Tara Hudson, Ph.D.

Dr. Tara D. Hudson joined the Higher Education Administration program at Kent State University in fall 2017 as an assistant professor. Dr. Hudson came to Kent State from the University of Notre Dame, where she was a postdoctoral research associate at the Center for Social Concerns. She received her Ph.D. in Educational Research and Policy Analysis with a concentration in higher education from North Carolina State University. She also holds a M.Ed. in Higher Education Administration from North Carolina State University and a B.A. in Studies in Women and Gender from the University of Virginia. She has worked in higher education since 2002 in both researcher and practitioner roles, including five years of experience as an academic advisor.

Dr. Hudson’s dissertation research, which received the 2015 Bobby Wright Dissertation of the Year award from the Association for the Study of Higher Education (ASHE), examined how college students develop and sustain interracial friendships, with the aim of informing educational practice to better support students’ achievement of the critical learning and development outcomes that result from diverse peer interactions and relationships. Her research focuses on two broad areas: (1) college students’ prosocial development, particularly resulting from community engagement and interactional diversity; and (2) the experiences of underrepresented and marginalized populations along their educational and career trajectories. Uniting these two areas is her desire to inform educational practice that advances higher education’s role in promoting social justice and equity within U.S. society. In researching these topics, she employs both qualitative and quantitative methods, and she has particular expertise in grounded theory. Dr. Hudson’s research has been published in the Journal of Higher Education, Review of Higher Education, and Journal of College and Character.