The Neag School of Education welcomes a new Dean’s Doctoral Scholar this fall who will receive four years of fully funded tuition plus a stipend to conduct interdisciplinary research in the field of education. After receiving a master’s degree in the Neag School’s Higher Education and Student Affairs (HESA) program and moving on to conduct diversity-centered work at higher education institutions, Truth Hunter ’14 MA is returning to the Neag School to pursue a doctorate in the Learning, Leadership, and Educational Policy Program (LLEP). Her research will center on equitable classroom practices with an emphasis on supporting faculty.

“I will be doing a lot of work around supporting faculty members and understanding identity, power, privilege, and oppression, and how that can inform and enhance the work that they do in the classroom,” says Hunter.

Working With Underrepresented Students

For 13 years, Hunter has worked closely with underrepresented students. She began her career at Upward Bound, where she helped high school students from under-resourced schools navigate the college application process. The excitement of helping students get into college also came with the frustration of seeing many of those same students not complete their degrees, Hunter says.

“It had me begin to think deeply about what are the structures, what are the systems, what is the type of environment that will allow historically marginalized students or students who came from under-resourced or underserved background to really thrive and flourish in college and to meet their educational goals,” she says.

To address these questions and learn how to help students develop holistically, Hunter enrolled in the HESA program. It was there that she conducted research on first-generation success, recognizing that the literature on first-generation students focused mostly on a deficit-based model, in which this group of students were constantly compared to their more privileged counterparts and would always fall short. Hunter and another HESA student, Jillian Ives ’14 (ED), decided to conduct research that highlighted the strengths of first-generation students instead of their deficits.

“I want to take the information my students trusted me with and give it a voice, give it a platform, allow it to start new conversations, and new ways of thinking,” she says. “That is how I hope to use my experience as a Dean’s Doctoral Scholar.”

— Truth Hunter ’14 MA,
Neag School of Education Dean’s Doctoral Scholar

“The approach we took was looking at first-generation students who are successful, who already have that status,” says Hunter. “We said, ‘Let’s look at what they are doing well, and hopefully that will have implications for first-generation students who are struggling.’”

The research Hunter conducted during her time in HESA set the foundation for the practitioner-based work she would go on to lead at Bard College in Annadale-on-Hudson, N.Y. as the assistant director of Bard’s Higher Education Opportunity Program. During her three years at Bard, Hunter worked one-on-one with first-generation, low-income students of color.

“That experience taught me to pay attention to the early challenges in student experiences and that you can actually build in structures and programs to increase their chances at being successful,” says Hunter.

After gaining insights into the experience of first-generation students at Bard, Hunter went on to serve as director of Race and Ethnicity Programs at Connecticut College in New London. In this role, Hunter expanded the college’s first-generation mentorship program for students of color by creating a one-credit course for students to discuss college success strategies and enhance their social network.

“I could see that it strengthened their community as students of color and it made them more confident because they knew people and had real relationships and were getting access to information that made them feel empowered,” she says.

Educating Faculty

Hunter has also been involved in faculty-based work at Connecticut College, which includes leading a workshop titled “Debunking Racialized Notions of Intelligence.” The workshop is designed to help faculty better support underrepresented students.

“I realized that I could be a bridge or a liaison with helping faculty members really get into the shoes of what it means to be an underrepresented student and maybe think about some issues or challenges that they may not be aware of,” says Hunter.

The type of work Hunter engages in at Connecticut College aligns closely with research conducted by Milagros Castillo-Montoya, assistant professor of HESA who will serve as Hunter’s academic advisor. Hunter met Castillo-Montoya while working toward her graduate degree, and she later came to view her as a mentor.

“She would actively invite me for opportunities to present, to do research, to be a guest speaker in her class,” says Hunter. “She was a really powerful influence for me to see that I could do this.”

Castillo-Montoya says she recognized Hunter’s ability to engage in critical analysis of literature and thoughtful conversations about racial microaggressions and encouraged her to apply to UConn for her doctorate. 

“She brings really strong administrative experience around the issues of diversity and specifically around race that she wants to be looking at in the classroom,” says Castillo-Montoya. “I think that it’s a fantastic asset as a scholar, to be someone who knows what it looks like for this work to be happening and practiced.”

A Career Rooted in Personal Experience

An African American woman who grew up in Oakland, Calif., in a low-income household, Hunter held hopes of being the first person in her family to attend and graduate from college. Raised in a working-class environment, she first experienced what it was like to be shaped by class when she began college at Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts, an all-women’s, predominantly white school.

“I had never experienced insecurities like this before, in terms of feeling like I didn’t belong, that I wasn’t good enough,” says Hunter. “Nobody had ever said it, but it was this internal dialogue that was triggered by this environment of being underrepresented.”

It wasn’t until Hunter found a major that allowed her to flourish intellectually and develop relationships with faculty that she was able to create for herself a supportive community at college.

“In the end, I had a wonderful experience, and it was so rich that I wanted to figure out how I could transform this experience into a career, by helping other students who went through what I went through,” says Hunter.

Hunter says it has enriched her life to be able to work with students whose experiences match her own, allowing her to elevate the narratives of underrepresented students. She says the opportunity to be a Dean’s Doctoral Scholar will allow her to strengthen her platform in academia and expand her resources and mentorship.

“I want to take the information my students trusted me with and give it a voice, give it a platform, allow it to start new conversations, and new ways of thinking,” she says. “That is how I hope to use my experience as a Dean’s Doctoral Scholar.”