Naval Academy | Naval Academy Preparatory School| Leadership

Dr. Shirley A. Wilson Academic Dean

Dean Shirley A. Wilson, a native of Rochester, New Hampshire, earned her Bachelor of Science degree in mathematics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a Master of Science degree in mathematics from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Dean Wilson completed four years of graduate study in mathematics at the University of Illinois and, after moving to Alabama, received her Doctor of Education degree from Auburn University in secondary mathematics education.

Dean Wilson has extensive teaching experience. She taught all levels of undergraduate mathematics for eight years at Auburn University at Montgomery, Alabama, and for twenty-two years at North Central College, a comprehensive liberal arts college located in Naperville, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago. While at North Central College, Dean Wilson chaired several major committees, served as Faculty Speaker for two years, chaired the Mathematics Department for ten years and was Associate Academic Dean for five years.

Recognized for her work at North Central College and in the state of Illinois in several ways, Dean Wilson received the 1985 Clarence F. Dissinger Award for first-year teachers for her proposal for a new education course relating to technology. Twice during her career at North Central College she received the Clarence F. Dissinger Award for Senior Faculty, first in 1994 and again in 2006 when students nominating her described her as "a mentor and guide both inside and outside the classroom" with "a zeal for teaching . and a passion for mathematics that's contagious." Dean Wilson has also been named as recipient of the 2006 Illinois Council of Teachers of Mathematics Post-secondary Mathematics Teaching Award in recognition of two decades of teaching and service to the ICTM High School Mathematics Contest.

Dean Wilson's long-standing interest in the United States Navy stems from her paternal grandfather's service during World War I, her father's service during World War II, and her brother's twenty-one year career which followed his graduation from the United States Naval Academy in 1973.

In July of 2006 Dr. Wilson became only the fourth Dean of Academics, and the first female Dean, in the ninety-one year history of the Naval Academy Preparatory School and its predecessors.