Rate My Professor Mary Guy

Mary E. Guy is a Distinguished Professor in the School of Public Affairs at the University of Colorado Denver, where she has been on the faculty since 2008 and was named a University of Colorado Distinguished Professor in 2021. She earned a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of South Carolina in 1981, an M.A. in Psychology from the same university in 1976, an M.A. in Rehabilitation Counseling from the University of Florida in 1970, and a B.A. in Psychology from Jacksonville University in 1969. Her career includes serving as Jerry Collins Eminent Scholar Chair at the Askew School of Public Administration and Policy, Florida State University from 1997 to 2008; Professor and Department Chair in the Department of Government and Public Service at the University of Alabama at Birmingham from 1991 to 1997; and earlier positions as Associate Professor and Assistant Professor at UAB, along with clinical roles as psychologist and counselor at South Carolina State Hospital from 1973 to 1982.

Guy's research centers on public administration, emphasizing emotional labor, human processes in public service delivery, gender differences in public service, democratic governance, and social equity. She teaches courses on public administration, public management, organizational behavior, and human resource management. Key publications include Emotional Labor: Putting the Service in Public Service (2008, with Meredith A. Newman and Sharon H. Mastracci), winner of multiple Best Book Awards from the Academy of Management Public and Nonprofit Division and ASPA sections; Emotional Labor and Crisis Response: Working on the Razor’s Edge (2012, with Sharon H. Mastracci and Meredith A. Newman), also award-winning; Human Resource Essentials for Public Service: People, Process, Performance (2022, with Jessica E. Sowa), recipient of the 2023 ASPA Section on Personnel and Labor Relations Best Book Award; and Achieving Social Equity: From Problems to Solutions, 2nd edition (2025, edited with Sean A. McCandless). She is a Fellow of the National Academy of Public Administration (elected 1998), past President of the American Society for Public Administration (1997-1998) and the Southern Political Science Association (2001-2002), and Co-Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Social Equity and Public Administration since 2021. Notable awards include the 2024 SPALR Mary Guy Lifetime Impact Award, 2024 Marcia P. Crowley Award, 2020 Paul Van Riper Award, 2018 Dwight Waldo Award, and 2012 ASPA/NASPAA Distinguished Research Award. Her scholarship has shaped understandings of emotional labor and human resource practices in public service organizations.