Cultivating Trauma-Informed Practice in Student Affairs

Winner of the NASPA 2025 Faculty Council Outstanding Publication Award

Offering a multi-tiered approach to supporting college students who have experienced trauma, this book considers how trauma manifests for post-secondary college students and how colleges and universities can implement trauma-informed practice in student affairs.

Author Tricia R. Shalka offers knowledge about trauma and its trajectories to help ground trauma-informed practice, before translating this knowledge into specific strategies that span a spectrum of individual and systems-level efforts in colleges and universities. The story of college student trauma is presented through several different lenses, including discussions around the research literature, what the author’s research participants offer, and the author’s own personal experience with trauma. Drawing on these diverse perspectives, Shalka initiates a journey of reflection and (re)connection that will ultimately inform an understanding of the challenges college student trauma survivors encounter and what it means to embrace trauma-informed approaches in student affairs supportive of student success and well-being-centric organizations.

Written in an approachable and conversational style, this book introduces new concepts to consider when working toward building a trauma-informed practice in student affairs and as such will assist student affairs practitioners, university administrators, and college-level educators in supporting students.

Tricia R. Shalka is an associate professor of higher education at the University of Rochester’s Warner School of Education & Human Development, USA.