Friday, April 29, 2022 from 1:00-2:30pm CST Via Zoom
This event is hosted by the systemwide Caregiving Task Force and Co-Sponsored by the Women’s and Gender Studies Consortium and UW System IDEAS Alliance. This event is free and open to the public. CART captioning will be provided. A recorded version of the event will be available on our webpage after the video is captioned.
Our conversation will focus on the research and data-informed strategies to advance policy and system-level changes for (and in collaboration with) student caregivers. Our panel features national experts in the area of non-traditional college students, parent success strategies, family-friendly campus initiatives, and equity and educational civil rights for student caregivers (broadly defined). This forum builds on the work of the systemwide caregiving task force.
Featured Speakers:
Autumn R. Green, M.Ed., Ph.D., is an applied sociologist and Research Scientist at Wellesley Centers for Women, where she directs the Higher Education Access for Parenting Students Research Initiative,and is also a Non-Resident Fellow at the Urban Institute, where she works with the Income & Benefits Policy Center and the Building America’s Workforce Team. As nationally recognized applied sociologist & interdisciplinary scholar, for the past 20 years, the vast majority of Dr. Green’s work has reflected collaborative research and action partnerships with scholars, researchers, practitioners, advocates, and pregnant & parenting students (and sometimes their kids too), working together for transformational impact on the fields of Higher Education and Two-Generation Postsecondary & Occupational Mobility Pathways from Poverty by and for student parent families across the United States. In her earlier life, Dr. Green was a young mother of two, working her way from GED to PhD. She also witnessed both her parents attend college at various points across her childhood.
Olivia McCants, MS is the Assistant Director of Career Services at the Johns Hopkins University’s Bloomberg School of Public Health. She provides comprehensive career education to graduate students and alumni in multi-disciplinary public health departments. She oversees professional development resources for these constituents, develops and conducts workshops on job search techniques and related issues, and provides outreach to employers and external partners.
In her roles prior to Hopkins, she served as a Career Advisor, Employer Relations Specialist and Associate Director of Employer Relations at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. She is a two-time alumna of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, as she holds a Master of Science in Administrative Leadership, with an emphasis in Higher Education and Administration and a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology.
Olivia transitioned from a traditional college student to a student caregiver when she had her daughter in her junior year of her undergraduate studies. Now, as a mother of two children, expecting her third and married to her college sweetheart, she recognizes the difficulties and triumphs of being a student caregiver as a pivotal turning point that propelled her forward.
Victoria Frank, Ph.D. is a partner at Marigold Evaluation, LLC, where she uses qualitative and quantitative methods to design and implement evaluations of social and educational programs. She holds a PhD in social welfare and a master’s degree in public affairs from the University of Wisconsin – Madison. Her research interests focus on the postsecondary experiences of students facing socioeconomic disadvantage, and her dissertation followed the college progress of low-income student parents as they worked towards undergraduate degrees. Tora is also an award-winning instructor at the University of Wisconsin – Madison, where she teaches courses in social welfare policy to undergraduate and graduate students in the University of Wisconsin’s Sandra Rosenbaum School of Social Work.
Damira Grady, Ph.D. is an established role model and an advocate for equity and social justice. Dr. Grady desires to forge multidisciplinary partnerships, both on- and off-campus, by creating leadership opportunities, supporting student success, and increasing social mobility for structurally excluded populations. Dr. Grady brings an extensive leadership background in supporting vulnerable populations and works tirelessly at refining processes, policies, and programs that support an inclusive educational environment. Having served as an adjunct faculty member for many years, Dr. Grady believes student success is the net product of successful collaboration between Academic and Student Affairs.
As the Associate Vice Chancellor for Academic Support of Inclusive Excellence and University Diversity Officer at the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh, Dr. Grady leads the development of student programs and support services in the Division of Academic Support of Inclusive Excellence. Additionally, Dr. Grady serves as a member of the Chancellor’s Cabinet and is a leader and thought partner to all Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion initiatives on campus. Through this work, Dr. Grady is committed to engaging in purposeful learning and dialogue, shared leadership, and action that serves to ensure a sense of community and belonging for all students, faculty, and staff–including those who are Black, Brown, Asian and/or Pacific Islander, Latino/a/x/Hispanic, and Indigenous, students who are differently-abled or neurodiverse, students who experience poverty, students of different religious faiths, students of different gender and sexual identities, students who are culturally and linguistically diverse, and their intersections. She is also a licensed professional counselor and utilizes those skills to ensure that all programming, policies, and procedures consider the whole person.
Dr. Grady, a first-generation college graduate, holds a Ph.D. in the advancement of learning and service in higher education from Cardinal Stritch University, a Master of Science in educational psychology with an emphasis in community counseling from the UW-Milwaukee, and a Bachelor of Science in educational studies from the UW-Milwaukee.