ACPA names Tricia Shalka an Emerging scholar Designee

Higher ed professor will further her research on trauma in college students

Warner School faculty member Tricia Shalka has been selected as a 2019-21 Emerging Scholar Designee by the American College Personnel Association (ACPA). She is one of a handful of new early-career individuals recognized from across the country who are emerging as contributors to higher education and student affairs scholarship and who are pursuing research initiatives congruent with the mission of ACPA. 

ACPA Emerging Scholar Designees are selected annually by ACPA Senior Scholars and serve a two-year term.

A long-time student affairs practitioner turned faculty member, Shalka has more than a decade of higher education administration experience that has informed her teaching and research practice. In her role as a student affairs professional, Shalka previously worked in the areas of institutional assessment, residential life, fraternity and sorority life, and development and alumni relations.

With her research agenda broadly grounded in student affairs and higher education practice, Shalka will receive a $3,000 research grant from ACPA as part of the honor to help fund her upcoming research on the impacts of trauma experiences on college students. More specifically, she will engage in a phenomenological study of how individuals navigate their lives as college students while recovering from trauma.

“Tricia has important things to say about trauma and students, which is both critical and understudied with a student affairs lens,” says Logan Hazen, a professor in educational leadership and director of the higher education program at Warner. “We need to understand the trauma that students experience and be better prepared to support them in our teaching and practice. Tricia has an exceptional foundation to continue study in this area, and I believe that she can become a significant voice in the field of higher education and student affairs.”

In addition, Shalka will participate in an ACPA-sponsored video presentation of her research and its relevance to student affairs professionals and co-coordinate ACPA convention and/or pre-convention sessions with ACPA Senior Scholars. Upon completing these commitments by 2021, Shalka will be named an ACPA Emerging Scholar.

 “This is an incredible honor to receive this award,” says Shalka. “I am energized by the potential this designation holds to support my work about the experiences of college student survivors of trauma and look forward to the many opportunities I will have to collaborate with members of the ACPA community during my time as an emerging scholar designee.”

Shalka, an assistant professor in the higher education programs, joined the Warner School faculty in 2016. A second strand of her research investigates the internationalization of higher education with a particular emphasis on the experiences of international students in American colleges and universities.

In 2017, Shalka was awarded the Loadman Outstanding Dissertation Award for Higher Education and Student Affairs from the Department of Educational Studies at the Ohio State University, where she completed her PhD in higher education and student affairs in 2016. The award is given annually to a doctoral student who has completed and defended the most outstanding dissertation in his/her academic area during the previous year. In her dissertation, Shalka examined how trauma affects college student identity development.  

In addition to building her research foundation, Shalka has consistently delivered professional development presentations locally and with major professional organizations, such as the National Association of Student Personnel Administrators (NASPA), Association for the Study of Higher Education (ASHE), American Educational Research Association (AERA) and ACPA. Her research has been complimented through her service as an editorial board member and reviewer for multiple journals and organizations.

The Emerging Scholars Program, implemented in 1999, provides promising new faculty and practitioner-scholars with mentoring and support to further develop their research skills and pursue research initiatives congruent with the association’s mission and interests. ACPA is the leading comprehensive student affairs association in higher education that advances student affairs and engages students for a lifetime of learning and discovery. ACPA leads the student affairs profession and higher education community in providing outreach, advocacy, research, and professional development to foster college student learning.