Universities and colleges in the United States encourage the presence of diversity and equity among their communities to promote healthy environments and retain a diverse and talented student body. Since the year 2012, the population of International Students/Transnational students has increased from about 900,000 to about 1,095,299 in size(Geary, 2016),(Hanson 2022). As the number of transnational students increases, there are concerns about the preparedness of institutions to best serve this population. Few studies have focused on the reasons why transnational students do not feel a sense of belonging or sufficient support to be successful during their program. Hence, this research seeks to identify issues and challenges transnational students face as well as their strengths and perceptions of the resources the university provides. To address this issue, we will engage in action research using narrative inquiry as well as transnational graduate students as co-researchers to take action to make changes for our college. We will utilize climate surveys, interviews, and focus groups with the graduate students in the College of Education, Health, and Human Services at Kent State University. Findings will inform action plans to better serve transnational graduate students.

Southern California is known as the warehouse capital of the world, and is consequently understood to face precarious conditions. However, there is a gap in understanding how this industry is specifically shaping educational opportunities for marginalized communities. As the United States continues to experience a warehouse and logistics boom, this project will explore how rapidly expanding logistics companies and their warehouses are reshaping the educational opportunities and trajectories of working class communities in Southern California. This project investigates the unraveling school to warehouse pipeline in three areas: the way the logistics industry is shaping public education curriculum, the paradigms and stigmas echoed in these warehouse communities, and how place-based discrimination is affecting opportunities for mobility. This project will utilize a mixed-methods approach by conducting semi-structured interviews with young warehouse workers, and focus groups with stakeholders in public education involved with logistics programs. The aim is to produce story maps that can be leveraged by community advocates to emphasize the expanding impact of this school to warehouse pipeline. The school to warehouse pipeline in this project will be analyzed through the lenses of critical race theory and critical geographies of education. This project is significant due to the large scale of influence developed by the logistics industry and the disproportionate impact inflicted towards historically marginalized communities.

As Black and Latino men transition to college campuses, research shows that they continue to be academically marginalized and struggle to build meaningful connections to campus life. A range of research has revealed the challenges men of color in higher education experience. This includes struggles to build a community where they feel safe to share their experiences, challenges in relation to toxic masculine ideologies, and a continued struggle to locate resources that can strengthen their academic achievement. To better understand the ways men of color in higher education connect their academic journeys to their evolving sense of manhood, this study aims to uplift the critical voices of men of color at the University of California, Davis campus. The goal in undertaking this study is to investigate how Black and Latino men who self-identify as having a critical orientation to gender come to understand manhood. This study draws from eight semi-structured interviews with Black and Latino male undergraduates at the University of Davis, California. This study will provide critical insight into the ways men of color’s emotional well-being, and multiple identities, such as race and gender, can impact their academic achievement experiences.

In March 2020, the Covid-19 pandemic shut down the United States and changed life as the world knew it. All schools, including colleges, eventually and quickly transitioned to remote learning to keep students and faculty safe from the spread of the variant. All students had different experiences, but for student parents in higher education, the complexities of parenting and studying in a pandemic were as unprecedented as the virus itself. As historically underprivileged persons, how did the Covid-19 shutdown exacerbate already prevalent inequities in the lives of student mothers of color? What were their experiences, and what can we learn about the needs of this often overlooked demographic? I explore these questions by using ethnography (my own experience as an Asian American student parent), an online survey (using a “snowball” method), and through one-on-one interviews. Preliminary results show that the general sentiment surrounding remote learning was challenging and somewhat the same for all mothers. Day-to-day tasks became even more demanding for mothers who had children who were also in school during the shutdown. This research is unlike most scholarships that focus on traditional students. Instead, this research aims to unveil inequities student mothers of color face in higher education, which were further exacerbated due to the Covid-19 shutdown. The findings will add to the rich history of the experience of minority women in education, the history of higher education in America during a worldwide pandemic, and awareness of this distinctive demographic that is often underserved and overlooked.