Work to Support Women in Higher Education Garners Scholar a National Award - April 22, 2008

Dr. Patricia Somers, an associate professor in the College of Education’s Department of Educational Administration, has been awarded the American College Personnel Association’s (ACPA) Research and Scholarship Award. The award was given by the ACPA’s Standing Committee for Women.

The ACPA is a national association that advances university student affairs and leads the higher education community in providing outreach, advocacy, research and professional development to facilitate student learning. The Standing Committee for Women is part of the ACPA and has as its goal the empowerment, support and advocacy of women in higher education.

The Research and Scholarship Award honors female ACPA member whose research and scholarship contribute to the professional and personal development of women in higher education. The scholar’s work may include publications, research, curriculum development and program development.   

Somers is a nationally-recognized – and internationally-covered – scholar on the impact of 9/11 on college students and the phenomenon of “helicopter parents.” She has studied the factors that influence college student persistence, effects of financial aid on students’ enrollment decisions, women in education, higher education law and international education.

In 1997, Somers received an Emerging Scholar Award from the American Association of University Women, and she is Vice President for Research and Publications of the Council for the Study of Community Colleges, as well as First Vice President of the Texas Conference of the American Association of University Professors.

Somers has been a Fulbright Fellow in Germany and Thailand, a Malone Fellow and a King Fahd Center Fellow in the Middle East and also has done international field work in linguistics. She was one of 35 international scholars selected for the Fulbright New Century Scholars Program last year, and as a New Century Scholar, Somers traveled to Brazil to study issues of access and equity in that country’s higher education system.

In addition to teaching graduate courses in the Department of Educational Administration, she is coordinator of higher education graduate programs in the department and a Fellow in the College of Education’s Community College Leadership.

—Kay Randall, University Communications, 512-232-3910