Education Commons^™

Pov: Working In Admissions During The Ruling On Affirmative Action, Kirsty Nicole Bayo-Ang Bocado

The Vermont Connection

Affirmative action has existed to help students from hxstorically marginalized communities have equitable opportunity to receive admissions into institutions of higher education. There are many perceptions of what affirmative action is. It is important to understand the context behind why affirmation action came about in the first place and what purpose it serves students. In recent hxstory, the US Supreme Court ruled against affirmative action. This was a decision that set back our efforts of supporting students’ access to higher education. As an admissions counselor at a Hispanic-serving institution in the New York City metropolitan area, I witnessed how this …

Going To A Psychiatric Hospital Saved My Life And My Student Affairs Career, Jo Wilson

The Vermont Connection

The ongoing mental health crisis for college students has been a notable topic in recent years and while a necessary conversation, this often overlooks an underlying mental health crisis for higher education staff and the connection between both crises. As a former mentally ill graduate student and now (still) mentally ill student affairs practitioner, the connection is clear and a conversation now is critical. Using my personal narrative as a current practitioner, self authorship, and disability theory intersections, I am using this piece as a counternarrative and interruption to traditional student and staff development. Lastly, I seek to encourage a …

White Student Affairs Practitioner's Role In Actualizing An Antiracist Environment, Patrick Lovelace

The Vermont Connection

This article is meant to serve as a resource for white student affairs practitioners to continue to consider their role in engaging in anti-racism work by learning about both theoretical and practical tools. Through the lens of Critical Race Theory, this piece examines the way racism is used as a tool by those with power to marginalize and harm Black individuals and communities people specifically through a higher education and student affairs context. Using existing research and practice that requires the self-examination of whiteness by white people, this piece will hopefully engage practitioners in considering ways to leverage whiteness as …

Ya'll Don't Hate White Supremacy Enough For Me: How Performative Dei Prevents Anti-Racism And Accountability In Higher Education, Dr Frederick V. Engram Jr, Katie Mayer

The Vermont Connection

Many institutions of higher learning and more specifically predominately white institutions (PWIs) have created divisions, teams, and administrative roles aimed at transforming problematic and racism-centered institutions. However, the teams and leaders almost never have true autonomy or institutional support in creating an environment not centered in whiteness or white feelings but one centered in disruption of the status quo and truly anti-racist. As scholars and practitioners, we find ourselves being requested to tailor our talks or teaching in a way that is digestible for white people. Meanwhile, students of color are being berated at athletic events, in their classes, and …

Tell Me More: Trauma-Informed Practices In Higher Education As Resistance And Liberation For Black And Indigenous Students Of Color, Madison P. Pimental

The Vermont Connection

In this article, I argue that higher education inflicts trauma on Black and Indigenous students. However, trauma-informed practices can serve as a liberatory practice that disrupts white supremacy culture and minimize harm against BIPIC students. I define trauma and trauma-informed practices (TIPs) and weave how racial trauma, including political, generational, and necrophiliac trauma, impacts Black and Indigenous students in university contexts. In the spirit of hope and resistance, I end with suggestions for student affairs practitioners outlined by the framework of TIP tenets that they can directly implement in their conversations and mentorship of college students. I also suggest strategies …

Exiting The Pandemic: A Leadership Approach To Critical Engagement And Change, J Kevin Fisher, Joan Seamster

The Vermont Connection

Navigating in uncertain times is an understatement for leaders in higher education. There is no playbook for today’s institutional challenges. Student needs, administrative requirements, faculty demands, and community relations all warrant to fresh look into how institutions address the risks that threaten business as usual. COVID-19 has challenged the status quo – shaking established methods of conducting and promoting higher education to its core. Do the higher education community and all it constitutes realize it? Will leadership in higher education take the necessary steps to bring all stakeholders together to shape the path to the future? To answer these questions, …

Toxic Rhetoric: Unpacking Discussions Of Self-Care, Dana K. Prisloe

The Vermont Connection

Self-care is a principle of the student affairs profession that has constantly been praised and espoused as necessary for effective work. Countless literature describes the benefits of self care, but little has been written about the demanding nature of student affairs that requires self-care in the first place. Rather than examining the system that overworks its professionals, scholars tend to accept this culture and tout self-care as a coping strategy to prevent burnout. However, self-care rhetoric often comes from a place of ableism and privilege and ignores marginalized identities. Additionally, using self-care as a tool to be better role models …

Community Colleges Meeting Students’ Basic Needs, Annamaria Cavaleri, Gabi Cuna, Kaia Palm-Leis, Robyn Suchy

The Vermont Connection

https://sites.google.com/view/dsp-community-college/home

Of the students currently enrolled in post-secondary education institutions, more than 50% of college students are attending community colleges. Of these students, 36% are nontraditional students who are between the ages of 22 and 39, 29% first-generation students, and 20% are disabled students. Community colleges and their students are transforming what it means to participate in higher education by providing resources for students with diverse identities, overcoming exclusionary practices that sacrifice students’ physical, mental, and financial wellbeing. As part of a digital storytelling project, we aimed to think critically about injustice in higher education by focusing on a special …

Dear Student Affairs: Reflections From A First-Generation Hesa Graduate Student, Tatiana L. Havens

The Vermont Connection

This letter is an invitation for first-generation and economically minoritized student affairs practitioners to reflect on the multiple identities they hold within the U.S. higher education system. The Critical Cultural Wealth Model is a theoretical framework that explicitly examines first-generation and economically minoritized (FGEM) college students’ academic and career development. This framework is used as a guide to explore how the dominance of Whiteness informs the historic and present construction of social and financial support structures for FGCS students in higher education, and how these structures ultimately fail to support FGCS on an individual and systemic level.

Using Institutional Ethnography To Illuminate The Contested Space Of Grading, Sharon Ultsch

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

A plethora of research has documented the detrimental effects of assigning grades, A-F, to student work as well as the inherent inequities embedded in this century-old assessment practice that persists in the majority of US higher education institutions. Coupled with the ubiquitous Grade Point Average (GPA) and prevailing neoliberal audit culture in HEI, grades serve to maintain a social hierarchy veiled by the myth of meritocracy and objectivity. The goal of this study was to investigate how grades operate as a text to mediate social relations and how faculty participate in the social organization of ruling regimes, often unknowingly. This …

Educational Redlining: The Disproportionate Effects Of The Student Loan Crisis On Black And Latinx Graduates, Tatiana Havens

The Vermont Connection

Racially biased funding in the United States education system has left Black and Latinx students disproportionately affected by the student debt crisis. Some educational loan lenders are using education data in the loan underwriting process, and Black and Latinx students are at risk for being wrongfully charged additional interest and fees. The United States historically excluded Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) communities from opportunities of social and economic mobility, and the student debt crisis perpetuates the financial disenfranchisement of BIPOC students. In this paper, I intend to discuss the racial disparities in educational loan distribution, congressional policies, alternative …

Move: We Don't Need To Convince You That Our Oppression Is Real, Dr Frederick V. Engram Jr

The Vermont Connection

This article will address the lived experiences of Black people (faculty, staff, students, student-athletes) who navigate academia in majority white spaces. Black people have known throughout time that the Black voice is not valued. We constantly find ourselves embattled in our personal lives, at work, and on social media. The constant and incessant need for whiteness to tell us how we should feel, respond, and react to acts of white supremacy, white manning, sexism, and misogynoir are triggering. The system of higher education is a constant reminder that academia exists comfortably in a bubble. A bubble that unless you are …

They’Re Crying In The All-Gender Bathroom: Navigating Belonging In Higher Education While First Generation And Nonbinary, Jo D. Wilson

The Vermont Connection

Maintaining the sociocultural and interpersonal supports needed

to succeed in higher education as a first-generation student can

be very difficult due to a lack of familiarity with what brings

success. When this identity intersects with a nonbinary gender

identity, it further complicates higher education’s challenges and

may make solutions impossible to come by. My experience sits at

the intersection of these two identities and their gradual collision

and connection with success in higher education. Through this

narrative, I seek to unpack potential difficulties and nuances

for the increasingly diverse body of first generation students and

bring attention to the barriers …

Building Resilience Through Culturally Grounded Practices In Clinical Psychology And Higher Education, Catarina Campbell, Phyu Pannu Khin

The Vermont Connection

There is no “one size fits all” approach when it comes to the process of healing, particularly for individuals who are continuously affected by the many barriers and impacts of systemic oppres- sion. This reality demands the sustained development of a praxis rooted in trauma-informed and culturally grounded care so that we may better serve our most-impacted communities (such as Black, Indigenous and People of Color [BIPOC], disability, queer, and survivor communities). As practitioners in the fields of Clinical Psychology and Higher Education, we engage in cross-disciplinary analysis so that we may amplify and share our tools for collective healing. …

An Examination Of The College Decision-Making Process Of High School Students In Rural Vermont: A Cross-Case Analysis, Jon Reidel

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

Earning a college degree has been shown to have a number of positive socioeconomic impacts on individuals and society as a whole. Although researchers acknowledge that the decision to attend college is a complex process involving multiple factors, studies have focused primarily on individual reasons as part of a linear college choice paradigm. Individual obstacles to college attendance that consistently emerge in this strand of research include academic preparation, socioeconomic status, cost, family background, parental influence, motivation, and guidance counselor support (Harris & Halpin, 2002).

College attendance rates are particularly low among students living in rural areas. Nationwide, only 59 …

Navigating My Blackness: An Afro-Caribbean International Student Experience, Christopher G. Campbell

The Vermont Connection

No abstract provided.

Run Away, Melissa Carlson

The Vermont Connection

No abstract provided.

Pedagogical Pause: Uncovering The Queerness Of My Classroom Emotions, Jason C. Garvey, Ph.D.

The Vermont Connection

No abstract provided.

Hakujin: A Narrative Of Multiraciality And Student Development Theory In The U.S., Jenna L. Matsumura

The Vermont Connection

No abstract provided.

One Size Does Not Fit All: A Case For A More Diversified Approach To Identifying And Supporting First-Generation College Students, Alexander J. Thorngren

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

ABSTRACT

First-generation college students earn college degrees in the United States at much lower rates when compared to non-first-generation college students. These students frequently face different challenges accessing and completing college degrees than those encountered by their peers with college-educated parents. A key challenge for institutions of higher education (IHE) is to develop effective policies, programs, and resources that support college completion among first generation college students.

First-generation students are far from a homogenous group. Rather, they exist on a spectrum of familial experiences with higher education. For instance, important differences may exist between students who have a parent who …

A Seat At The Table: The Unspoken Values And Benefits Of Student And Academic Affairs Collaboration And Partnerships In Higher Education, Tynesha Mccullers

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

After almost two semesters as a graduate student at the University of Vermont, I decided that I wanted to do more in my second year of graduate school. It was through conversations with my colleagues that I determined that stepping out of my comfort zone of student affairs and looking into academic affairs would help develop me as not only a student affairs professional but as an educator as well. During the fall semester of 2016, I participated in an independent study where I served as a Teaching Assistant for a university diversity requirement course titled “The Political Economy of …

The Story Of A Foster Youths Journey Through The Maze Of Higher Education; Implications For Faculty And Staff Throughout The Campus, Lynn Wales

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

As educators and higher education administrators, it is important that we connect to our students. It serves us well to learn the stories behind those beautiful eyes looking back at us, as we support their navigation through the journey of higher education. This thesis, written in a Scholarly Personal Narrative (SPN) style, will use former foster youth students, as well as at-risk youth, as the population of focus. I will relay my own personal experiences, as a former youth-in-care. I will also explore this kind of alternative upbringing, to draw closer to the conclusions and insights of the struggles and …

Pedagogical Praxis Models In Sustainability Education: A Focus On Food Systems And Environment, Karen Lynn Nordstrom

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

As societies embrace notions of sustainability, there is an increasing interest in how to best educate students about these concepts. The field of sustainability education (SE) is an approach that has been developed to address this concern. SE frameworks seek to integrate into curricular contents and formats within campus learning environments, in order to systematically improve upon approaches and services developed to support student learning and development. My research offers insight into the relationships between the philosophical principles and praxes of sustainability education, with the aim to inform educators on how best to prepare students to address complex sustainability issues. …

Conceptualizing Contemplative Practice As Pedagogy: Approaches To Mindful Inquiry In Higher Education, Melissa Hammerle

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

A compelling argument has been made which claims that institutions of higher education focus disproportionately on transmitting basic skills to their students at the expense of supporting issues of central importance to the development of emerging adults, including clarifying values and identity and defining individual purpose and meaning (Palmer & Zajonc, 2010). As a result, an increasing number of postsecondary teachers are considering how they can refashion education by using contemplative inquiry to deepen student learning and personal growth. This movement to reframe the teaching-learning paradigm has led to the development of teaching methods that seek to cultivate emotional, psychological …