Student Success Champion Profile - Donna Bobbitt-Zeher, Ph.D.

Donna Bobbitt-Zeher was the first in her family to complete college. Now as an associate professor and Assistant Dean at the Marion campus of Ohio State, every year Donna helps ensure that hundreds of students are successful in navigating college for the first time.

When she began college at Virginia Tech, Donna thought she would be a middle school Spanish teacher. She enrolled in a sociology course just to fulfill a general education requirement, and discovered she loved learning about and exploring the culture and structure of the social groups that shape people’s lives. As she continued through graduate school, she did hands-on work in preventing domestic violence and improving women’s healthcare. “I got a good understanding of not just the theoretical, but also the practical knowledge of how to make change around inequality, which are the topics that I research today.” After completing her Ph.D. in Sociology at Ohio State, she began a faculty position at the Marion campus, and eventually moved into an administrative role that allows her to support and nurture the growth of both students and faculty.

“I really enjoy helping students to think with sociological imagination to see the world in a more complex way.”

Donna’s passion for teaching and research revolves around the concept of “the sociological imagination,” or how people understand their personal experiences in the context of larger social structures and influences. She says that when teaching general education courses such as Social Inequality and Sociology of Poverty, “I really enjoy helping students to think with the sociological imagination to see the world in a more complex way.” She also emphasizes how students have agency, and how their choices can in turn shape the world around us.

As a teacher at the Marion campus, Donna works with students from a wide variety of backgrounds, from 18-year-olds who are first in their family to attend college, to older adults returning to school after taking a 20-year break. In her classes, Donna implements multiple touchpoints to identify students who may need additional support, and to intervene early to help them get back on track. She enjoys being a part of their journey, giving advice when they have questions or challenges, and working alongside them as a learning partner.

“Meeting a student in the door, getting to know them over time and watching their personal and academic growth, and seeing their development of confidence of their skills, is all so wonderful.”

As a researcher, Donna focuses on gender and inequality, including areas such as gender gaps in education and the labor market, domestic violence, and sibling relationships. Most famously, her work on sibling dynamics was used on the TV show Who Wants to Be a Millionaire, which asked contestants a question based on Donna’s research findings on the connection between a person’s number of siblings and likelihood of divorce. She loves mentoring students in their own research, guiding them through thesis development and into graduate school, watching their confidence and skills grow along the way. “Meeting a student in the door, getting to know them over time and watching their personal and academic growth, and seeing their development of confidence of their skills, is all so wonderful.”

As an administrator, Donna coordinates the implementation of the General Education curriculum on the Marion campus. In that role, she strives to be forward-thinking and to constantly seek out continuous improvement. She is also excited to help new faculty develop their teaching by implementing innovative practices in the classroom that engage students in their own learning. Donna is particularly proud of how the faculty and students at Marion pulled together and adapted quickly to the challenges of COVID, navigating new techniques for teaching, learning, and interpersonal connection. “We managed that, and we didn't lose anybody. And students got through that, and I got through that,” she says. “We pulled it off.”

To students, she says, “We all have fears and imperfections. Find the strategies that work for you to allow you to shine in spite of your fears. If you need to ask for help to do that, please ask for it.”