Spring 2023 Alumni Message from HESA Program Coordinator

Posted on February 24, 2023February 24, 2023 by Ashley Robinson

Dear UConn HESA Alums,

Dr. H. Kenny Nienhusser, HESA Program Coordinator. (Photo courtesy of Kenny Nienhusser)

I hope this newsletter finds you and your loved ones well, and that your start to 2023 has been fulfilling and full of beautiful moments.

There continues to be great things happening in our dynamic Program, some that I wanted to share with you here.

In early January, we admitted approximately 65 students to our Program, and hosted our Admitted Students Weekend (ASW) on February 12th and February 13th. On February 12th we held sessions to introduce admitted students to our academic program and on February 13th they interviewed for HESA-Affiliated Graduate Assistantships. I look forward to sharing more about our incoming students during our fall newsletter.

It is never too early to begin recruiting for the next group of HESA students, so if you know of any prospective students who might be interested in joining our Program please have them contact me to find a time to meet. I especially enjoy receiving emails from prospective students who share that an alum recommended they contact me to learn more about our Program.

We are collecting practicum opportunities for the fall 2023 term. Practicum can be in-person or virtual, so if you are an alum a far distance from Storrs, this is your opportunity to supervise and mentor a current UConn HESA student. To get more information about hosting a practicum opportunity go here and you submit a potential site here. If you have any inquiries about how to host a practicum opportunity, please contact Dr. Adam McCready.

We are gearing up for our UConn Gives campaign where we will be asking our alumni and friends of the Program to consider donating to the Sue Saunders fund. UConn Gives will be March 8th and 9th. All the money raised goes to fund students’ professional development activities.

This academic year, those funds have allowed or will provide students the ability to attend conferences (e.g., ACPA Annual Convention, NASPA Annual Conference, NASPA Region 1 Conference, Association for the Study of Higher Education [ASHE] Annual Meeting) and other professional development opportunities. We had less than $2,500 to offer students, and nearly 25 students who applied for funding. As you can imagine, we are eager to support our students’ professional development and would love to have more funds to provide our wonderful students. To consider giving please visit this link.

Speaking of conferences, UConn will be well represented at the upcoming ACPA Annual Convention in New Orleans. Several faculty, current students, and alum will be attending and we will be hosting a gathering on Sunday, March 26^th. Please follow our LinkedIn page to get more information about presentations UConn faculty and students will be presenting and details about our gathering.

Please do not forget about sharing all the great things happening in your worlds—good news, publications, promotions/new jobs, programs developed, and more. To let us know, please complete our HESA Insider. We plan to highlight some of these good news on our social media platform, website, and/or future newsletters.

Also, I encourage you to follow us on Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

Wishing you a positive conclusion to the 2022-2023 academic year, for those of us who are on an academic calendar!

Take care . . . cuídense!

Kenny Nienhusser, EdD (él, he, him, his)

Associate Professor and Program Coordinator, Higher Education and Student Affairs

Faculty Director, La Comunidad Intelectual

Fall 2022 Alumni Message From Program Coordinator

Posted on October 6, 2022October 6, 2022 by Ashley Robinson

Dear HESA UConn Alumni,

Dr. H. Kenny Nienhusser, HESA Program Coordinator. (Photo courtesy of Kenny Nienhusser)

Greetings from Storrs! I hope this newsletter finds you well. While we continue to confront challenges in our society, on our campuses, and in our profession, I hope you are able to center your needs and those of your loved ones in everything that you do.

Let me transition to some exciting program updates. In true UConn HESA fashion, there has been much going on in our vibrant learning community in recent months. This semester we greeted our first-year and continuing cohorts to campus for our welcome events in late August. This semester we have nearly 30 students who are enrolled in our courses.

We are in the second year of our pilot admissions process, and I am delighted to report that it is going well. We continue to offer a rich number and type of Assistantships throughout our campus. In fact, this past year we welcomed some new HESA-Affiliated Graduate Assistantships in the Center for Academic Programs (CAP)/Student Support Services (SSS) and Academic Center for Exploratory Students (ACES) to our learning community. Additionally, we have begun to admit students who are able to enroll part-time in our program, all of them full-time HESA professionals. Given our program’s emphasis on equity, we are excited to welcome this new group of students into our program. The combination of students who hold a Graduate Assistantship and Practicum and others who have full-time employment allows us to continue to our work to center praxis in the development of scholar-practitioners.

We are actively recruiting for our next group of UConn HESA students, please encourage interested students to attend one of our upcoming information sessions. More information about our program and admissions process, including how to sign up for an information session, can be found here.

Also, as a reminder, we are actively recruiting students for our PhD concentration—Higher Education, Racial Justice, and Decolonization (HERJD)—in the department’s Learning, Leadership, and Education Policy Program. More information about the HERJD PhD concentration can be found here and inquiries can be sent to Dr. Saran Stewart.

We are looking to host some alumni events as our faculty present their work and represent our program at regional and national conferences. Please be on the lookout for emails sharing information about those events, including an event we will host on our UConn, Hartford campus on Tuesday, November 15th 5pm-7pm during the NASPA Region 1 Conference. The UConn Foundation will send an email invitation shortly. If you do not receive an invitation, please email us at hesa@uconn.edu so we can make sure you receive it. We hope you can join us!

Additionally, we are continuing initiatives started last year to further engage with our alumni. We want to know about all the great things happening in your worlds—good news, publications, promotions/new jobs, programs developed, and more. To let us know, please complete our HESA Insider form. We plan to highlight some of these good news on our social media accounts, website, and/or future newsletters.

And speaking of our alumni, in the spring, Ryan Haynes ’20, Residence Life Coordinator, Pomona College, joined the Neag School Alumni Board. A special congratulations and thank you to Ryan for agreeing to serve in that important work.

Another way to get involved with our program is to consider hosting a practicum opportunity for a current student. We are currently collecting practicum opportunities for the spring 2023 term. Practica can be in-person or virtual, so if you are an alum far from our Storrs campus, this is your opportunity to supervise and mentor a current UConn HESA student. To see more information about hosting a practicum opportunity and how to submit a potential site you can go here. If you have any inquiries about how to host a practicum opportunity, please contact Dr. Adam McCready.

Also, I encourage you to follow us on Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn. We enjoy hearing about all the wonderful work our alumni and campus partners are doing, so do contact us via email and/or by tagging us.

Wishing you a wonderful remainder of 2022 and that 2023 brings you health, joy, and more good news for you to share with the UConn HESA community!

Take care . . . cuídense!

H. Kenny Nienhusser, EdD (él, he, him, his)
Associate Professor and Program Coordinator, Higher Education and Student Affairs
Faculty Director, La Comunidad Intelectual

Fall 2021 Alumni Welcome from Program Coordinator

Posted on October 11, 2021October 11, 2021 by Ashley Robinson

(Photo courtesy of Kenny Nienhusser)

Dear HESA UConn Alumni,

Greetings from Storrs! I hope this newsletter finds you and your loved ones well as we grapple with the COVID-19 pandemic that continues to engulf our lives.

I thought to begin my inaugural newsletter as HESA Program Coordinator with a story I enjoy sharing with prospective and incoming students. While UConn is composed of about 40,000 members, the acronym “HESA” is widely recognized on our campuses.

When I arrived at UConn, over three years ago I would reveal my affiliation with HESA with colleagues across our campus and they immediately recognized our program, and often they would share how they were connected to our Program (most often through current and/or past students who had assistantship and/or practicum in their offices). I share this experience because our community is a special place and you have contributed to that legacy—working at your assistantship, engaging in your practicum, connecting with and supporting the thousands of students who made their way to our offices, participating in campus activities, and countless other ways. That legacy is the foundation we use to continue to strengthen our program and develop HESA professionals to be the next generation of change agents on our college campuses and in our society.

Now, let me transition to some program updates. In true HESA fashion, there has been much going on in our vibrant community in recent months. This semester we greeted our first- and second-year cohorts to campus for our welcome events, which were held in person in late August. Our first-year cohort has a slightly adjusted program of study, including some revised titles of our course. You can view those modifications here.

Recently, the HESA faculty decided to pursue a pilot admission process, which makes some slight adjustments to how we have admitted students in the past. While this pilot admissions process unfolds, we remain committed to support the learning, development and growth of HESA students as practitioners who are grounded in our field’s scholarship. In particular, 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. I encourage you read that information in this edition of HESA Happenings.

We are actively recruiting for our UConn HESA Class of 2024. Please encourage interested students to attend one of our upcoming information sessions scheduled for Wednesday, October 20, 2021, 5:30pm EDT and Tuesday, Nov 16, 2021, 8:30pm EST. More information about our program and admissions process, including how to sign up for an information session, can be found here.

Last academic year the HESA faculty was successful in getting a new PhD concentration approved—Higher Education, Racial Justice, and Decolonization—in the department’s Learning, Leadership, and Education Policy Program. The title and focus of our concentration align with ACPA’s Strategic Imperative for Racial Justice and Decolonization. We are actively recruiting students for that new program; if you are interested or know of people who might be interested please encourage them to explore our program. More information about the new Higher Education, Racial Justice, and Decolonization PhD concentration can be found here. General inquiries about the new PhD concentration can be sent to Dr. Saran Stewart.

While the faculty have been busy with (re)envisioning our curriculum, programs, and processes, they continue to excel in our field and on our campus. Their work is truly inspirational and at the core of that work is disrupting persistent and systemic inequities in Higher Education while also making campuses more welcoming spaces, especially for minoritized students, including at UConn.

We are launching some new initiatives to further engage with you, our alumni. We want to know about all the great things happening in your worlds—good news, publications, promotions/new jobs, programs developed, and more. To let us know, please complete our HESA Insider. We plan to highlight some of these good news on our social media accounts, website, and/or future newsletters.

Another way to get involved with our program is to consider hosting a practicum opportunity for a current student. We are currently collecting practicum opportunities for the spring 2022 term. Practica can be in-person or virtual, so if you are an alumni a far distance from Storrs, this is your opportunity to supervise and mentor a current UConn HESA student. To see more information about hosting a practicum opportunity and how to submit a potential site you can go here. If you have any inquiries about how to host a practicum opportunity, please contact Dr. Adam McCready.

Also, I encourage you to follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn. We enjoy hearing about all the wonderful work you are doing, so do contact us via email and/or by tagging us on social media.

Wishing you a positive conclusion to 2021 and that 2022 brings you health, happiness, and more good news for you to share with the UConn HESA community!

Take care . . . cuídense!

Kenny Nienhusser, EdD (él, he, him, his)

Associate Professor and Program Coordinator, Higher Education and Student Affairs

Faculty Director, La Comunidad Intelectual

Fall 2020 HESA Director’s Welcome

Posted on October 2, 2020April 5, 2022 by Ashley Robinson

Dear HESA Family,

As the season changes and we enter into the crisper and cooler months, I want to send a warm and heartfelt welcome to our HESA community. This Fall semester is different from any other we have experienced before given the wave of the COVID-19 pandemic and surge of anti-Blackness racism in the US. More than ever, the student affairs professional is being asked to redefine their role and re-conceptualize programming and activities to both combat anti-Blackness, simultaneously contend with the spread of a pandemic and traverse virtual and racial battle fatigue.

Throughout it all, the HESA faculty continues to excel, lead and set an example in the field of higher education and student affairs with their scholarship, leadership and activism. I invite you to visit our HESA website to see all they have been engaged with and accomplished. They work tirelessly to prepare for a virtual Fall semester and like many of us, have had to pivot, become more agile and adapt to our “new” normal. I would like to welcome both Drs. Frank Tuitt and Adam McCready to the team as well as our graduate assistant Ashley Robinson. We are excited to have this stellar compliment of scholar-practitioners within the HESA program.

This year, we hosted our first virtual academic welcome and welcome back retreat for both cohorts of students. Our admissions cycle went live in September and we are actively preparing for our upcoming informational webinars. Our first HESA Prospective Student Webinar will be held on October 13 from 5:30 – 6:30 p.m.

The HESA program continues to engage in curriculum renewal and we will announce some exciting changes to our program in the near future. As we strive to engage our students in transforming theory to practice, the program faculty decided to sign up for a program-wide registration for this year’s ACPA21 Virtual Convention. This means that all students and faculty in our program will be able to participate in the convention, which will take place from March 1-17, 2021. The registration also includes a complimentary 1-year membership for master-students who are not currently not members.

Lastly, I want to thank our graduate assistantship and practicum site supervisors, who continue to provide invaluable on-site training and professional development for our students. Without you, our program would not be complete. As we all continue to pivot and adjust to a constantly changing climate, I ask that we show grace, support and care for each member of our community. I wish for you and your loved ones continued good health, safety and wellness.

Saran Stewart, Ph.D.
Director
HESA Program

Higher Education and Student Affairs Program

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