Dr. Sharon Shaw-McEwen B.S., M.S.S.W., Ed.D.

Dr. Sharon Shaw-McEwen is a national consultant, a former Professor of Social Work and former Assistant to the Provost for Institutional Diversity at Middle Tennessee State University in Murfreesboro, TN. For over 25 years, she has also served as the Chief Executive Officer of the Centers for Family Life in Nashville, Tennessee. The Center has developed a model, multi-focused prevention program for African-American families and other underserved populations. She has taught the Counseling Diverse Populations course in the Human Resources Department, at Vanderbilt University, in Nashville and has been an Expert Consultant for the Center for Substance Abuse Prevention (CSAP) in Washington, D.C.  She provides technical assistance across the country to substance abuse prevention, mental health, workplace and educational programs that are working with multicultural populations.  

She is a noted speaker and has presented workshops and keynotes at numerous conferences and meetings and while her focus is usually on culture as it relates to mental health, substance abuse, workplace and education issues, she also addresses spirituality and personal growth.  She was nominated to serve on the 1988 Health and Human Services Alcohol, Drug and Mental Health National Advisory Board as an advisor to the Secretary.  She was a consultant and presenter in the prevention section of the 1988 White House Conference for a Drug Free America; and she served on a White House Drug Policy Advisory Committee during two administrations.

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She holds and has held memberships in numerous professional and civic organizations.  In 1988 she was the Nashville and southeastern regional New Soror-of-the-Year of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority. She was the 1992 recipient of the Outstanding Service Award given by the Tennessee State Caucus of Black Legislators; and in ‘95 and ‘96 she was one of the faculty “top five” finalists for the MTSU Public Service Award.  She is the 2001 recipient of the MTSU John Pleas Distinguished Faculty Award and is a graduate of the prestigious Bryn Mar Summer Leadership Institute for Women in Higher Education. She is a member of Leadership Middle-Tennessee where she has also served on the board. 



At MTSU for almost a decade she was the director of the Biennial International Conference on Cultural Diversity and founded and directed the MTSU Scholars Academy for gifted, talented but underachieving college students of color with a focus on a 100% graduation rate.  In 2006, she was invited to present her research on minority achievement gaps in education at Oxford University in Oxford, England, and in 2006 and 2007 to participate as a researcher in the Achievement Gap Conference at Harvard University, in Cambridge, MA.   She is now retired from MTSU and is spending her retirement working through the Centers for Family Life with minority students and their families; young women who are trying to combine being educated and professional with their higher priority of being family and Christ-centered; writing and travelling. 



Dr. Shaw-McEwen is the wife of Phillip L. McEwen, Sr.; she is the mother of Steven (Chicago), a Morehouse and Harvard University graduate and Sr. Consultant to the IL Secretary of Health and Human Services; Michelle, a graduate of Clark Atlanta University and MDiv. student at ITC, Atlanta, and a writer for the Atlanta Journal Constitution, in Atlanta, GA; and Michael, a graduate of Middle TN State University, a former program analysis for ESPN to the NBA and current Director of Digital Media Network Services for Silver Chalice New Media.