Ph.D. Student Pauline Batista Seeks to Support Youth’s Voice

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Pauline Batista.
“People like me typically don’t have a voice,” says Pauline Batista ’16 MA, a doctoral student in educational leadership. “But if they have the right education, all of a sudden, they have a voice. All of a sudden, the door is open.” (Photo courtesy of Pauline Batista)

Pauline Batista (she/her/hers/ela/ella) ’16 MA, a current doctoral student in the Neag School’s Learning, Leadership, and Education Policy program, has always been passionate about education. As a teenager, in her hometown of Paraty, Brazil, Batista was enrolled in a rigorous five-year teacher training high school and held multiple paid internships.

“It was very hectic because I would leave my house at 7 in the morning and come back at 10 p.m. at night,” Batista says. “Your average 15-year-old is not dealing with all that. But for me, that was normal.”

During the summer, Batista would work for the Festa Literária Internacional de Paraty (Flip), the largest literary festival in Brazil. She served as program coordinator of FlipZona, the part of Flip dedicated to youth, including youth events as well as media and filmmaking programs. Her work at the festival inspired an early interest in filmmaking.

Earning a scholarship to Mitchell College in New London, Connecticut, Batista graduated summa cum laude with a degree in communications and a focus in video production.

“I started to think, ‘So what am I going to do next?’ I was positive that I did not want to apply for an MFA,” she says. “I started to get really critical of the relationships between what we call people from the North and people from the South.”

The Global North and Global South describe those regions of the world that have more and, respectively, less wealth and power.

Batista applied for the master’s program in Latin American studies at UConn. The program, she says, helped her build an understanding of critical theory. After completing her degree, she returned to Brazil for a year while deciding what to pursue next.

“We were in the midst of the literature festival. I go back home after all those years, after participating in this literature festival since 2002, for 14 years, every summer,” she says. “[While there,] I learned that the media program was going to be entirely cut. I was enraged.”

Batista ended up in a meeting with the secretary of education for Paraty, whom she effectively lobbied for the refunding of the program — a success Batista attributes to the critical academic background she was able to draw on to make her case.

“I was exposed to the right body of work and literature,” she says. “When I go back [to Paraty], all of a sudden the conversation shifts because I could shift the conversation.”

“To me, a Black woman born in a Third World country, ‘not caring’ has never been an option. I think we finally understand that we can only function if all social institutions are functioning. I think collective dependability is a major takeaway during this time.”

— Pauline Batista ’16 MA,  Ph.D. student

Supporting Youth’s Voice
That experience, Batista says, helped her realize she ought to take the opportunity to expand her skill set even more.

“That was when I thinking, ‘Maybe I should really get a Ph.D.’ Because people like me typically don’t have a voice,” Batista says. “But if they have the right education, all of a sudden, they have a voice. All of a sudden, the door is open.”

Batista decided to enrolled as a doctoral student at the Neag School’s Department of Educational Leadership.

“That was a really important moment in my life because my skill set really came together,” she says. “Everything clicked.”

In the Ph.D. program, Batista has learned about youth-led research methodologies and participatory filmmaking projects, bridging her experience at Flip to her research. She focused her doctoral research on international organizations and Latin American education.

“The whole idea is to showcase how it is that international organizations have power over education in Latin America,” she says.

Batista conducts her research through Youth Participatory Action Research, a research model that involves collaboration and co-ownership of research work with youth. For Batista, this means co-authoring papers, co-creating filmmaking projects about local education, and organizing local events.

“We’re going to be bringing the youth together to make short films, and the youth are going to have ownership of the short films, and they can use them as they please,” she says. “If that means [they will] call attention to policymakers or send that to film festivals, they are entitled to doing that. It’s their films that we produce together.”

Batista says her work with youth is about supporting youth’s voice.

“In my work as a researcher,” she says, “I come from an understanding where youth do not have a voice unless youth have the educational skill set or the educational apparatus.”

Her doctoral advisor, Casey Cobb (he/him/his), Neag Professor of Educational Policy, reaffirms Batista’s passion.

“Pauline is passionate about issues related to educational equity, and is particularly focused on policies that promote (and inhibit) educational access to marginalized students,” he says. “I see her impacting education policy not only in Brazil, but in other Latin American countries.”

‘Collective Dependability’

UConn alumna Pauline Batista Souza da Silva carries the torch at the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio.
UConn alumna Pauline Batista Souza da Silva carries the torch at the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio.

In addition to her doctoral studies, Batista works as the program specialist for the African American Cultural Center (AACC) at UConn. She began there as a graduate assistant and, because of her work, was honored with the 2019 Graduate Student of the Year Award from UConn’s NAACP Youth & College Division. This past March, she was honored by the division once again, with the 2020 Faculty of the Year Award.

“When you work at a cultural center at a very large institution like UConn” she says. “You really have to be ready to do anything, from stepping in and teaching a class or being a guest lecturer to managing 34 student staff.”

Wilena Kimpson Price, Director of the AACC, comments “Pauline is a phenomenal woman. She is adept in all aspects of planning and organizing events and programs.  Her technology and media skills are extraordinary.” She adds “Pauline has an extraordinary skill set and she has a work ethic and commitment to excellence that is unparalleled.”

Batista has also been doing some community organizing virtually. In June, she helped to plan and moderate a virtual town hall co-sponsored by the AACC titled “Racism and the COVID–19 Pandemic in the African American Community.”

“I feel like everyone is being ‘forced to care,’” she says in reflecting on the University community’s and the country’s response to this year’s protests against police brutality and racism. “To me, a Black woman born in a Third World country, ‘not caring’ has never been an option. I think we finally understand that we can only function if all social institutions are functioning. I think collective dependability is a major takeaway during this time.

“I can only speak for the Black experience in Brazil, where 23 Black young men die per day on average due to drug dealing and police brutality. I’ve lost students, in fact, a student who is part of one of the collectives I do research with in Brazil,” she adds. “After George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and so many Black lives [lost] in the midst of this pandemic, along with many other race-related incidents, I feel like bigger channels of communication have been using their voices to learn more and try to help more.”

With only two more courses remaining in her doctoral program, Batista envisions herself working to further the reach and impact these emerging voices – ultimately in a career in school administration.

“I love seeking resources and helping students. That’s my passion,” she says.

Follow Batista on Instagram @pblessed.

Reimagining the Ballpark Experience Amid COVID-19

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Andrew Girard.
“It’s really all about utilizing your resources and building a very strong network,” says Andrew Girard ’19 MA, stadium operations manager for the Hartford Yard Goats. (Photo courtesy of Andrew Girard)

Baseball is a staple of the summertime, but stadiums that would normally be filled with excited fans to cheer on their favorite team are now empty. The COVID-19 pandemic has caused a season setback and a reimagination of the traditional ballpark experience.

Andrew Girard MA ’19 has been preparing for baseball’s opening day since this past September. As the stadium operations manager for the Hartford Yard Goats, Girard oversees the maintenance and facility enhancement projects at Dunkin’ Donuts Park in Hartford, Connecticut. When he learned that the season start date would be delayed due to COVID-19, he and his team began creating systems to ensure that fans would feel comfortable and safe when they were able to return to the park. 

“It really is a brainstorm between everybody involved to make sure that all of us can get back on our feet when this gets going and that we can be successful at executing it,” says Girard.

The pandemic has brought several logistics into question, such as how fans will be seated in the park and how they will get concessions. Girard says the Yard Goats have a variety of planning phases in place that abide by guidelines set by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration. They also must abide by the regulations set by the city of Hartford and the state of Connecticut to determine what capacity the stadium can reach.

“I am confident that we are moving in the right direction and talking to the right people, and we are going to have a plan that serves,” says Girard.

Finding a Career Through Sport

Sports have always been an integral part of Girard’s life. He played baseball during his first two years at Eastern Connecticut State University and then chose to focus solely on his academics in sport management for the remainder of his undergraduate career. He landed his first internship at Rentschler Field, working as a stadium operation assistant, a role that allowed him to build the foundation for his future career.

“I am confident that my education with the Neag School had helped me build that response plan to what it is today, from the way it was organized, to how it was written and the principles used.”

— Andrew Girard MA ’19

Working closely with UConn personnel at Rentschler, Girard networked and secured an internship with the UConn Athletics Department in the spring of his senior year. His internship supervisor and former event management director of UConn Athletics, Danielle Upham MA ’16, along with his professors at Eastern, encouraged him to pursue his master’s degree at the Neag School of Education. When he was accepted into the Neag School’s sport management program, he says he saw it as an opportunity to invest in himself and build his credentials as a professional in the sport world.

“It’s really all about utilizing your resources and building a very strong network,” says Girard. “I went from Rentschler to UConn Athletics to graduate school and then from graduate school to the Yard Goats, all based on people I had met from each experience,” says Girard.

Becoming a Professional

The greatest lesson Girard says he learned in his time at the Neag School was how to portray himself as a strong professional. He found himself better equipped to hold meaningful conversations, ask questions, and step in when needed. He says the Neag School’s sport management program allowed him to bring expertise to the field that he had not acquired during his undergraduate career.

“What you put in is what you get out of things, and I took the opportunity to really focus on my academics, on my skill sets, on my writing, on my reading, and on my ability to articulate conversations as it relates to the field of sports management,” says Girard about his time at the Neag School.

In his role at Dunkin’ Donuts Park, Girard took on the rewriting of the emergency evacuation plan for the 2020 season. This project required extensive risk assessment and organization in order to be properly executed, all of which he says are skills he learned at UConn.

“I am confident that my education with the Neag School had helped me build that response plan to what it is today, from the way it was organized, to how it was written and the principles used,” says Girard.

Joseph Cooper, former sport management faculty at the Neag School, served as Girard’s advisor and mentor throughout his time at the Neag School. Girard says Cooper helped him apply what he was learning in the classroom toward being a better professional in the sport management field.

“He uses sport as a platform to change the way people think about things,” Girard says of Cooper. “The way he invests himself into his passion and dreams inspired me to do the same in my work.”

Giving Back

Girard says the sport management faculty at the Neag School all served as a valuable resource to him and he makes it a point to stay in touch with them and offer his assistance to students. He participates in the School’s annual Career Night in Sports and in the student-led UConn Sport Business Conference, two events that provide students with the ability to learn from and foster connections with sport management alumni.

“Andrew is always willing to stay in contact with our students after these events,” says Laura Burton, sport management professor and head of the Department of Educational Leadership. “He really goes above and beyond to give back to the program.”

Girard says he relied on alumni as a resource for career development and opportunities during his time at UConn, so he wanted to make himself a resource to students and support their growth within the field of sport.

When students ask him what they need to do in order to be successful in the field, Girard says networking is the most valuable tool they can utilize.

“I am a firm believer in the power of networking and that when you do network, you don’t ask for a job but rather ask what that person does and show that you are interested in helping out,” says Girard. “It’s the hard work you put in and your ability to recognize what other people are looking for in their employees that will allow you to be successful.”

Burton says Girard continues to foster connections with the Neag School faculty and has proven himself to be successful at an early stage in his career.

“I have no doubt he will continue on a path to leading a sport organization in the future,” says Burton. “And he will lead it with integrity, compassion, and with a commitment to diversity and inclusion.”

At the time of the reporting for this article, the Hartford Yard Goats had planned on a revised schedule and modified guest accommodations in response to the pandemic. Since publication, Minor League Baseball has cancelled the season and most of the staff, including Girard, have been furloughed.