personal, investigative and rooted in questions of family, trauma and justice.
Ideas applied
to real life.
Alongside her creative work, Dorothy has spent decades teaching and consulting in management, leadership, communication and organizational development.
Her work has brought her into organizations including Hallmark, Ford Motor Company, AT&T, Hewlett-Packard, the U.S. State Department, USAA Insurance and the United Nations World Health Organization.
For 15 years, she also served as a delegate to the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women.
Her approach brings together management research with something less conventional: storytelling, creativity, values and human relationships.
Learning that changes
how we work with people.
After more than 25 years teaching management, Dorothy has translated part of that experience into online courses covering:
Management & Leadership
Business Communication & Body Language
Women in Management & Leadership
At Columbia University, she also teaches Leadership and Management Skills, drawing on decades of experience in management education and organizational development.
Her teaching emphasizes self-awareness, relationships and practical skills rather than management theory alone.
Books & Theatre
Dorothy is also the writer/story creator behind three award-winning short films:
Great Expectations
Spillings
Last Resort
Her career in the arts began much earlier, as a production assistant on Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood.
She has since appeared on C-SPAN, CMT and Bravo, alongside numerous radio, television and podcast interviews.