From hosting the first R&B radio show in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, to establishing her own consulting business, Shaashawn S. Dial has undergone several career changes. However, higher education was an area that she always returned to.
Upon graduating with her master’s degree from Shippensburg University in Pennsylvania, her first experience working in higher education was as an adult basic education coordinator at Harrisburg Area Community College. She taught subjects for the GED test as well as supervised other teachers.
After feeling burned out, Dial shifted to radio. She became the program director of Harrisburg’s WTCY1400 AM “THE TOUCH” as well as created and hosted “The Shaashawn Dial Show: A Dial Movement,” which was broadcast during the week.
“[My physical voice] was something people have complimented me on my whole life,” says Dial. “They’ve either said you should sing or do radio and you don’t want to hear me sing.”
After five years, the radio station downsized and Dial returned to higher education full time as an adjunct professor at Central Pennsylvania College. Over an almost five-year span, the job turned into a peer mentoring position and she eventually became director of advising.
“That’s definitely where I knew I loved higher [education] and would always love for it to be part of my portfolio,” she says.
