Attendee Engagement Committee

Written by Amanda Carr and Gina Garcia,
2024 Attendee Engagement Committee Co-Chairs

This year’s conference theme, “I Am A Scholar,” invites us to reflect on what it means to be a scholar and to do scholarly work. As the Attendee Engagement Committee, we view our role as an opportunity to create spaces for ASHE scholars to learn, connect, think, act, and rest. Embracing the breadth and depth of experience and expertise represented in ASHE, our committee is made up of scholars from different organizational and professional perspectives across the higher education ecosystem, including faculty, graduate students, postdoctoral scholars, and professionals from the policy and nonprofit sectors. This allows us to define what it means to be a scholar beyond normative means. With gratitude, we continue the work done by last year’s inaugural Attendee Engagement and Wellness Committees whose vision created a meaningful 2023 conference experience.

As a committee, we acknowledge the heaviness of current global, political, and social struggles and the ways they impact us as individuals and as a scholarly community. Many of us draw strength and motivation for our work from engagement with our communities – important scholarly work that often goes unacknowledged. As we plan, our committee is contemplating the role of activism in our scholarship and how we can incorporate this important dimension of being a scholar as part of the conference experience. We also recognize the importance of pauses, rest, and connection to nurture our scholarly work. Collectively we are working to add these important aspects of being a scholar to our more traditional ways of engaging beyond the concurrent sessions including the Newcomers’ Breakfast, the presidential sessions, and the newly added celebration of promotion and tenure.

We wish to acknowledge the hard work of ASHE scholars to center values of inclusion, equity, and organizational justice. As we explore who we are as a scholarly organization, we ask you to consider what it means to engage meaningfully in the ASHE community. In particular, we acknowledge the work of the 2023 ASHE Conference Accessibility Committee and the 2020-2022 CEP Accessibility and Equity/Inclusion Sub-Committee to create the "Access (Un)Statement", available at ashe.ws/disabilityjustice2023 for your continued reflection.

The Attendee Engagement Committee includes:

Co-Chairs
Amanda Carr, University of Missouri
Gina Garcia, University of California, Berkeley

Accessibility Advisor/Advocate
Georgina Rivera-Singletary, Saint Leo University

Committee Members
Adeline De Angelis, SIT Graduate Institute
Marjorie Dorimé-Williams, MDRC
Tranquilino (Kino) Hurtado, Salt Lake City Community College
Jarett Lujan, Texas Tech University
Beth Nahlik, Kent State University
Andréa Rodriguez, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
Jasmine Victor, University of Texas at San Antonio
Brittany Williams, University of Vermont
Johnnie Yaj (John Yang), University of California, Los Angeles