Robert Reason

Outstanding Young Professional Award
By the College of Human Sciences

 

Robert Reason PhD Education 2001

This award was established in 1997 to recognize alumni for remarkable early career achievements.

Robert D. Reason has built an exceptionally strong record of achievement for such a young professional in the field of higher education. After graduating with his Ph.D. in education from Iowa State in 2001, Reason accepted the position of assistant professor and professor in charge of the College Student Affairs Program at The Pennsylvania State University in 2003. When he arrived there, Penn State's student affairs program was moribund and weak. In three years, Dr. Reason not only resuscitated the program, but put it back on the road to national prominence. He facilitated a complete redesign of the program's curriculum, successfully built bridges between the two departments that share the program, quadrupled applications, and helped recruit another exceptional faculty member.

Reason is a member of three editorial boards including the board of the leading research journal in student affairs: The Journal of College Student Development. He has also been a principal investigator on two national research projects studying student learning in the first year of college. For someone who has so recently completed his doctorate degree, he is highly effective in the classroom. When Reason teaches courses at Penn State, he encourages students to challenge themselves and think critically; he has helped to infuse this expectation into the entire curriculum by adding a two-year long reflective portfolio and journal assignment. Reason's colleagues describe his work as "very high quality well beyond that of most new Ph.D.s."