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HESA Student Recieves Neag Scholarship

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This story has been altered from its original version.  The original version was written by Danielle Falper and was published on the Neag website on March 9, 2018.  It is available here. 

The Neag School of Education at UConn recently announced HESA student Denée Jackson as a recipient of the Neag School of Education Alumni Board Scholarship.

The Neag School of Education Alumni Board Scholarship provides a $1,000 award available annually to students enrolled in a master’s, doctorate, or sixth-year program and who have proven academic excellence or demonstrated financial need. The scholarship is intended to invest in the education and experience of Neag School students. For the 2019 academic year, there were 35 applicants.

Denée Jackson with her award. (Photo by Jennifer McGarry)

“The Neag School of Education Alumni Board Scholarship is one that aims to not only support aspiring educators, but also honor the passion and talents of those who are committed to doing what is arguably one of the most important and challenging jobs of today,” says Kate Lund, president of the Neag School of Education Alumni Board. “As a board, we are committed to awarding these important scholarships each year and are entirely grateful for the generous contributions from our alumni, who share our support of and pride in these promising teachers.”

Jackson received her bachelor of arts in communications from the University of Connecticut in 2014. Jackson was enrolled in a master’s program at North Carolina State University, but she returned to Connecticut after her mother was diagnosed with cancer.

“I approach my learning with a ferocity because the more I learn, the more I can influence change and uplift communities,” says Jackson, whose mother inspired her to pursue higher education. “The more that I learn about oppressive policies within systemically unequitable systems, the more I can do to deconstruct them and build new equitable and inclusive systems.”

“Although my responsibilities sometimes require urgent attention, I have a legacy to uphold. I am hoping that my passion and grit, built on the foundation that my amazing mom instilled in me, will lead me to attaining my master’s and doctoral degrees while espousing my conviction of education as a means to attaining a more socially just world,” says Jackson.

Jackson is currently a Husky Sport mentor, facilitating coursework as well as professional development for a team of 40 graduate and undergraduate students.

She is also a graduate student intern at the UConn Office of Fraternity and Sorority Life, and assisted in the development of a new Greek life program, and advised the 2016 HuskyTHON to benefit the Connecticut Children’s Medical Center.

HESA 2nd-Year Presents at National Conference

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Emily Fiagbedzi Headshot
Emily Fiagbedzi

Recently, 2nd-year HESA student Emily Fiagbedzi presented two workshops at the 2018 National IMPACT Conference. According to the conference website, IMPACT is the “largest annual conference focused on the civic engagement of college students in community service, service-learning, community-based research, advocacy and other forms of social action.”  This year’s conference was held at the University of Dayton in Ohio.

Emily’s first workshop was entitled “Doing well and doing good: Supporting students in their pursuit of social good career paths,” and it targeted administrators and professional staff.  The workshop shared the history, structure, and activities of UConn’s Careers for the Common Good initiative in an effort to inspire similar collaborations at universities across the nation. It included a planning and group sharing component that allowed participants to create concrete plans to take back to their institutions.

In her second workshop, “Design Thinking with the Community: Creating more effective programs and initiatives,” Emily shared how the design thinking framework (also known as “human-centered design” or “empathetic design”) can be used to develop and co-create programs alongside communities, centering community voices in order to more effectively address community needs. The workshop not only introduced the framework of design thinking, but provided resources and activities that students, administrators, and professional staff could take back to their communities and implement in their programs.

The HESA program congratulates Emily on her recent conference success.

HESA Runs Winter Clothing Drive for Puerto Rican Students Displaced by Hurricane

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Left to Right: HESA Graduate Assistant Rico Destinvil, Professor Kari Taylor, HESA student Jessica Gramajo Vivas, Professor Reggie Blockett, HESA Student and Staff Development Manager Danielle DeRosa, and Professor Milagros Castillo-Montoya stand with donated clothing.  Photo by Shawn Kornegay.

In the wake of Hurricane Maria, Connecticut schools welcomed a wave of Puerto Rican students who had been displaced from their homes and communities on the island. This February, the HESA program and campus partners (the Department of Educational Leadership, HESA students, and the HESA village) ran a winter clothing drive to benefit newly-arrived Puerto Rican students at two local high schools.

Professor Milagros Castillo-Montoya, who spearheaded the project, initially approached Christina Rivera, an Ed.D. student in the Department of Educational Leadership, with the idea. Rivera was able to connect Professor Castillo-Montoya with the two Connecticut schools that expressed the need for donations: Hartford Public High School and Windham High school.

Once the school connections had been made, Castillo-Montoya said, the HESA and EDLR communities mobilized to collect a total of 270 items, which included coats, jackets, boots, scarves, pants, and gloves. HESA practicum student Jessica Gramajo Vivas created a flyer to notify the HESA and EDLR communities of the opportunity to donate items, and HESA Student and Staff Development Manager Danielle DeRosa coordinated with current HESA students to distribute donation boxes to collect items.

“The success achieved in so little time would not have been possible without the people who helped get the word out, HESA students who collected donations at their respective assistantship sites, assistantship site and practicum site supervisors who allowed donations to get collected there, and everyone who donated,” said Castillo-Montoya. She also highlighted donations from EDLR faculty, HESA students, and the entire HESA village.

“For these high school students and their families, some of which are living in shelters, this made a big difference,” said Castillo-Montoya. “Thank you to all who got involved and helped make this happen.” While unable to assist in all hurricane relief efforts, this drive was an opportunity for the HESA and EDLR communities to build on existing relationships and support local students in a targeted and timely way.

 

2nd Year HESA Students Earn Competition Title

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Congratulations to Julia Anderson (‘18) and Lisa Famularo ('18) who successfully won first place in the American College Personnel Association’s (ACPA) 2018 Winter Case Study Competition for graduate students. The competition, which was was sponsored by the ACPA’s Graduate Student and New Professional Community of Practice, brought graduate students from programs across the nation to compete against one another. Students assumed responsibilities as acting members in the Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion to create an 8-10 minute video which outlined an action plan to address the concerns of a specific transgender student. Through this lens, participants grappled with the treatment transgender students face on campuses nationwide in the current political climate. We caught up with current HESA students Julia and Lisa to talk a little more about the competition. 

The challenge for this competition focused on building an inclusive higher education environment (specifically for trans students). Can you talk about why inclusivity in higher education is so important, and how you’re learning to be inclusive in your practice?

Julia Anderson headshot
Julia Anderson

JA: This case study centered on a trans student who was concerned about her career goals unravelling, and she was also reporting that she was being misgendered by professors on campus. As someone who has worked with students facing similar situations, I am so thankful to work on a campus with a designated resource for LGBTQ+ students. Not all campuses are designed this way, so all student affairs practitioners must be prepared to support all students they encounter. This is a commitment that we must make anew each day – I work to re-commit myself to inclusivity by consistently considering intersections of identity within the LGBTQ+ community.

LF: The years a student spends in college can sometimes be some of the most influential years of their life. Because the primary reason students pursue higher education is typically to learn, it is important for higher education professionals to create and maintain spaces where every student feels comfortable enough to learn; there is nothing more distracting than feeling alienated, unwanted, or uncomfortable. One of the founding values of the field of student affairs is to tend to the whole student, so it is vital that student affairs professionals take the whole student into account when planning programs, events, and services in order to be inclusive and equity-minded. As a young student affairs professional about to fully enter the field, I believe that one of the most powerful equity-minded practices I have learned is challenging the underlying assumptions for each decision that is being made in order to avoid perpetuating assumptions that are biased, inequitable, or wholly incorrect. I believe this practice can and will little-by-little identify and eradicate some of the problematic assumptions and resulting decisions that persist in higher education today.

How did your UConn HESA experience help you with this challenge?

Lisa Famularo

LF: My UConn HESA experience both directly and indirectly gave me the knowledge and skills I needed to be successful in this competition. When putting together our plan to address the issues presented in the case, Julia and I relied on information about student development

theory we learned in our classes, programming/campaign ideas that have proven successful in our assistantships, and the connections we have made with various offices on UConn's campus throughout our time in the HESA Program. In the end, we were successfully able to develop a plan to follow up with a student in crisis, put on support and educational programming, and establish beneficial campus partnerships to work towards a more inclusive campus climate.

JA: I believe that I was equipped to respond to students in crisis by my assistantship in the Rainbow Center. There, I work with students who are encountering difficulties related to their gender identity every day, and we work together to find and enact solutions.

What does this award mean for you and your career goals?

JA: This award was based on our recommendations for a case study about a transgender student who was experiencing difficulties in her personal, professional, and academic life. I am seeking positions in LGBTQ+ services, and my assistantship is in the Rainbow Center, so this award was an affirmation of the work I do each day.

LF: I am proud of achieving first place in this case study competition sponsored by a national organization because it shows that the knowledge and experience I have gained in the UConn HESA Program truly does make me stand out from other graduate students in the field. I plan to pursue a career as either a career counselor or career coach for college students, and in order to do so successfully, I need to be able to work effectively with students from a variety of backgrounds. This case, especially since it was focused on supporting a student with a marginalized identity, was putting my abilities in this regard to the test, and winning first place was an encouraging indication that I am headed in the right direction.

Neag School on the Map: Higher Education and Student Affairs Alumni Employed Nationwide

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Where do UConn HESA Alumni go after graduation?  This map shows the program’s national reach, with HESA alums pursuing careers in Higher Education from the University of Alaska all the way to Georgia State, from Smith College to UC Berkeley.  The HESA program is proud to showcase alumni placements.  If you are a recent alumnus/a and would like to be featured on our website, please email us.

Second Blog Post in Michelle Meek’s Emerging SAPro Series Goes Live

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Michelle’s Emerging #SAPro Journey – Entering the Job Search with Collective Support

Editor’s Note: This story, written by Michelle Meek, originally appeared on The Student Affairs Collective on December 18, 2017.

This is the second blog post in Michelle’s monthly Emerging SAPro Series through The Student Affairs Collective. This month’s post is a reflection about making the most of the time spent in grad school and early career positions, in which Michelle shares several bucket list items for my time remaining at UConn and share my strategy for focusing on graduate school while not ignoring the job search.

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Jeffrey Alton (’06) interviewed for Insight into Diversity to talk about Asian American and Pacific Islander serving institutions

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Asian American Students Find Academic, Cultural Support at UIC

Editor’s note: This story, written by Alexandra Vollman, was originally posted in Insight to Diversity in March, 2017

“It is critical to provide services to ELL (English-language-learner), first-generation, and low-income students because they are often the most vulnerable populations on our campuses,” says Jeffrey Alton, associate director of the Asian American Resource and Cultural Center (AARCC) at UIC. “Also, for Asian and Asian American students, the added notion of the model minority myth, that all Asians are successful and smart, may be hampering the institution’s recognition of their need for support.”

 

http://www.insightintodiversity.com/asian-american-students-find-academic-cultural-support-at-uic/