Norah Shultz, Ph.D.

Norah Shultz is a Professor of Sociology and Chair of the Department of Sociology at San Diego State University. Over the past two decades, her scholarship has concentrated on the sociology of higher education, with particular attention to how institutions navigate questions of curriculum design, general education reform, multiculturalism, and internationalization. Her work engages the structural and cultural dimensions of university life, examining how efforts toward diversity, equity, and inclusion are embedded — or resisted — within curricular systems and institutional practice.

As Co-PI of the ACORN (AI-Ready Curricular Options Resource Network) initiative, funded through the California State University’s AI Education Innovation Challenge, Dr. Shultz brings her expertise in curricular governance and faculty-led change to one of higher education’s most pressing current challenges: designing coherent, program-level responses to generative AI. Her involvement reflects a long-standing commitment to collaborative, data-informed approaches to institutional transformation.

Dr. Shultz is the editor of Revising the Curriculum and Co-Curriculum to Engage Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (Routledge, 2024) and Co-Editor of Challenges of Multicultural Education: Teaching and Taking Diversity Courses (Routledge, 2015). Her editorial and scholarly contributions reflect a sustained engagement with questions of equity and structural change in American higher education.