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Dean Bridget Trogden

Portrait of Bridget Trogden wearing red shirt and blue jacket

Dr. Bridget Trogden is the Dean for Undergraduate Education & Academic Student Services, with a position as Professor in the School of Education. Dean Trogden has been a principal investigator (PI) or co-PI on multiple grant-funded initiatives to improve undergraduate education, particularly for general education curricula, STEM educational excellence, and improving equitable degree pipelines in US higher ed. Shewrites on undergraduate education topics ranging from liberal arts education to professional skill learning outcomes to faculty development and is a frequent speaker and consultant on pedagogical design.

Dean Trogden received her Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of Illinois, where her research focused on studying the estrogen receptor and its roles in breast cancer, hormone replacement therapy, and osteoporosis. She also earned a bachelor’s degree in chemistry with a minor in music performance from Transylvania University in Kentucky.

She previously worked at Mercer University in Georgia as a professor, first-year seminar director, and engaged learning QEP director and at Clemson University in South Carolina as an associate dean in undergraduate education and professor in the department of engineering and science education. She was a Georgia Governor's Teaching Fellow in 2013, received the 2021 Standout faculty Award from the ALL IN Campus Democracy Challenge for her work in improving the faculty role in nonpartisan voter engagement, and was honored with the2023 Order of the Tiger Award from Clemson’s Undergraduate Student Senate for her dedication to the institutional values of honesty, integrity and respect.

Selected Grants Funded

  • Mellon Foundation. Civic Education and Voting Rights Teacher Scholars. 2023-2026. ($500,000).

  • Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI). IMPACT STEM Transfer. 2021-2028. ($8.5 million collaboration grant across 15 institutions and their 2-year college partners, direct award $486,000).

  • U.S. Army Corp of Engineers (USACE). Resilience Building in the Savannah River Watershed. 2022-2027. ($10.6 million). Trogden role: Co-PI for education.

  • South Carolina Humanities, subgrantee of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. “Picturing Democracy” Webinar Series. 2022. ($18,000).

  • The Teagle Foundation/National Endowment for the Humanities. Creating a Transformative Texts Humanities Seminar Track in General Education/Crossings. 2022-2025. ($300,000). Trogden role: PI.

  • U.S. Department of Agriculture. Enriching the Preparation of Food Science Students. 2019-2024. ($489,000).

  • U.S. Department of Education. GEAR UP for College, Bibb County (Georgia) School District. 2011-2018. ($2.87 million).

Selected Publications:
(* denotes undergraduate student co-author, ** denotes graduate student co-author)

  • **Boyd, Evelyn A.; Olsen, Taimi; Trogden, Bridget G. “When the Sum is Greater than the Parts: Using a Curriculum Revision to Enable Improvements in Undergraduate Traditional Instruction.” In Quality Learning in Higher Education Today: Integrity of the Traditional System, Tara A. Rose and Leah Parsons Simpson, eds. New Directions for Teaching and Learning, June 2023.

  • Harris, Crystal; Jorgensen, Connie; Lovett, Laura; Oakomolafe, Soji; Thomas, Nancy; Trogden, Bridget. "Five Things You Should Know About Connecting Democracy and the Curriculum." Faculty Focus. May 2023.

  • Trogden, Bridget G.; Walker-Donnelly, Kristin. “Enough with the ‘Soft Skills,’ Already! Let’s Embrace the ‘And.’ The ACAD Leader, April 2023. .

  • Radford, Kate; Trogden, Bridget G. "Better Together: Partnering Student Affairs and Academic Affairs in Advancing Nonpartisan College Student Voter Engagement Efforts." Forbes, Civic Nation. June 28, 2022. .

  • Trogden, Bridget G.; **Kennedy, Cazembe; **Biyani, Nathan K. "Mapping and Making Meaning from Undergraduate Student Engagement in High-Impact Educational Practices." Innovative Higher Education. June 2022. 47(3). .

  • Trogden, Bridget G.; Murphy, Christopher G. "All Science Are Science Students." Liberal Education. Fall 2021. 107(4). pp. 5-6. .

  • Trogden, Bridget G. “Using Your Sphere of Influence to Impact Culturally Responsive Assessment.” Urbana, IL: University of Illinois and Indiana University, National Institute for Learning Outcomes Assessment (NILOA). 2021. .

  • Anderson, Kyle David; Jackson, Moryah; Trogden, Bridget G. “Looking Back, Moving Forward. Intercultural Communication Must Be Part of All Learning.” Liberal Education. Winter 2021. 107(1). pp. 32-39. .

  • Trogden, Bridget G. "Making the Case: The Role of Faculty in Student Voter Engagement." Forbes, CivicNation, Oct 8, 2020. .

  • Trogden, Bridget G. “The Role of Faculty in Student Democratic and Voter Engagement.” AACU Liberal Education Blog, Oct 9, 2020. .

  • Trogden, Bridget G.; Mazer, Joseph P. “From Cornerstone to Capstone: Perspectives on Improving Student Communication Skills through Intentional Curricular Alignment.” In R. Singiser, G. Crawford, K. Kloepper, J. Meyers (Eds.), Communication in Chemistry. ACS Symposium Series. 2019. DOI:

  • Trogden, Bridget G.; Royal, Jennifer Ellis. “Using Exam Wrappers in Chemistry and Mathematics Coursework to Encourage Student Metacognition.” Journal on Excellence in College Teaching. 2019, 30(3). .

  • **Stephan, Abigail T.; Whisler, Laurel; Stephan, Elizabeth Anne; Trogden, Bridget G. “Using Exam Wrappers in a Self-Directed First-Year Learning Strategies Course.” Proceedings of the American Society for Engineering Education, Orlando, FL. 2019. .

  • Trogden, Bridget G.; Gratz, Amy E.; Timms, Geoffrey P. "Learning through Two Lenses: An Analysis of Chemistry Students’ Information Literacy Skills.” In Integrating Information Literacy Into the Chemistry Curriculum. ACS Symposium Series. 2016. DOI:

  • Trogden, Bridget G. “Reclaiming face time: How an organic chemistry flipped classroom provided access to increased guided engagement.” J. Chem. Educ., 2015, 92(9). and ConfChem. May/June 2014. DOI:

  • Trogden, Bridget G. “The view from a flipped classroom: Improved student success and subject mastery in organic chemistry.” in Implementation and Critical Assessment of the Flipped Classroom Experience. IGI Global, Hershey, PA. 2014.

  • *Corcoran, K. Blake; Rood, Brian E.; Trogden, Bridget G. “Chemical remediation of nickel (II) waste: A green chemistry laboratory experiment for general chemistry students.” J. Chem. Educ. 2011, 88, 192. (Note: This experiment is also utilized in The Official ACT Prep Guide 2016-2017. Wiley, San Francisco, CA. 2016.)

For the Media

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