Department of Counseling, Family Therapy and Higher Education

Dr. Chauntee Thrill (she/her/hers) is an assistant professor of higher education within the Reich College of Education at Appalachian State University and research affiliate at the Office of Community College Research and Leadership (OCCRL) at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Dr. Thrill’s research interests were birthed from the experiences, inputs, and professional appointments absorbed from her higher education tenure, life, and community in general. Broadly, Dr. Thrill’s research has focused on understanding postsecondary educational access, STEM, college readiness and academic success for minority student populations in community colleges. Her work highlights student experiences, providing researchers and practitioners the opportunity to interrogate data from and derive strategies to enhance support, best practices, and aligned college policies to bolster student success in the community college setting. Her research has been presented at several regional and national conferences and her efforts have contributed to several publications.

She is a member of Association for the Study of Higher Education (ASHE) and Council for the Study of Community Colleges (CSCC), and she currently serves as the editor in chief of the Journal of Developmental Education. 

Dr. Thrill earned her Ph.D. in education policy, organization, and leadership from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She holds a Master of Education in higher education Leadership from Mercer University, a M.B.A. from University of Maryland University College, a B.S. in business administration from Clayton State University, and an A.S. in business administration from Georgia Perimeter College. Prior to joining the faculty at App State, she was a research associate at Spelman College and worked in enrollment management at various academic institutions.

Connect with Dr. Thrill on LinkedIn.

Selected Presentations

• Thrill, C.R., Lynch, R.J., & Carpenter, A. (2022). Humanizing graduate orientation: Exploring impacts of a virtual orientation on graduate school perception of preparation. Presented at the Association for the Study of Higher Education Annual Conference (ASHE), Las Vegas, NV.
• Thrill, C., & Lynch, J.R. (2022). An exploration of trauma, resilience, and well-being in community college students. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Council for the Study of Community Colleges, Tempe, AZ.
• James-Galloway, C., Perez, M., Thrill, C., & Velez, A. (2021). Navigating community college and further education. Pre-conference session presented at the annual meeting of the Council for the Study of Community Colleges, Virtual.

Selected Publications

• Thrill, C. R. The power of personal narrative. (In Press, 2023). In A Practical Guide to Developing Culturally Responsive Learning Environments in Postsecondary Education. (C. Rush, & J. Lynch (Eds)). Information Age Publishing
• Burn, H., Thrill, C., Mesa, V., Zamani-Gallaher, E., & Wood, J.L. Promoting racial equity in the STEM math pathway in community colleges. (In Press, 2023). In Voigt, M., Hagman, J. E., Gehrtz, J., Ratliff, B., Alexander, N. & Levy, R. (Eds.). Justice through the lens of calculus: Framing new possibilities for diversity, equity, and inclusion. Mathematical Association of America.
• Burn, H., Thrill, C., Wood, J.L., Mesa, V., & Zamani-Gallaher, E. (2023). Content validation of Transitioning Learners to Calculus in Community Colleges Institutional Self-Assessment Tool. Community College Journal of Research and Practice
• Winfield, L.L., Sanders, S., & Thrill, C. (2020). Reflecting on teaching presence while transitioning to remote instruction. Science Education and Civic Engagement, 11(2). http://new.seceij.net/articletype/teaching-and-learning/special-section-teaching-through-covid-19/
• Burn, H., Thrill, C., Mesa, V., Zamani-Gallaher, E., & Wood, J.L. (2020). Mathematics placement, courses, and use of local data in the STEM math pathways in predominately Black institutions. MathAMATYC Educator, 11(3), pp. 4-11.

Click here for Dr. Thrill's CV.