Advancing Full Citizenship for First-Gen Students in the Academy

Rashné Jehangir, PhD. is the Beck Chair of Ideas and a Morse Alumni Distinguished Teaching Professor in College of Education and Human Development at the University of Minnesota – Twin Cities.  An Associate Professor of Higher Education and Director of Undergraduate Studies, she began her career as an advisor for first-generation, low-income college students in the federally funded TRIO SSS and McNair Programs at the U of MN. She teaches in both the undergraduate and higher education graduate programs in CEHD.

Her research interests focus on equity and access with specific attention to the experience of low-income, first-generation college students, critical pedagogy, identity development and design and structure of First Year Experience Programs.   Her current research includes photo voice study of intersectional identities of first-gen undergraduate students, an NSF funded study focused on mentoring for underrepresented students in STEM fields, and a new study on experiences of first-generation college students who enter graduate school. Her scholarship is featured in several journals including Journal of College Student Development, Innovative Higher Education, Urban Education and the Journal of the First-Year Experience and Students in Transition.  Her book Higher Education and First-Generation College Students: Cultivating Community, Voice and Place for the New Majority was published by Palgrave Macmillan.