University of Dayton Professor of Psychology Roger Reeb was selected unanimously for the Distinguished Career Award from the International Association for Research on Service-Learning and Community Engagement, the field’s top international honor for a lifetime body of scholarship.
The award recognized Reeb’s “broad and deep impact on the study and practice of service-learning and community engagement,” according to the association.
Reeb is a licensed clinical psychologist and an expert on the application of behavioral activation and other therapeutic strategies for vulnerable populations. For more than a decade, he has worked with local unhoused people to provide experiences that can improve mood and thoughts and help them to recognize and pursue future opportunities.
His scholarship includes more than 50 publications and 120 conference presentations. Reeb co-wrote the books Service-Learning in Psychology: Enhancing Undergraduate Education for the Public Good and Community Action Research: Benefits to Community Members and Service Providers. He developed the Community Service Self-Efficacy Scale, widely used in research to measure someone’s confidence in their ability to contribute to the community through service.
"Roger embodies what we hope every faculty member can be for our students — a scholar whose research changes lives in the community and a teacher who brings undergraduates directly into that work," said Danielle Poe, dean of UD's College of Arts and Sciences. "His work has shaped how the field of service-learning is studied and practiced internationally, and this honor reflects the global reach of a career built right here at UD."
At UD, Reeb previously served as director of graduate programs in psychology and as the Roesch Endowed Chair in the Social Sciences. In addition, he has served as a faculty research fellow with UD’s Human Rights Center and as a faculty affiliate with UD’s Hanley Sustainability Institute. He currently serves as an associate editor for the Journal of Prevention & Intervention in the Community for which he has served as guest editor for special issues on community-based research on homelessness, positive psychology concepts in community psychology, and advocacy in service-learning pedagogy.
The recent honor adds to a long list of distinctions. Reeb was inducted in 2021 into the Academy of Community Engagement Scholarship, whose mission is to provide expertise to policymakers, higher education institutions, community leaders and national and international entities working to address complex societal issues through engagement between higher education and communities.
From the American Psychological Association, he received the Springer Award for Excellence in Research in Rehabilitation Psychology and the APA Dissertation Award, and he is a Fellow of the Midwestern Psychological Association.
Reeb has received numerous awards at the University of Dayton, including the Faculty Alumni Award in Teaching; Outstanding Faculty Service-Learning Award; and Service-Learning Faculty Research Award.
Due to Reeb’s contributions in the local community, the Homeless Solutions Policy Board of Montgomery County selected him for the 2022 Inaugural Homeless Solutionary Award, which recognizes someone “motivated by compassion and social justice to use creativity, critical thinking and collaboration to end homelessness, its root causes and interconnected problems.”
For about 20 years, he has served on the board for the National Alliance on Mental Illness in Montgomery County, Ohio.