She earned a B.S. in Communication from Ohio University, an M.A. in English from Tennessee State University, and a Ph.D. in American Studies from the University of Kansas. Zanice is also a graduate of Gupton School of Mortuary Science and is a licensed funeral director and embalmer in the state of Tennessee. Her dissertation Race, Place, and Family: The Civil Rights Movement in Brownsville, Tennessee, and the Nation was nominated for four dissertation awards and included an original poem “biography of a new south.”