David Szatmary


David P. Szatmary is an educator, author on various subjects, and an educational entrepreneur.

Educator and author

Born in Milwaukee, Szatmary earned a baccalaureate degree from Marquette University and M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in American history from Rutgers University. In 1979–80, he taught in the History Department at the University of Arizona as an assistant professor. Based upon his academic work, he published Shays' Rebellion: The Making of an Agrarian Insurrection, which remains in print. He consulted on the Calliope production of the movie Shays' Rebellion, and more recently was featured in a History Channel program about the rebellion and its importance to the formation of the U.S. Constitution.
From 1980 to 1984, Szatmary managed a chain of music stores in Washington and California, helping to grow the business from three stores in Washington to ten stores on the West Coast. Combining his history expertise with his experience in the music business, he wrote Rockin’ In Time: A Social History of Rock and Roll, published by Prentice-Hall, now in its eighth edition. He also wrote A Time to Rock and taught classes at the University of Washington and University of Arizona on the same topic. He published a book on the social history of jazz in May 2020 for Oxford University Press, titled Jazz: Race and Social Change . In addition, he has authored more than 400 reviews of music and history books for publications such as Library Journal and contributed to multiple editions of the All-Music Guide.
In 1984, Szatmary joined the University of Washington, the nationally ranked public research institution based in Seattle, Washington, in the university's continuing and professional education unit, University of Washington Educational Outreach. Credited with developing the first certificate program at the UW, he added 60 more certificate programs and helped establish more than 35 degree programs during the next 24 years. Since 1999, He served as Vice Provost of UW Educational Outreach, which includes UW Professional and Continuing Education.
UW Educational Outreach serves as a gateway to the community, granting alternate points of access to the UW for nontraditional students, most of them working adults. Under Szatmary's leadership, UW Educational Outreach emerged as a national leader in the field of professional education with a series of innovative programs and partnerships. In 2013, UW Educational Outreach served more than 50,000 students with more than 6,000 programs and courses. The organization attracted nearly 75,000 enrollments and posted gross revenues of nearly $138.6 million.
By 2014, Szatmary oversaw a staff of more than 250 engaged in development and administration of the UW's evening undergraduate degree completion program; 79 professionally focused master's and doctoral degrees; and UW summer quarter. He had general responsibility more than 120 certificate programs in the areas of biotech/biomedical, building construction, business, computing and information technology, education, engineering, health/social work, law and regulation, and the nonprofit/public sector. In addition, UW Educational Outreach administers international programs, community partnerships, online learning, conferences and workshops, programs for youth and K-12 educators, and English language programs.

Educational entrepreneur

Szatmary has been an innovative educational entrepreneur by creating partnerships with other educational institutions, corporations and international organizations. In 2003, he started R1edu.org, a consortium of 34 Research I universities and AAU institutions that provide online learning opportunities. and He also initiated OpenUW, a series of 12 free, open-source online programs available to the public in partnership with the Learning Network, a Pearson-owned company.
In 2005, Szatmary helped organize Actions, Solutions, Growth: University Partners. ASG is a partnership of a dozen continuing education leaders at large nonprofit and for-profit universities in North America. The group collaborates on a variety of initiatives, including the development of joint educational programs. Current ASG programs include a certificate program in Biotechnology Project Management with the University of Washington and University of California, San Diego and a certificate program in Decision Making for Climate Change jointly created by the University of Washington, University of California, Irvine, the University of British Columbia Continuing Studies Centre for Sustainability and Northwestern University.
Szatmary has forged partnerships between University of Washington Educational Outreach and organizations including the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, and Pearson/Prentice-Hall Publishing. Notable corporate partnerships include the UW-Boeing relationship.
Szatmary has been instrumental in building a partnership with the United Arab Emirates Academy in Abu Dhabi. Since February 2007, University of Washington Educational Outreach has provided professional certificate programs in the IBDAA program for young job seekers. This partnership marks the first time the University of Washington has established a base abroad to teach foreign nationals in their home country.
Szatmary has served as the principal investigator for more than $6 million in grants, allowing UW Educational Outreach to provide online programs in technology and other subject areas. From 2012 to 2014, he worked on a nearly $1 million grant from Educause and the Gates Foundation to develop a low-cost online undergraduate program in the social sciences.
Based upon his experience and accomplishments during the last 25 years, Szatmary has written articles and been asked to comment about different aspects of online learning and types of partnership and collaboration models.
Szatmary became a leader in the development and dissemination of MOOCs, massive open online courses, leading the University of Washington as one of the first institutions to contribute to Coursera and EdX. He has been quoted about the topic in such publications as the New York Times, The Chronicle of Education and Inside Higher Education as well as other publications.
In addition to his work on MOOCs, Szatmary has become well known for his development of effective and efficient budget models in higher education. He developed a blueprint for successful continuing education budgeting and financial management in his article, "Activity-Based Budgeting in Higher Education."