Dr. Rashné Jehangir

Rashné Jehangir, PhD. is a professor of higher education, assistant dean of education opportunity program, and Robert H. Beck Chair of Ideas in the College of Education and Human Development at the University of Minnesota—Twin Cities. She began her career as an advisor for first-generation, low income college students in the federally funded SSS TRIO program at the University of Minnesota. Her research and praxis interests focus on experience of low-income, first-generation students, critical pedagogy and identity development; learning communities and design and structure of undergraduate programs including First Year Experience Programs and partnerships with student services, advising and student affairs.

As a scholar practitioner, she is particularly interested in how research influences practice in student development, pedagogy and advising and is equally interested in how praxis informs research and illuminates gaps that are worthy of inquiry toward justice and equity. Considering the intersectionality and positionality of first-gen identity and the specific context of our institutions and programs is critical to her work. Her current research includes photo voice study of experience and identities of first-gen, low-income college students, NSF-funded study of mentoring for underrepresented students in STEM fields and the experience of first-gen students in graduate school.

Jehangir teaches in the First Year Experience program in the college and in the Higher Education graduate programs. She is also the Director of Undergraduate Studies in the Department of Organizational Policy, Leadership and Development, 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.

She is regularly invited to speak at faculty and staff development institutes around the country at public, private and community colleges and has presented at numerous conferences including ASHE, FYE and AACU and NASPA. She has served on the board of the Journal of First Year Experience and is currently on the board of Journal of Learning Communities in Practice (LCRP) and Higher Education Research & Development (HERD).

[Source: https://firstgen.naspa.org/biography/rashn-jehangir1]