Candace N. Hall (she/her) found her passion for higher education through her involvement in numerous extracurricular activities as a student the University of Missouri-St. Louis. There, she was the president of the Association of Black Journalists, chair of the Black Leadership Organizing Council, secretary of Student Government Association, and a student senator for the Student Senate. She also served as a resident assistant for the Office of Residential Life and as a student tour guide for the Welcome Center during her tenure at the institution. In May 2010, she graduated with her BA in English from the College of Arts & Sciences.
Following graduation, Hall became the graduate assistant for the University Center at Webster University where she oversaw the Office of Campus Activities. She led a team of student program coordinators to plan and execute campus programs for the student body. Hall served on the Student Affairs Leadership Development Steering Committee and the Association of College Unions International Regional Conference Program Committee. She earned her master of arts in Communication Arts through the School of Education in 2012. In the same year, she was also presented with the "Putting Students First" Award from Webster University.
After graduate school, Hall paused her career to focus on her growing family. She and her partner, Dorian, are the parents of three beautiful children—Edwyn, Bailey, and Avery. During her absence from higher education, she coordinated weddings and special events.
Candace returned to her alma mater, the University of Missouri-St. Louis as an administrator in the Welcome Center where she worked to recruit prospective students and their families. She served on the Student Affairs Leadership Summit Planning Committee; and advisor for the student organization, To Write Love on Her Arms, an organization dedicated to bringing awareness to suicide, depression, and anxiety among college students.
In December 2015, Hall transitioned to Washington University in St. Louis as the program coordinator for the Center on Urban Research & Public Policy (CURPP) and the Interdisciplinary Program in Urban Studies. In 2016, Hall joined the Department of Sociology to help develop the academic program and department infrastructure for the newly revived department. As the academic program coordinator, Hall proved her ability to balance multiple projects simultaneously and meticulously. She advised undergraduate majors and minors; supported faculty and postdoctoral fellows; managed tenure and promotion cases; coordinated departmental events; and created recruitment strategies and assisted with the program development of the department’s new PhD program. She also advised the student organization Alpha Kappa Delta—Beta Chapter at Washington University in St. Louis. Among other things, Hall worked hard to create a sense of community in the Department of Sociology.
She is a scholar-practitioner committed to understanding how increased support impacts faculty's research productivity, development of innovative teaching strategies, and faculty-student engagement within and outside the classroom. Her research interests include the recruitment, retention, and support of faculty at research-intensive institutions. Her dissertation research explored contributing factors to job satisfaction for pre-tenured racially underrepresented faculty at predominantly white research institutions to inform future recruitment and retention strategies.
Hall is an assistant professor in the Department of Educational Leadership at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville (SIUE) and director for the Higher Education Student Affairs graduate program.