Dr. Tracy Mainieri

Biography

Tracy Mainieri is an Associate Professor in the Recreation and Park Administration program and the Graduate Sequence Coordinator for the Recreation Administration and Applied Community and Economic Development Master's sequences in the School of Kinesiology and Recreation. She received her B.A. in Anthropology from Furman University and both her M.S. and PhD in Parks, Recreation, and Tourism Management from Clemson University. Tracy joined the Redbird faculty in Fall 2013. Since then she has taught in both the undergraduate RPA program and the graduate Recreation Administration Master’s program, teaching primarily leadership, management, and trends courses. Tracy’s professional background and research is in summer camp so she strives to bring what she’s learned at camp about fun, facilitation, and experiential learning into the classroom. She hopes that when students think about the learning experiences they had in her courses, they found those experiences to be collaborative, challenging, active, safe, and engaging. Beyond her assigned course load, Tracy also enjoys seeing students become excited about their own work in independent studies and supervised research projects. Tracy is honored to have been the recipient of the 2016 Innovation in Teaching Award from The Academy of Leisure Sciences, a 2016 ISU Teaching Initiative Award, the 2016-2017 CAST Outstanding Teacher Award (Pre-Tenure Category), and a 2015 Impact Award. Tracy's research interests focus on summer camp and youth programming evaluation and the scholarship of teaching and learning.