Dr. Pietro A. Sasso is an author, researcher, and professor of higher education. His research centers the voices of college students and is the senior curator of several text series. He is also generally very vocal across social media and made numerous public discourse contributions within the media including the Chronicle of Higher Education, Inside Higher Ed, Washington Post, and Diverse: Issues in Higher Education.
Dr. Pietro A. Sasso has over twenty years of professional and teaching experience in postsecondary education. As an administrator, his experience is exceptionally diverse, spanning several educational administrative functional areas. In each of these functional areas, Pietro has been provided with increasing levels of responsibility which demands various levels of leadership. He has provided significant culture change and improvements to each of his areas of accountability. He is also a research-scholar with significant experiences as an educator and academic advisor to both undergraduate and graduate students. His research interests include the college experience (student involvement, multiraciality, masculinity), student success (academic advising, student persistence), and educational equity across co-curricular spaces.
Pietro has written and co-edited 11 books, authored approximately 90 scholarly publications, and facilitated over 130 conference presentations. He serves as a reviewer for more than 7 journals including the Journal of Student Affairs Research & Practice and Journal of College Student Development as well as serves as senior co-editor for the text series Identity & Practice in Higher Education-Student Affairs by Information Age Publishing.
He is the recipient of several awards including the AFA Dr. Charles Eberly Research Award, ACPA Men and Masculinities Emerging Scholar-In-Residence (2017-2018), TACUSPA Faculty Member of the Year (2022), and Delaware State University Faculty Excellence in Research (2024). He is currently a research fellow at the Piazza Center for Fraternity & Sorority Research.
Dr. Sasso uses his positionality to engage in humanistic research and teaching to help center the voices of college students for the next generation of reflective and critical higher education/student affairs professionals to further disrupt systems of oppression, power, and privilege that perpetuate educational inequity and racial injustice.
Personal Mission Statement
Education
Ph.D.
Education-Higher Education
Cognates in Adult Education, Student Affairs Administration, Qualitative Research
Dissertation: An Examination of Alcohol Expectations and Social Desirability in Fraternity Members on American College Campuses.
Advisor: Dr. Joseph DeVitis, Professor of Foundations of Education
Dissertation Chair: Dr. Alan “Woody” Schwizter, Professor of Counseling & Higher Education
M.S.
Higher Education-Student Affairs
Cognate in College Counseling
Thesis: From Administrator to Educator: Facilitating Student Learning in Greek Affairs Practice
Advisor: Dr. Andrew Wall, Professor of Higher Education
Thesis Advisor: Dr. Logan Hazen, Professor of Higher Education
B.A.
Major in Psychology
Minor(s)in Leadership & Political Science
Senior Capstone: Alcohol Misuse in Undergraduate Fraternity Members on College Campuses
Professional Experiences
Academic Advising
Responsible for academic advising of traditional undergraduate and transfer exploratory/undeclared students and supported intrusive advising for educational recovery programs. Facilitated academic success and freshman seminar courses.
Academic Affairs
Served as program director for four graduate higher education/student affairs programs for ten years. Served as founding faculty member for three programs. Hired five new faculty, coordinated admissions, graduate assistantships, and internships, curriculum management, and course cycle.
Student Involvement & First-Year Experience
Responsible for leadership programming, involvement resource center, advised fraternity/sorority councils including NPHC and IFC, and Supported the enrollment of traditional transfer and undergraduate students through coordination of the summer transition programs (bridge, orientation, week of welcome).
Residence Life
Supervised 8 resident assistants as Hall Director and facilitated adjudication of student conduct cases for a residential population of 500 students as well as fraternity/sorority housing.