Skip to main content

Rockenbach Wins Distinguished Graduate Professorship Award

New wolf statue on central campus.

Alyssa RockenbachAlyssa Rockenbach, a professor of higher education in the NC State College of Education’s Department of Educational Leadership, Policy, and Human Development, has received an NC State Alumni Association Distinguished Graduate Professorship Award. The award recognizes outstanding teaching by graduate faculty.

“This honor means a great deal to me in large part because it reflects the generative possibilities that come with student-faculty mentoring relationships and collaborations,” said Rockenbach, who has been on the College of Education faculty since 2006. “I share this award with my current and former current graduate students, all of whom have made such important contributions to higher education research and the student affairs profession. I am so proud of their many accomplishments.”

She completed her bachelor’s in psychology at California State University, Long Beach and her master’s and Ph.D. in education at the University of California, Los Angeles. Her research interests include the effects of college environments and experiences on student learning; religious and worldview diversity issues in higher education; intergroup dynamics, cooperation and attitudes; young adult psychosocial development; and equity issues in education and society.

Supported by more than $14.5 million in grants and contracts, her research projects have examined students’ religious and spiritual development during college, the effects of campus diversity climates on student outcomes, and campus equity issues for women and LGBTQ students. She’s also the co-principal investigator of The Interfaith Diversity Experiences and Attitudes Longitudinal Survey (IDEALS), a five-year national study that explores how educational experiences affect college students’ capacity to engage and cooperate with people of diverse worldviews.

Rockenbach is the author or co-author of more than 80 publications, including the 2016 book How College Affects Students: 21st Century Evidence that Higher Education Works.

She and her co-author, Matt Mayhew, will discuss their book during an event — Translating 21st Century to Practice: A Dialogue About How College Affects Students — April 20 from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Friday Institute on NC State’s Centennial Campus.

Rockenbach will formally receive the Alumni Association Distinguished Graduate Professorship Award during a ceremony April 26 at 4 p.m. at the Park Alumni Center. The NC State Alumni Association manages the program, which awards $4,000 for one year to recipients. Funding comes from the sales of NC State license plates.