Abigail Smith '17 presented Beyond Borders: The Afro-Caribbean International Student Experience at the NASPA Region 1 conference on November 14, 2016.

Alexis Parrill '17 presented online on Wednesday November 30, 2016. The presentation, Telling Our Story: College Union History Examined through Naming and Construction, was hosted through the ACUI Community of Scholars.

Tia Roy, 2016 graduate of HESA, presented on Connecting Commuters with Careers at the New England Association of Cooperative Education and Field Experience conference on Tuesday, November 8th, 2016.

HESA students Abigail Smith, Lauren Hennes, and Emily Pearson, who travelled to Glasgow this summer, presented on their international experience on November 17, 2016. The three students travelled to Glasgow to conduct an assessment project which they used to provide the University Senate with recommendations for their assessment and feedback policies. Their presentation was entitled, The Glasgow 3 Experience: Assessment and Feedback Toolkit.

In April 2016, Rincon attended the annual meeting for the American Educational Research Association (AERA) in Washington, DC, and gave two paper presentations titled Latin@s in STEM at the Intersections and Prior Socialization and Campus Racial Climate for Latin@s in STEM.

April 15, 2016: A research initiate, El Foco, consisting of Drs. Milagros Castillo-Montoya, Erica Fernández, Daisy Verduzco Reyes and Blanca Rincon, held the inaugural Latin@s and Education Symposium. Dr. Stella Flores, Associate Professor of Higher Education at the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development at New York University, attended the symposium and engaged in readings, reviews, and conversations with the symposium attendees. This event was held at the Puerto Rican Latin American Cultural Center (PRLACC) and was co-hosted by the Department of Educational Leadership and PRLACC.

Milagros Castillo-Montoya, along with Corbin Campbell, J.M. Braxton, C. Francis, and J.R. Posselt, presented a paper, Rigor Revisited: Reframing Notions of Rigor by Building Scaffolding for Equity and Student Success at the Association for the Study of Higher Education annual conference in Columbus, Ohio in November, 2016.

Milagros Castillo-Montoya presented a research paper, Developing Students' Sociopolitical Capacity: An Essential Learning Outcome for Racially Diverse First-Generation College Students at the Association for the Study of Higher Education Annual Conference in Columbus, Ohio in November, 2016.

January 14, 2016: Castillo-Montoya served as a panelist at UConn's Husky Sport Winter Retreat on the topic of teaching and diversity.

In June 2016, Blanca Rincon gave a presentation, Assessment: What is it Good For?, on the use of assessment in higher education and student affairs for the Student Activities Department at the University of Connecticut.

EDLR 5117: The College Student hosted one of three UConn Reads Intragroup Race Dialogue sessions. First-year HESA students joined facilitators to talk about their comfort with discussing topics of race and racism. Facilitators included Dr. Jennie McGarry, Danielle DeRosa, Dr. Milagros Castillo-Montoya, Dr. Justin Evanovich, Mia Hines, Dominique Battle-Lawson, Angela Rola, Susie Mitton-Shannon, and Elsie Gonzales.