Rate My Professor Tia Andersen

Tia S. Andersen is an Associate Professor holding joint appointments in the Department of Women’s and Gender Studies and the Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice at the University of South Carolina, where she has been on the faculty since 2013. Initially hired as an Assistant Professor in Criminology and Criminal Justice, she was promoted to tenured Associate Professor in 2019 and added her joint appointment in Women’s and Gender Studies in 2025. She also serves as Affiliate Faculty in African American Studies and Research Affiliate with the Research Consortium on Children and Families. Andersen holds a Ph.D. in Criminal Justice with a cognate in Intersectional Approaches to Inequality from Michigan State University (2013), an M.A. in Sociology with a specialization in Criminology from Bowling Green State University (2006), and a B.A. in Sociology with a concentration in Criminal Justice from Oakland University (2004). Her distinguished service and teaching have earned her multiple awards, including the Mary Baskin Waters Service Learning Award (2022), Garnet Apple Award for Teaching Innovation (2021), Peter and Bonnie McCausland Fellowship (2020-2023), Creed Champion Award (2019), Two Thumbs Up Award (2019), and Stand Up Carolina Hero Award (2018).

Andersen’s scholarship focuses on feminist criminology and intersectionality, using qualitative and mixed-methods research to examine how exclusionary school discipline, juvenile justice policies, and structural inequalities affect youth pathways, particularly for those removed to alternative schools. Her studies address the roles of gender, race, trauma, and place in school-to-prison pipelines and the potential of mentoring to foster resilience and positive youth development. Select publications include “Rural-Urban Differences in Bullying Perpetration and Victimization Using a National Sample” (2025, Journal of Rural Mental Health, with E. Crouch and H. Smith), “Being a Mentor in the Digital Era: An Exploratory Study of the Benefits Undergraduate Student Mentors Derived from Providing Virtual Mentoring to Youth” (2023, Journal of Community Psychology, with H. Wellen), “Adverse Childhood Experiences and Positive Childhood Experiences among United States Military Children” (2023, Military Medicine, with E. Crouch and H. Smith), and “Coaching and Doping: A Test of Situational Action Theory” (2023, Journal of Drug Issues, with S. Masoomeh et al.). She has obtained major grants, such as a $403,569 National Science Foundation award (2023-2026) as Principal Investigator for research on mentoring’s disruption of the school-to-prison pipeline. Since 2017, Andersen has founded and directed the Adolescent Mentoring service-learning course (WGST 551/CRJU 551), training and matching over 550 university students with expelled high school youth to promote strengths-based interventions and social justice.