Keynote Speaker

Dr. Heather D. Shea (she/her) is committed to enacting socially just and feminist student affairs praxis through fostering opportunities for student learning and development through co-curricular experiences on campus. Shea currently serves as President of ACPA College Student Educators International. Her presidency of the association (2023-2024) will coincide with ACPA’s 100th anniversary. A member for over two decades, Heather has served on convention planning teams, chaired a commission, and co-founded a network. Before being elected President, Heather co-chaired the NextGen Institute. In 2012, she was honored as a Diamond Honoree by the ACPA Foundation.

Shea currently resides on the ancestral, traditional, and contemporary Lands of the Anishinaabeg – Three Fires Confederacy of Ojibwe, Odawa, and Potawatomi peopleswhere she works as the inaugural director of the office of Women*s Student Services: Advancing Women + Gender Equity at Michigan State University. In addition, Heather is a consulting faculty member with the Center for Gender in the Global Context (or GenCen), affiliate faculty in the Student Affairs Administration program (also at Michigan State University), and co-founder and host of the podcast Student Affairs Now.

A divorced mother of two teenagers, Heather is a transplant to the Midwest. She grew up in Colorado, completed her undergraduate and master’s degrees at Colorado State University, and worked professionally at the University of Arizona and at the University of Idaho until 2013 when she and her family moved to mid-Michigan so that Heather could pursue her doctorate. Shea completed her Ph.D. in Higher, Adult, and Lifelong Education in the MSU College of Education where her dissertation research focused on the meaning-making and reflection of former students whose time in college involved engagement in sexual violence prevention initiatives through the creative arts.  In 2020 her dissertation received the Burns B. Crookston Doctoral Research Award from the ACPA Commission for Faculty and Graduate Programs. In her free time, Heather enjoys running, gardening, and painting pet portraits.