Britt Andreatta, Ph.D., is currently Assistant Dean of Students and a faculty member for the departments of sociology and education at the University of California, Santa Barbara. She directs First-Year Programs & Leadership Education. Her duties include coordinating and teaching UCSB's university success course, coordinating programming and mentoring efforts for freshmen and transfer students, coordinating programming for parents of freshmen during summer orientation, coordinating UCSB's various leadership programs, and teaching "University and Society" as well as "Introduction to Leadership." She provides training on the nature of the first-year experience (for both freshmen and transfer students) to students, staff, and faculty at both UCSB and other institutions.


Dr. Andreatta has an M.A. in Communication, and a Ph.D. in Education. Her dissertation, entitled “The Effects of Social and Academic Integration on the Retention of First Year University Students: A Quantitative and Qualitative Study,” earned second place in the Hardee Dissertation of the Year Award. In 1999, she received UCSB’s prestigious Getman Service to Students Award. In 2003, Dr. Andreatta won the award for Outstanding Experienced Professional by the American College Personnel Association (ACPA). Recently, students on her campus awarded her the 2004 Mortar Board Professor of the Year Award. She was a semi-finalist for the 2005 Outstanding First-Year Advocate by the National Resource for the First-Year Experience and Students in Transition. She has also published an Instructor’s Manual for the Freshman Year Experience, which is used in conjunction with If Life is a Game, These Are the Rules by Dr. Cherie Carter-Scott at over 100 colleges and universities in the United States.