Dear HESA UConn Alumni,

Greetings from Storrs! I hope this newsletter finds you well. While we continue to confront challenges in our society, on our campuses, and in our profession, I hope you are able to center your needs and those of your loved ones in everything that you do.

Let me transition to some exciting program updates. In true UConn HESA fashion, there has been much going on in our vibrant learning community in recent months. This semester we greeted our first-year and continuing cohorts to campus for our welcome events in late August. This semester we have nearly 30 students who are enrolled in our courses.

We are in the second year of our pilot admissions process, and I am delighted to report that it is going well. We continue to offer a rich number and type of Assistantships throughout our campus. In fact, this past year we welcomed some new HESA-Affiliated Graduate Assistantships in the Center for Academic Programs (CAP)/Student Support Services (SSS) and Academic Center for Exploratory Students (ACES) to our learning community. Additionally, we have begun to admit students who are able to enroll part-time in our program, all of them full-time HESA professionals. Given our program’s emphasis on equity, we are excited to welcome this new group of students into our program. The combination of students who hold a Graduate Assistantship and Practicum and others who have full-time employment allows us to continue to our work to center praxis in the development of scholar-practitioners.

We are actively recruiting for our next group of UConn HESA students, please encourage interested students to attend one of our upcoming information sessions. More information about our program and admissions process, including how to sign up for an information session, can be found here.

Also, as a reminder, we are actively recruiting students for our PhD concentration—Higher Education, Racial Justice, and Decolonization (HERJD)—in the department’s Learning, Leadership, and Education Policy Program. More information about the HERJD PhD concentration can be found here and inquiries can be sent to Dr. Saran Stewart.

We are looking to host some alumni events as our faculty present their work and represent our program at regional and national conferences. Please be on the lookout for emails sharing information about those events, including an event we will host on our UConn, Hartford campus on Tuesday, November 15th 5pm-7pm during the NASPA Region 1 Conference. The UConn Foundation will send an email invitation shortly. If you do not receive an invitation, please email us at hesa@uconn.edu so we can make sure you receive it. We hope you can join us!

Additionally, we are continuing initiatives started last year to further engage with our alumni. We want to know about all the great things happening in your worlds—good news, publications, promotions/new jobs, programs developed, and more. To let us know, please complete our HESA Insider form. We plan to highlight some of these good news on our social media accounts, website, and/or future newsletters.

And speaking of our alumni, in the spring, Ryan Haynes ’20, Residence Life Coordinator, Pomona College, joined the Neag School Alumni Board. A special congratulations and thank you to Ryan for agreeing to serve in that important work.

Another way to get involved with our program is to consider hosting a practicum opportunity for a current student. We are currently collecting practicum opportunities for the spring 2023 term. Practica can be in-person or virtual, so if you are an alum far from our Storrs campus, this is your opportunity to supervise and mentor a current UConn HESA student. To see more information about hosting a practicum opportunity and how to submit a potential site you can go here. If you have any inquiries about how to host a practicum opportunity, please contact Dr. Adam McCready.

Also, I encourage you to follow us on Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn. We enjoy hearing about all the wonderful work our alumni and campus partners are doing, so do contact us via email and/or by tagging us.

Wishing you a wonderful remainder of 2022 and that 2023 brings you health, joy, and more good news for you to share with the UConn HESA community!

Take care . . . cuídense!

H. Kenny Nienhusser, EdD (él, he, him, his)
Associate Professor and Program Coordinator, Higher Education and Student Affairs
Faculty Director, La Comunidad Intelectual