Walters, Amanda Derringer2026-02-062026-02-062026-02-05vt_gsexam:45577https://hdl.handle.net/10919/141179A majority of students entering college have experienced at least one potentially traumatizing event, and up to half of college students experience trauma during their time in college. Trauma can impact a student's engagement, behavior, and cognitive functioning, affecting their learning and memory. Trauma-informed pedagogy is a pedagogical approach rooted in SAMHSA's trauma-informed framework wherein instructors can support the resilience and academic success of all students, particularly those who have experienced trauma. While trauma-informed pedagogy is an emerging field, and research ties trauma-informed pedagogical principles to positive student learning outcomes, few studies have investigated what trauma-informed pedagogical practices are currently being implemented at the college level. This quantitative study investigated three questions: (1) What trauma-informed syllabus components do higher education instructors include in their syllabi? (2) What differences exist in the inclusion of trauma-informed syllabus components across content area domains? (3) What differences exist in the inclusion of trauma-informed syllabus components across academic levels? A sample of 1,000 syllabi across 86 institutions were evaluated for the inclusion of 16 trauma-informed syllabus components. Findings reveal that while some trauma-informed practices are being widely implemented in college syllabi (up to 92% of syllabi), others remain less common (0.5% of syllabi). Significant differences were found across content areas in some components, while academic levels demonstrated generally similar adoption rates. These results illustrate the current landscape of trauma-informed pedagogical adoption across college classrooms.ETDenCreative Commons Attribution 4.0 Internationaltrauma-informed pedagogycollege syllabihigher educationsyllabus componentscontent area domainsacademic levelsDissertation