Publications

Celebrating Latinx Scholarship and Activism in HESA

As we reach the end of Hispanic/Latinx Heritage Month (September 15-October 15), we want to highlight and celebrate some of our HESA faculty and educational leadership doctoral students’ recent contributions to scholarship, practice, and activism in higher education. Our faculty and students are uplifting Latinx voices and experiences, contributing to the policy and public discourses,  and centering, celebrating, and pushing the boundaries of Latinidad in student affairs and higher education. 

In this post, we highlight program faculty Dr. Milagros Castillo-Montoya and Dr. Kenny Nienhusser, recent graduate Dr. Joshua Abreu (‘20G), and current Ph.D. student Luz Burgos-López. Though all of their work integrates and spans research, public engagement, service, and activism, we have put specific publications and projects into those categories below. We hope that you will learn more about and engage with their work as we end this month of celebration and uplift, and well beyond. 

Research Articles

Castillo-Montoya, M. & Verduzco Reyes, D. (2020) Learning Latinidad: The role of a Latino cultural center service-learning course in Latino identity inquiry and sociopolitical capacity, Journal of Latinos and Education, 19:2, 132-147, DOI: 10.1080/15348431.2018.1480374

Nienhusser, H. K., & Oshio, T. (2020). Postsecondary education access (im)possibilities for undocu/DACAmented youth living with the potential elimination of DACA. Educational Studies, 56(4), 366–388. https://doi.org/10.1080/00131946.2020.1757448

Nienhusser, H. K., & Oshio, T. (2019). Awakened hatred and heightened fears: “The Trump Effect” on the everyday lives of mixed-status families. Cultural Studies « Critical Methodologies, 19(3), 173–183. https://doi.org/10.1177/1532708618817872

While Dr. Nienhusser’s scholarship does focus on undocumented students and about 80% of undocumented immigrants are Latinx, he does not hold this as synonymous to Latinx. In other words, the undocumented community comprises a diverse membership of individuals from a wide array of racial/ethnic identities.

Public Scholarship

Dr. Nienhusser on the Hablemos de Política podcast. The podcast episode, which is in Spanish, though it did not focus on the U.S. Latinx population, provided an overview of the U.S. higher education system and current issues, including cost of college, international students in US higher education, and undocumented students. The podcast audience is for Spanish-speaking audiences in the US and abroad.

Dr. Joshua Abreu’s article in La Galería magazine, “Gaining Political Power and Losing Bodegas: A Dominican-American Paradox” reflects on community voter engagement in Dominican-American communities, engaging with the tension of increasing voter participation at the same time of increasing gentrification in communities like Washington Heights. 

In a recent article in The Crime Report, which was informed by his dissertation research, Dr. Abreu critiques and provides recommendations for criminal justice education. Dr. Abreu highlights the importance of examining instructional equity in Criminal Justice education, “given that about 40 percent of criminal justice degree recipients are either Latinx or Black college students.” 

Service and Activism 

At UConn, Dr. Nienhusser serves as the faculty director for La Comunidad Intelectual, which is a learning community with a residential community component focused on supporting students who are a member of or have a strong appreciation for the Latinx diaspora. 

Ph.D. student Luz Burgos-López is actively involved in activism and community engagement, including founding the online community Non-Black Latinx in Higher Ed: Addressing Antiblackness in Comunidad, the purpose of which is “for non-Black Latinx folx to engage in unpacking our antiblackness in ourselves, our familia, our community, and within our field of higher education.” Luz’s research interests focus on antiblackness in constructions of Latinidad in higher education, and she will also be presenting a scholarly paper titled “The erasure of Blackness and role of Antiblackness in the Construction of Higher Education Latinidad” at the upcoming Association for the Study of Higher Education annual conference. 

Luz has also recently co-founded Colectivo Bámbula, a coalition of anti-racist Eduvists cultivating Puerto Rican liberation politics, artistry and scholarship with the intent to re-imagine and honor ancestral knowledge and work towards the decolonization of the past, present and future.

Lessons from the Field: Dr. H. Kenny Nienhusser

The word students often use to describe Dr. H. Kenny Nienhusser is “passionate.”  From the very beginning of his career, passion has been a driving force for Nienhusser.  His first professional position was as a Residence Hall Director at Stony Brook University in New York, and it was there that the idea of a career in higher education and student affairs occurred to him.  

“It was the first seed of thinking, wow, there’s this whole field that exists,” says Nienhusser. “The residential program I worked in was very focused on making the bridge between theory and practice … it was very deliberate in thinking about how professionals could better meet the needs of students by making ourselves well-informed practitioners. This was achieved by reading scholarly work. And that was the first time I thought: wouldn’t it be cool to one day publish in one of these journals I’m reading, to help inform practice?”

He was a Hall Director at Stony Brook for three years while he worked simultaneously on his master’s degree in social work (MSW).  In 2001, he completed his MSW and decided he was ready for more. “I come from Latino immigrant parents and education is a very important 

value in my community,” Nienhusser says. “Education was always something I wanted to further pursue.” By this point, his passion for higher education and student affairs was growing.  He accepted a job at Teachers College, Columbia University and soon after that began his doctoral studies there.

Over the next nearly 10 years, Nienhusser ‘chipped away’ at his Ed.D. while working full-time at Teachers College, first as Assistant Director of Housing and then as Director of Academic 

Administration.  Since completing his Ed.D. in 2011, he has taught at Teachers College and University of Hartford, and now brings his expertise to UConn.

Dr. Nienhusser’s research focuses broadly on the high school to college transition of underrepresented minoritized populations in higher education, and especially the undocumented and DACAmented communities.  DACA, or Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, is a U.S. federal program that provides a stay of deportation for some undocumented immigrants who were brought to the U.S. before the age of 16. Recently, Dr. Nienhusser has been investigating how higher education professionals obtain awareness, knowledge, and skills in relation to issues that affect undocu/DACAmented students’ postsecondary education access.  

The complexity of this question, although challenging, is also one of the most compelling parts of his research, says Nienhusser.  “It’s a complicated and fascinating phenomenon to examine,” he says. “You’re tapping into federal policies, state policies, and institutional policies. And you’re also looking at how these policies are implemented at the individual level by education institutional agents.  The financial aid officer, the admissions counselor who’s sitting behind a desk working: how do they make meaning of this complex policy environment along with their personal beliefs and professional values?”

Dr. Nienhusser says he hopes his work informs and supports higher education institutional agents as they try to meet the needs of the undocu/DACAmented student population.

“What undocu/DACAmented students are living through is so very troubling,” says Nienhusser. “If I can make a positive impact at even one or two institutions, I’m happy.”

The reach of Dr. Nienhusser’s work extends far beyond one or two institutions, however.  Just as he once imagined during his time at Stony Brook University, he has published in the Journal of Student Affairs Research and Practice, the Journal of College Admission, Research in Higher Education, Community College Review, The Review of Higher Education, among others.  

His current project is something he says he’s really excited about: working with a group of scholars in the field to disseminate work related with the undocu/DACAmented community.  For this project, the Association for the Study of Higher Education’s (ASHE) Presidential Commission on Undocumented Immigrants (of which Nienhusser is co-chair) UndocuScholars (at UCLA), and UConn’s Neag School of Education have partnered to create a research brief dissemination series this academic year, and Nienhusser is kicking it off this October with a Twitter chat regarding his brief, “Implementation of Public and Institutional Policies for Undocu/DACAmented Students at Higher Education Institutions.”

When asked what advice he would give to students and emerging practitioners, Dr. Nienhusser’s passion for his work once again shows through.  “Never stop learning,” he says without hesitation. “I always say that to my students: I’m learning with you. It is so important that as practitioners we never stop learning.”

Dr. Nienhusser’s Twitter chat (“Implementation of Public and Institutional Policies for Undocu/DACAmented Students at Higher Education Institutions”) will take place on October 16, 2018 at 11 a.m. PST.  Those interested can RSVP here, join the conversation using the hashtag #UndocEdu, and follow Dr. Nienhusser on Twitter at @kennynien.

Michelle Meek (’18): “#SAGrad Capstones and Culminating Experiences”

#SAGrad Capstones and Culminating Experiences

Editor’s Note: This story, written by Michelle Meek, originally appeared on The Student Affairs Collective website on April 27, 2018

As I prepare to wrap up my graduate school experience in the next 3 weeks, I really wonder in the most cliche way possible: where did the time go? It seems that the last two years of classes, assistantship experiences, practicum internships, and relationship building has flown by now that I’m nearing the end. UConn HESA students present a capstone oral examination at the conclusion of the program to be successfully hooded with the degree of Master of Arts. As many folks in #SAGrad programs complete some kind of culminating portfolio, it can be a valuable time of reflection and deep thought in an overwhelmingly busy final semester.

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