At SU, Matthew Found a Path that Connected His Classroom to His Calling

SALISBURY, MD---When Dr. Matthew Sroka M’16, Ed.D’21 finished his master’s degree at Salisbury University, he realized something surprising: He wasn’t ready for it to end.

The program had challenged him, encouraged him, and connected him with a community that felt genuinely invested in who he was becoming.

“I had such a positive experience that I didn’t want to leave,” Matt said.

Not wanting to leave turned out to be the clearest sign of where he needed to go next. The same mix of enriching academics and genuine community that shaped his graduate work ultimately inspired him to take the next step: pursuing his Ed.D. at SU.

SU’s Ed.D. program expanded Matt’s world in ways he couldn’t have imagined when he first stepped onto campus. It opened doors to higher education, research and publishing, and opportunities to pursue his passion for literacy education—work that felt not just professional to him, but personal.

“Earning my Ed.D. at SU shaped both my career trajectory and my identity as a scholar practitioner,” Matt said. “It positioned me to move into higher education, conduct and publish research, and work with preservice and practicing teachers.”

Throughout the program, he found constant opportunities to connect theory to practice, weaving together his experiences as a classroom teacher with the coursework he was exploring. Those connections helped him grow not just in skill, but in purpose.

One of the defining moments of his journey was a pilot research project exploring how the personal reading habits of secondary English teachers shape their identities and inform their instructional practices. The project both prepared him for his dissertation while also standing on its own as meaningful scholarship that influenced his career. Now assistant professor of literacy education at Mercer University, his research focuses on teachers’ reading lives and reading identities.

Matt’s experience at SU gave him the confidence to see himself as a researcher while still staying grounded in what first inspired him: the classroom.

Along the way, he built relationships that have continued into both his career and his personal life. He had positive relationships with every faculty member he worked with, but one stands out: Dr. Judith Franzak.

They first met when Matt was exploring the program—talking, as he remembers with a smile, about the role of Shakespeare in secondary classrooms. She later became his professor, then his dissertation chair, then his co-author. The relationship didn’t end at graduation. Her support continues to shape his life today.

“Somewhere along this path, she became a dear friend and invaluable mentor,” Matt said.

Looking back, Matt sees his time at SU as transformational, an experience that allowed him to grow, challenge himself, imagine the possibilities, and ultimately to step into the future he wanted for himself.

He wasn’t ready for his journey to end. It turns out it was only just beginning.