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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.

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.

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.

    Celebrating Native and Indigenous Higher Education Scholarship

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    November is Native American Heritage Month (NAHM), and as we in the HESA program pause during UConn’s fall break, we reflect on the critical importance of recognizing and honoring the role of Native American and Indigenous scholars, practices, and thought in our field. UConn’s campuses are located on land that is the territory of the Mohegan, Mashantucket Pequot, Eastern Pequot, Schaghticoke, Golden Hill Paugussett, Nipmuc, and Lenape Peoples, who have stewarded this land throughout the generations. We thank them for their strength and resilience in protecting this land, and aspire to uphold our responsibilities according to their example. Native and Indigenous people bring rich knowledge and experiences to our educational spaces, including the field of higher education and student affairs. Indigenous methodologies, pedagogies, and existence in higher education are acts of resistance against an oppressive educational system that has expropriated native lands and attempted to erase native knowledge and ways of living. 

    In celebration of NAHM, we highlight some of those Native and Indigenous methodologies, pedagogies, and practices in higher education and student affairs. We offer a very brief selection of resources below, which may serve as a starting point for further engagement. We encourage members of our HESA community to engage with these and other resources to deepen your learning about Native and Indigenous communities, educational experiences, and ways of knowing. 

    Professional and Scholarly Communities

    Indigenous Student Affairs Network (ISAN)

    ACPA Native, Aboriginal, and Indigenous Coalition (NAIC)

    NASPA Indigenous Peoples Knowledge Community (IPKC)

    Edited Volumes

    Beyond Access: Indigenizing Programs for Native American Student Success (2018), edited by Heather J. Shotton, Shelly C. Lowe and Stephanie J. Waterman

    Reclaiming Indigenous Research in Higher Education (2018), edited by Robin Starr Minthorn and Heather J. Shotton

    Beyond the Asterisk: Understanding Native Students in Higher Education (2013) edited by Heather J. Shotton, Shelly C. Lowe, Stephanie J. Waterman

    Journal Articles

    “New Research Perspectives on Native American Students in Higher Education”  (2019), Stephanie J. Waterman

    “I Thought You’d Call Her White Feather”: Native Women and Racial Microaggressions in Doctoral Education (2017) Heather J. Shotton

    “Home Away From Home: Native American Students’ Sense of Belonging During Their First Year in College” (2016) Amanda R. Tachine, Nolan L. Cabrera & Eliza Yellow Bird

    “Toward a Tribal Critical Race Theory in Education” (2006) Bryan McKinley Jones Brayboy