Author: Ashley Robinson

Spring 2023 Alumni Message from HESA Program Coordinator

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Dear UConn HESA Alums,

Kenny Nienhusser.
Dr. H. Kenny Nienhusser, HESA Program Coordinator. (Photo courtesy of Kenny Nienhusser)

I hope this newsletter finds you and your loved ones well, and that your start to 2023 has been fulfilling and full of beautiful moments.

There continues to be great things happening in our dynamic Program, some that I wanted to share with you here.

In early January, we admitted approximately 65 students to our Program, and hosted our Admitted Students Weekend (ASW) on February 12th and February 13th. On February 12th we held sessions to introduce admitted students to our academic program and on February 13th they interviewed for HESA-Affiliated Graduate Assistantships. I look forward to sharing more about our incoming students during our fall newsletter.

It is never too early to begin recruiting for the next group of HESA students, so if you know of any prospective students who might be interested in joining our Program please have them contact me to find a time to meet. I especially enjoy receiving emails from prospective students who share that an alum recommended they contact me to learn more about our Program.

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

We are gearing up for our UConn Gives campaign where we will be asking our alumni and friends of the Program to consider donating to the Sue Saunders fund. UConn Gives will be March 8th and 9th. All the money raised goes to fund students’ professional development activities.

This academic year, those funds have allowed or will provide students the ability to attend conferences (e.g., ACPA Annual Convention, NASPA Annual Conference, NASPA Region 1 Conference, Association for the Study of Higher Education [ASHE] Annual Meeting) and other professional development opportunities. We had less than $2,500 to offer students, and nearly 25 students who applied for funding. As you can imagine, we are eager to support our students’ professional development and would love to have more funds to provide our wonderful students. To consider giving please visit this link.

Speaking of conferences, UConn will be well represented at the upcoming ACPA Annual Convention in New Orleans. Several faculty, current students, and alum will be attending and we will be hosting a gathering on Sunday, March 26th. Please follow our LinkedIn page to get more information about presentations UConn faculty and students will be presenting and details about our gathering.

Please do not forget about sharing 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. We plan to highlight some of these good news on our social media platform, website, and/or future newsletters.

Also, I encourage you to follow us on Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

Wishing you a positive conclusion to the 2022-2023 academic year, for those of us who are on an academic calendar!

Take care . . . cuídense!

Kenny Nienhusser, EdD (él, he, him, his)

Associate Professor and Program Coordinator, Higher Education and Student Affairs

Faculty Director, La Comunidad Intelectual

Fall 2022 Alumni Message From Program Coordinator

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Dear HESA UConn Alumni,

Kenny Nienhusser.
Dr. H. Kenny Nienhusser, HESA Program Coordinator. (Photo courtesy of Kenny Nienhusser)

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

Fall 2021 Alumni Welcome from Program Coordinator

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(Photo courtesy of Kenny Nienhusser)

Dear HESA UConn Alumni,

Greetings from Storrs! I hope this newsletter finds you and your loved ones well as we grapple with the COVID-19 pandemic that continues to engulf our lives. 

I thought to begin my inaugural newsletter as HESA Program Coordinator with a story I enjoy sharing with prospective and incoming students. While UConn is composed of about 40,000 members, the acronym “HESA” is widely recognized on our campuses. 

When I arrived at UConn, over three years ago I would reveal my affiliation with HESA with colleagues across our campus and they immediately recognized our program, and often they would share how they were connected to our Program (most often through current and/or past students who had assistantship and/or practicum in their offices). I share this experience because our community is a special place and you have contributed to that legacy—working at your assistantship, engaging in your practicum, connecting with and supporting the thousands of students who made their way to our offices, participating in campus activities, and countless other ways. That legacy is the foundation we use to continue to strengthen our program and develop HESA professionals to be the next generation of change agents on our college campuses and in our society.

Now, let me transition to some program updates. In true HESA fashion, there has been much going on in our vibrant community in recent months. This semester we greeted our first- and second-year cohorts to campus for our welcome events, which were held in person in late August. Our first-year cohort has a slightly adjusted program of study, including some revised titles of our course. You can view those modifications here. 

Recently, the HESA faculty decided to pursue a pilot admission process, which makes some slight adjustments to how we have admitted students in the past. While this pilot admissions process unfolds, we remain committed to support the learning, development and growth of HESA students as practitioners who are grounded in our field’s scholarship. In particular, we strongly believe that practical experiences in higher education and student affairs are vital to the learning and success of our students, and are committed to identifying and placing HESA students in graduate assistantships, practica, and other professional experiences relevant to our HESA practice. I encourage you read that information in this edition of HESA Happenings.

We are actively recruiting for our UConn HESA Class of 2024. Please encourage interested students to attend one of our upcoming information sessions scheduled for Wednesday, October 20, 2021, 5:30pm EDT and Tuesday, Nov 16, 2021, 8:30pm EST. More information about our program and admissions process, including how to sign up for an information session, can be found here. 

Last academic year the HESA faculty was successful in getting a new PhD concentration approved—Higher Education, Racial Justice, and Decolonization—in the department’s Learning, Leadership, and Education Policy Program. The title and focus of our concentration align with ACPA’s Strategic Imperative for Racial Justice and Decolonization. We are actively recruiting students for that new program; if you are interested or know of people who might be interested please encourage them to explore our program. More information about the new Higher Education, Racial Justice, and Decolonization PhD concentration can be found here. General inquiries about the new PhD concentration can be sent to Dr. Saran Stewart.

While the faculty have been busy with (re)envisioning our curriculum, programs, and processes, they continue to excel in our field and on our campus. Their work is truly inspirational and at the core of that work is disrupting persistent and systemic inequities in Higher Education while also making campuses more welcoming spaces, especially for minoritized students, including at UConn.

We are launching some new initiatives to further engage with you, 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. We plan to highlight some of these good news on our social media accounts, website, and/or future newsletters. 

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 2022 term. Practica can be in-person or virtual, so if you are an alumni a far distance from Storrs, 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 Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn. We enjoy hearing about all the wonderful work you are doing, so do contact us via email and/or by tagging us on social media.

Wishing you a positive conclusion to 2021 and that 2022 brings you health, happiness, and more good news for you to share with the UConn HESA community!

Take care . . . cuídense!

Kenny Nienhusser, EdD (él, he, him, his)

Associate Professor and Program Coordinator, Higher Education and Student Affairs

Faculty Director, La Comunidad Intelectual

2021 HESA Pilot Admissions Process

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After careful consideration, the HESA faculty has decided to engage in a pilot admissions process for up to two admissions cycles that we believe will make our admissions criteria and process more equitable. Our decision involved a careful examination of our past admissions data, trends we were seeing in our applications and cohorts, and peer and aspirant HESA programs’ admission processes. We want to share these important changes with our alumni, who are wonderful ambassadors of our program with prospective students. 

  • We will no longer require a Graduate Assistantship for admissions into the HESA Program. However, for students admitted into the HESA program, who would like to have a graduate assistantship, we will continue to work with our campus partners to secure and organize interview placements for available graduate assistantships. 
  • In an effort to be more equitable in our admission process, we will offer a virtual admitted students program in addition to our traditional in-person experience. 
  • Applicants will be admitted to the HESA program by the middle/end of January, prior to having the opportunity to interview for graduate assistantships. 
  • Finally, we are rebranding “HESA Interview Days Weekend” to another name, likely “HESA Admitted Students Weekend”: Because admitted students will not be required to participate in assistantship interviews during this event, we are considering a name that better reflects the nature of the experience and is more inclusive for attendees who elect to not participate in these interviews. 

We strongly believe that practical experiences in higher education and student affairs are vital to the learning and success of our students, and are committed to identifying and placing HESA students in graduate assistantships, practica, and other professional experiences relevant to our HESA practice. Also, the program will continue to strive to recruit a strong number and pool of applicants to UConn.

Deepening our Learning During Asian/Pacific American Heritage Month

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May is Asian/Pacific American Heritage Month (APAHM) and at UConn, this month is celebrated each year in April. As we recognize APAHM this year, we have been reflecting on the increase in anti-Asian violence and racist attitudes that we have seen over the past year in the United States and in our own university community. The HESA program expresses our solidarity with the Statement on Anti-Asian Violence released by the UConn Association for Asian American Faculty and Staff last month. 

We echo our colleagues’ sentiments about the need to systemically fighting anti-Asian racism: “What is happening is wrong and we must stand together to not only identify and call-out this kind of behavior and its bad actors; but we must work systemically and synergistically to change culpable aspects of our university and society, to ultimately eradicate this malignancy” (UConn AAAFS). Toward this aim, our program has committed to three goals: 

  1. Enhance our curriculum and course syllabi to be more critically-inclusive of Asian and Asian American experiences in higher education;
  2. Host a set of teach-ins to better demonstrate our commitment to a more critically-inclusive curriculum; and
  3. Continue to work with our campus partners to share and receive best practices on cultural competencies and solidarity initiatives.

Though we intended to hold our teach-ins in April, our HESA community experienced an unexpected tragedy during that time, so we have chosen to delay these events until a future date. However, we still want to offer a set of virtual learning resources to our HESA community based on filmmaker and UCLA professor Renee Tajima-Peña’s PBS documentary series “Asian Americans.” We hope that members of our community will engage with and learn from these resources to deepen their understanding about the Asian American experience. 

Interviews with Filmmaker Renee Tajima-Peña

New Yorker interview with Renee Tajima-Peña about the History of Anti-Asian Violence in the U.S. 

NPR Podcast Interview with Renee Tajima-Peña about the Docuseries “Asian Americans”

PBS Documentary Series “Asian Americans” 

Episode 1: “Breaking Ground” 

“In an era of exclusion and U.S. empire, new immigrants arrive from China, India, Japan, the Philippines and beyond. Barred by anti-Asian laws they become America’s first “undocumented immigrants,” yet they build railroads, dazzle on the silver screen, and take their fight for equality to the U.S. Supreme Court.”

Episode 2: “A Question of Loyalty” 

“An American-born generation straddles their country of birth and their parents’ homelands in Asia. Those loyalties are tested during World War II, when families are imprisoned in detention camps, and brothers find themselves on opposite sides of the battle lines.”

Episode 3: “Good Americans” 

“During the Cold War years, Asian Americans are simultaneously heralded as a Model Minority, and targeted as the perpetual foreigner. It is also a time of bold ambition, as Asian Americans aspire for the first time to national political office and a coming culture-quake simmers beneath the surface.”

Episode 4: “Generation Rising” 

“During a time of war and social tumult, a young generation fights for equality in the fields, on campuses and in the culture, and claim a new identity: Asian Americans. The war’s aftermath brings new immigrants and refugees who expand the population and the definition of Asian America.”

Episode 5: “Breaking Through”

“At the turn of the new millennium, the country tackles conflicts over immigration, race, economic disparity, and a shifting world order.  A new generation of Asian Americans are empowered by growing numbers and rising influence but face a reckoning of what it means to be an American in an increasingly polarized society.”

In Solidarity with our Asian and Asian American Community

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Dear HESA Community,

Just a few days ago, we wrote to you with heavy hearts to name, acknowledge, and reckon with the racial violence impacting BIPOC communities, particularly Asian and Asian American communities. We have few words to express the sadness we feel as we mourn the murder of eight people in Atlanta, of which six were Asian and Asian American women. These murders are horrific and we ache at the continued violence hurled at Asian and Asian American people.

To our Asian and Asian American community members, we grieve with you. We understand this violence is part of a long-standing anti-Asian history that continues today. And, we acknowledge our responsibility to show up in our practice and in our community in solidarity and with love.

We strongly encourage our HESA community to attend a virtual panel this evening March 18 at 5pm ET on “Asians in America: Anti-Asian Violence and the Fight Against Invisibility” which will feature UConn students, faculty, and staff; provide perspectives on today’s climate; and discuss its impact on UConn’s Asian and Asian American community. Register for the event here. 

We in HESA continue our resolve to be more inclusive and supportive of our Asian and Asian American community members. We are committed and continue to work on the following:

  • Enhance our curriculum and courses to be more critically-inclusive of Asian and Asian American experiences in higher education;
  • Host a set of teach-ins on April 7th and 8th for our students to better demonstrate our commitment to a more critically-inclusive curriculum; and
  • Continue to work with our campus partners to share and receive best practices on cultural competencies and solidarity initiatives.

In solidarity, and with love,

HESA Faculty

Exploring Intersectionality Methodology During Women’s History Month

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Saran Steward, headshot
Dr. Saran Stewart

During this Women’s History month, we want to consider, in particular, the intersectional oppression that impacts the lives and experiences of women and girls. In this post, we explore the concept of intersectionality by focusing on our own Dr. Saran Stewart’s work with several colleagues of conceptualizing an Intersectional Methodology (IM).

Intersectionality is a concept coined by legal scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw in 1991. Crenshaw offered the idea that legal analyses on a single-axis of Black women and women of color’s identities (race only, or gender only), contributes to their erasure (Haynes et al., 2020). Crenshaw argued for an analysis that examines the intersections of race, gender, and class in understanding the unique forms of domination that Black women experience. As Haynes and colleagues (2020) point out, Crenshaw’s analysis was “…rooted in the legacy of Black feminism, which contends that the experiences of Black women and girls illuminate a particular understanding of their position in relation to sexism, class oppression, racism, and other systems of domination” (Haynes et al., 2020, p. 3). Intersectionality is often used as a theoretical framework in higher education research, but Dr. Stewart and colleagues aimed to understand how intersectionality is used in research methodology.

In a 2020 paper, Dr. Stewart and several colleagues used a literature synthesis to explore how scholars drew on intersectionality within their research methods, with the aim of “provid[ing] scholars with a nuanced methodological approach for taking up intersectionality in their study of Black women in education research, and social science research broadly” (Haynes et al., p. 13). They found that scholars who engaged Crenshaw’s intersectionality framework tended to employ four strategies in applying intersectionality to their research methods, which they termed Intersectional Methodology (IM):

  • Feature 1: Centralize Black Women as the Subject
  • Feature 2: Use of a Critical Lens to Uncover the Micro-/Macro-Level Power Relations
  • Feature 3: Address How Power Shapes the Research Process
  • Feature 4: Bring the Complex Identity Markers of Black Women to the Fore

“Our analysis suggests that intersectional interventions in higher education are needed because not all Black women (or Black people or women of color, for that matter) experience oppression in exactly the same way. IM presents researchers with the opportunity and ability to generate data-driven intersectional interventions that are transdisciplinary, effective, and focused on the needs of Black women” (Haynes et al., 2020, p. 31).

Dr. Stewart and her colleagues’ work articulating Intersectional Methodology “presents researchers with the opportunity and ability to generate data-driven intersectional interventions that are transdisciplinary, effective, and focused on the needs of Black women” (Haynes et al., 2020, p. 31). To read the full article, click here.

Dr. Stewart also presented a talk for the Center for Education Policy Analysis, Research, and Education this fall on Intersectional Methodology. You can view the full recording and transcript of the talk here.  Dr. Stewart and her colleagues’ work provides an important guide for scholars conducting research about Black women, ensuring that intersectionality is not an abstraction, but meaningfully applied into research methods and interventions.

UConn HESA at ACPA21

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UConn at ACPA21 | A virtual conference 1-17 March 2021 | Support UConn scholar-practitioner during the ACPA 2021 Virtual Convention

The UConn HESA program is pleased to be participating in ACPA’s Virtual Convention as a whole program this year. Between March 1-17, ACPA 21 will offer a wide variety of educational, scholarly, and networking programs. ACPA21 aims to center attendees’ experience, focusing on building community, dedicated to a strong curriculum, and embracing the future of ACPA’s Strategic Imperative for Racial Justice and Decolonization.

ACPA-College Student Educators International is the leading comprehensive student affairs association that advances student affairs and engages students for a lifetime of learning and discovery. A key focus of ACPA‘s work is the Strategic Imperative for Racial Justice and Decolonization, through which the association directs resources, energy, and time toward addressing racial justice in student affairs and higher education around the world. Many of our HESA program faculty have been actively involved in ACPA, including in  commissions and communities of practice. Since we signed up for whole-program registration in the fall, our students have also had memberships to ACPA and been able to participate in year-round programming. 

Although we are excited for everything that ACPA 21 has to offer, we are particularly enthusiastic about the five programs that were accepted from faculty and students in the HESA program. We have provided a full list of these sessions below. Convention registrants can access all of them, and the other great convention content by logging in with your ACPA account information to the virtual convention platform. 

Session Type Date & Time Title Presenter(s)
Research-in-Process Monday, March 8, 2021, 2:30-3:30pm The Personal is Professional: Exploring Emerging Student Affairs Professionals’ Intimacies Ashley N. Robinson, Sade Erinfolami, Tania Flores, & Trevor Madore
Research-in-Process Monday, March 15, 2021; 1:15-2:15pm Anti-Blackness and the Monolith Construction of Higher Education Latinidad Luz Burgos-López
Convention Program Monday, March 15, 2021; 3:45-4:45pm An Institutional Transformation Approach to Recruiting Racially Minoritized Faculty Milagro Castillo-Montoya, Ashley N. Robinson, Luz Burgos-López, & Jillian Ives
Research-in-Process Tuesday, March 16, 2021; 2:30-3:30pm Finding Our Voice: Combating Anti-Blackness and COVID-19 in Higher Education. Saran Stewart, Milagros Castillo-Montoya, Jasmine Sindico, Irvine Peck’s-Agaya, Nicole Hyman, Alquan Higgs, Rachel Wada, & Kiara Ruesta
Research & Practice Poster Supporting Undocumented Immigrants in the Current COVID-19 Era Kenny Nienhusser, Omar Romandia-Diaz, Kiara Ruesta

Interview Preparation: A Reflection on Mind, Body, and Soul

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By Jillian Ives

Interviewing season is upon us, although it might look a bit different this year. I’ve had a fair amount of virtual and in-person interviews over the years, both as an interviewee and interviewer. There is a wealth of information out there, so I do not plan to summarize it all here. However, I would like to offer my fellow HESAs a different perspective on interviewing as they prepare to search for summer internships or full-time positions. When facing the daunting job search, taking the time for reflection is essential. Interviewing is just like any other learning experience—it is a developmental process for the mind, body, and soul, not an obstacle to overcome for a final result. I like to reframe interviewing, to see it as an opportunity to check in with myself and further refine my values, my goals, and my experiences. 

When facing the daunting job search, taking the time for reflection is essential. Interviewing is just like any other learning experience—it is a developmental process for the mind, body, and soul, not an obstacle to overcome for a final result. I like to reframe interviewing, to see it as an opportunity to check in with myself and further refine my values, my goals, and my experiences. 

The Mind

First, reflect on how your mind functions under the stress. When you are nervous, do you talk fast, slow, or stumble over your words? Do you get easily distracted? Try to think through these things and be proactive where you can. For example, if you are virtually interviewing and know you get easily thrown off by distractions, close out of your email, silence your phone, and try to find a quiet and minimally decorated space. I know that I tend to not talk much when I’m nervous, so I purposefully post bullet lists of key experiences I want to highlight near my computer screen so that I can remind myself to expand on my answer by adding an example. For the things you can’t control, just be honest about them. If you get nervous and you forget what you were saying or can’t get the right word out, just reset by saying something like, “I’m sorry, I’m so excited to be interviewing for this position that I think my brain was moving faster than my mouth!” Reframing your nerves as excitement can make them less intimidating. Admitting your nerves can also go a long way with a search committee. We are all human after all, and they are probably nervous and stressed too!

The Body

Also know how your body functions under stress. Reflect on your nervous habits in an interview—do you tap your foot or pen? If you aren’t sure, run a mock interview with a friend or at the Center for Career Development and have them look for those habits. I know I tend to play with my jewelry when nervous, so I make sure to wear smaller earrings and no necklace when I interview to mitigate that habit. Although sometimes these small habits help us relieve stress, so if you are interviewing virtually you can take advantage of the format by squeezing a stress ball under the table. Also know how your body reacts to prolonged stress if you have an all-day interview on campus or are doing multiple virtual interviews in a row, like at The Placement Exchange. Pace yourself, and do what re-energizes you during breaks. Listen to a song, meditate, eat a snack, or whatever helps de-stress you.

The Soul

Lastly, reflect on your soul. By this, I mean whatever soul means to you—whether that is spiritual, religious, or just what centers and nourishes you. One of the best ways to feed your soul is to not compare yourself to your peers during job season. Everyone will get jobs at different times, and it is not a reflection of your worth. Plan ahead of time what you are willing to accept and not accept in a job offer so that you do not question whether you are settling or not when you start to feel peer pressure. You do not need to find the perfect job because this will be the first among many. However, you do want to find a position that you can be happy in for at least a few years. Your soul impacts your mental and physical wellbeing—they are all connected. This is proven in research on how racially minoritized people end up facing physical and mental health conditions when working in a racist workplace—it is damaging to the soul, body, and mind. During the interview, pay attention to the diversity of the office space and gauge whether they value and prioritize equity. Ask questions about whether they have the resources that will feed your soul, whether that be affinity groups for faculty and staff, churches nearby of your religion, or beauty salons or barber shops that cater to your hair type. Make sure to reflect on what you personally need to be happy, healthy, and positive. For me, family nourishes my soul. I made finding a position near family a priority, so I didn’t feel pressured by the normative idea of conducting a national search.

A Few Other Tips and Tricks

Staying organized is perhaps the best advice I have for tending to your mind, body, and soul during interview preparation. Start by creating a spreadsheet to track every position you are planning to apply to. List the positions in rows, and the different information about the job and application in columns. For example, in the columns note the application materials required to apply, due dates, basic information about the institution, office, and position. Color code or mark off each as you submit the application. This will help you stay on top of due dates, but it will also help you remember what you’ve applied to and where, as your mind starts to muddle the applications over time. Then create a folder for each position, and save the final versions of the application materials you submitted and any research notes you collected about the position. If you get an interview, this will be very helpful for you to refer back to. Not only will it help you not duplicate your research efforts, but it will also help you remember what experiences you mentioned in your materials. 

There are many resources out there on how to research a position and prepare for interview questions, so I won’t expand on that much here. However, one tip I have to save you some time—and thus save you effort in mind, body, and soul—is to have an interview question cheat sheet that can apply to all positions. Write out the most common interview questions in higher education (you can find many online), and the ones that are common to your functional area (experience advising, supervising, organizing programs, etc.). Write out your general philosophy for each question—what is your advising or supervision style for example. However, the key here is to think about all your experiences over time and map them onto these questions. You can actually create a table with the questions in rows and the experience examples in columns. This is important because a good interview answer moves from the hypothetical or theoretical, to include a specific example to illustrate your answer. This is often called the STAR method—the example should briefly explain the Situation, Task at hand, Action you took, and Result. So the table will help you think through the different experiences you have, what questions they might apply to, and if you have any gaps to consider. This really helped me in my interviewing experiences. When they asked a question about advising a student who was facing personal challenges, I knew I had 2-3 stories in my pocket to use. Maybe I had already used one that overlapped with another question they asked about advising students with minoritized identities, so I had 1-2 back up stories planned. 

Additional Resources

There are so many resources out there about interviewing. I’ve listed a few below as a start. 

UConn Center for Career Development has many great interviewing resources, from videos on how to answer common questions, mock interviews, negotiating job offers, and more. They also have resources specifically for graduate students, and the common materials required for job applications.

The Student Affairs Collective has many blog posts written by student affairs professionals going through the job search process, and their tips and tricks. For example, see this post on the TPE experience.

Also, don’t forget that your network is a resource. Lean on HESA and UConn alumni. Check LinkedIn or HESA alumni groups to see if you know anyone working at the institution you are applying to. Email or call them to see if they can give you some insight into the institutional culture—what do they like or dislike about working there, what are the students like, etc. This will help in your preparation, but also give you better insight into whether you would want to work there.

 

Jillian Ives is a 2014 graduate of the HESA Program and a current PhD candidate in the Neag School of Education’s Learning, Leadership, and Education Policy program. Jillian also represents the Department of Educational Leadership as a representative on the Center for Career Development’s Graduate Student Career Council. 

Celebrating Black History & Black Futures in Student Affairs Practice

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During this Black History Month, we in the HESA program find that there are countless examples of Black scholars, Black student affairs professionals, Black thought, and Black history that should be explored, uplifted, and celebrated. However, as we reflect on Black history, we recognize the importance of Black futures, specifically the futures and possibilities of Black student affairs professionals and Black students. 

To focus on Black futures, we first highlight some of the professional communities for Black student affairs professionals. These organizations and groups work tirelessly to create and sustain connection, support, and community for Black student affairs professionals. We encourage Black student affairs professionals to engage with these communities, and we encourage everyone to support and uplift their work. 

Secondly, we want to highlight and uplift research that has been published in the past year (2020-present) about the developmental, social, and academic experiences of Black college and university students. This list, while by no means exhaustive, illuminates the breadth and depth of scholarly work centering the experiences of Black students in just the past year. This list of scholarly resources calls all of us to engage with new and emerging research and ideas about Black students’ experiences–ideas that often necessarily challenge long-accepted ideas and practices about college student development. We encourage members of our community to engage with these and other works that center Black students’ experiences, and to create spaces for Black student development, Black student possibilities, and Black student futures. 

All of the below articles are available as full-text through the UConn Library.