Texas, where she attended public schools and later Rice University, from which she received a BA (1966), MA, (1968), and PhD (1970). She has one younger sibling, John Douglas Pearson. She is married to David R. Merkowitz, a political and public affairs consultant, and has two step-children, Jeffrey Merkowitz, who works at the U.S. Department of the Treasury, and Stephen Merkowitz, a gravitational physicist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, and a daughter, Shanna Pearson-Merkowitz, a political science professor at the University of Rhode Island, as well as six grandchildren. Pearson began her study of archetypal theory and narrative intelligence in the English Department at Rice University, which emphasized the myth/symbol school of literary studies. Later in her career, she earned a Doctor of Ministry degree from Wisdom University (2012), a graduate school originally called the University of Creation Spirituality and now part of Ubiquity University, that explores the progressive mystic traditions in religions throughout the world. She also holds an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree from Norwich University. Academic career Pearson's academic career began with a series of faculty positions in the 1970s. First hired as an assistant professor in the English Department at the University of Colorado, she was selected as the founding director of the CU Women Studies Program and was instrumental in developing Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies, one of the earliest academic journals in the field. She subsequently was recruited to be the first director of the Women’s Studies Program at the University of Maryland, College Park, where she negotiated to bring the offices of the National Women's Studies Association and the journal Feminist Studies to the campus. During her tenure at UMD, Pearson was selected to be a fellow in the American Council on Education Fellows Program, the nation's premier higher education leadership development program. She spent her fellowship year at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, working with the chancellor of the university and other senior administrators. Upon returning to UMD, she accepted an invitation to spend part of her time as a visiting scholar at the American Council on Education’s Center for Leadership Development. She also worked with ACE's Office of Women in Higher Education to develop “The New Agenda of Women for Higher Education.” As Pearson moved into leadership positions, she began to explore leadership studies scholarship. She worked at two women's colleges, serving first as vice president