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Denise McLane-Davison

Denise McLane-Davison

Associate Professor
EducationPhD, MA
OfficeEPH-239, Eric Palin Hall
Phone416-979-5000, ext. 554788
Areas of ExpertiseBlack feminist/womanist/Africana epistemologies; Womanist/African-centered pedagogy; Black spatial/public humanities

Denise McLane-Davison is an award-winning Afrofuturistic womanist social work leader and educator. Her teaching pedagogy, research, scholarship, and leadership are interconnected and inclusive of Black feminist/womanist/Africana (BFWA) epistemologies; centering critical race, womanist theologian, and other emancipatory praxis to disrupt systems of structural oppression, while fostering innovative strategies of transformation, reconciliation and liberation.

McLane-Davison is a visual storyteller utilizing cultural memory and the intentional centering of African diasporic history and culture in the digital humanities genre to provide an interdisciplinary and intergenerational knowledge bank for public and academic scholars through her training in Black digital humanities (BDH) and Black spatial humanities.  

McLane-Davison has an outstanding research background and a fulsome and prolific publication record; securing close to two million dollars in research funding in the USA as a principal investigator. Her projects have covered a range of areas, notably women’s wellness, womanist leadership, HIV/AIDS (usually focusing on racialized or Black communities) and historical retrospective studies focused on the Black social work movement. Her research has filled significant gaps in knowledge, centering strength-based epistemologies and highlighting how Blackness is experienced at the intersection of personal, communal and political.  

McLane-Davison’s work on womanist research and pedagogy has been translated into three languages (Twi, Portuguese and Hebrew) and has been presented internationally in many countries. She is the 2020 Faculty Women of Color in The Academy Zenobia L. Hikes Teaching-Research National Award Winner, and past National Association of Social Workers-Maryland Chapter Social Work Educator of The Year, as well as the recipient of The Distinguished Achievement in Social Work Education Award from the National Association of Black Social Workers, Inc. 

McLane-Davison is a graduate of Illinois State University, University of Chicago School of Social Service Administration, and The Whitney M. Young, Jr. School of Social Work, Clark Atlanta University, USA.    

Teaching responsibilities:

  • SK 8214: Anti Black Racism: Roots, History, and Emergent Perspectives 
  • SK 8102: Anti-Oppression Responses to Marginalization, Policy and Practice
  • SWP 402: Social Policy Social Inclusion

Teaching interests: 

  • Womanist pedagogy
  • Liberatory praxis
  • Black spatial/digital humanities

Research interests:

  • African-centered futuristic social work
  • The Black social work movement
  • The strength of Black families and communities
  • Qualitative and womanist epistemological research

Funded research projects:

  • McLane-Davison, D. (2020). Mapping Black Thought and Resistance:  Digital Storytelling Through Primary Data Resources of  the National Association of Black Social Workers (NABSW) 1968-1978 and  The HistoryMakers Digital Archive .The HistoryMakers 2020 Digital Humanities Fellowship Award. Chicago, IL.
  • McLane-Davison, D. (2016-17; 2018-19). Urban women on the Rise Leadership Program. Kaiser Permanente Mid-Atlantic Regional Foundation, Inc. Baltimore, MD.
  • McLane-Davison, D. (2014-2019). Results-Based Accountability: Casey-Morgan Partnership. Annie E. Casey Foundation. Baltimore, MD.
  • McLane-Davison, D. (2017). The Sankofa Recovery Project: An anthology of the National Association of Black Social Workers and the Black Social Work Movement. Morgan State University Faculty Enhancement Grant.

Books:

  • McLane-Davison, D. (in press). “African-centered social work”. Oxford Bibliographies Online:Social Work. Oxford University Press. Publications.

Chapters:

  • Schiele, J. & McLane-Davison, D. (in press). White supremacy and American social policy: Implications for racism-centered policy practice In The Grand Challenges of Racism. Oxford Press.
  • Brice, T.S., McLane-Davison, D. & Brice, T. (2022).  Civil rights. Encyclopedia of Social Work. NASW Press.
  • Brice, T.S. & McLane-Davison, D. (2020) The strength of Black families: The elusive ties of perspective and praxis in social work education. In Amy Mendenhall and Michelle Mohr Carney (eds)  (PDF file) Rooted in Strengths: 30 Years of the Strengths Perspective in Social Work. Creative Commons Open Access.
  • McLane-Davison, D. & Hewitt, W. (2016). Inner city blues: HIV/AIDS and the urban social worker. In Wells-Wilbon, R., McPhatter, A., & H.O.Vakalahi (Eds.). Social Work Practice with African Americans in Urban Environments. Springer Publishing. New York. pp 185-203.

Journal articles:

  • The Zenobia L. Hikes Woman of Color in the Academy Teaching/Research Award, Faculty Women of Color in the Academy Conference, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 2020.
  • United States Congressional Citation in Recognition of Social Work Educator of The Year Award, National Association of Social Workers, Maryland Chapter, 2018.
  • Educator of the Year Award, National Association of Social Workers, Maryland Chapter, 2018.
  • Distinguished Achievement in Social Work Education Award, National Association of Black Social Workers, 49th Annual Conference, Washington, D.C, 2017.
  • Mentorship Award, Council on The Status of Women in Social Work, Council on Social Work Education, 2017.