Announcing the Inaugural CLAVE Postdoctoral Fellow: Estee Hernández, Ph.D.
Fellow Feels at Home in an HSI and is Ready to Mentor NLU Doctoral Students
The Centro de Excelencia at National Louis University serves as the hub for programs and initiatives that advance our work as a community and career focused Hispanic-Serving Institution (HSI). The CLAVE Postdoctoral Fellowship program is a key activity of the Promoting Post-baccalaureate Opportunities for Hispanic Americans grant from the Hispanic-Serving Institutions Division of the Department of Education.
CLAVE is an acronym for “Comunidades Latinas Académicas con Visión de Éxito,” [Latinx Academic Communities with Vision of Success]. Through its Graduate Student Institute, the Center seeks to increase enrollment of Latinx students in Masters and Doctoral programs, develop and support a network of promising doctoral scholars, and increase their professional networks, writing capacity, and financial and professional knowledge.
The goal of the CLAVE Postdoctoral Fellowship Program, within the CLAVE Graduate Student Institute at National Louis University, is to build the talent pool of Latinx faculty at colleges and universities at both the national and local levels, particularly the metropolitan Chicago area. Successful candidates for the program are selected on the basis of scholarly promise and potential for research and/or community engagement pertaining to Latinx or other BIPOC groups in doctoral education.
The CLAVE Graduate Student Institute is extremely pleased to introduce the 2020-2021 CLAVE Postdoctoral Fellow: Dr. Estee Hernández.
Dr. Estee Hernández (she/ella) is an inaugural CLAVE Postdoctoral Fellow with the Centro de Excelencia at National Louis University. She earned a Ph.D. in Higher Education from Florida State University, a MSEd. in Higher Education & Student Affairs from Baylor University, and a B.A. in French also from Baylor University.
Dr. Hernández is the daughter of Alejandro and María del Rosario and the oldest sister to Alejandro, Jr., and Scottie. Originally from Brownsville, Texas, she is a proud fronteriza “Valley girl,” raised along both sides of the United States-Mexico border. Dr. Hernández is a first-generation high school graduate, college graduate, and doctor.
Dr. Hernández’s experiences as a graduate student motivate her research, which broadly aims to uncover the racism, sexism, classism, and cisheterophobia that are deeply entrenched in higher education policies, practices, and curricula. More specifically, she seeks to amplify the testimonios of Chicana/Latina doctoral students who successfully navigate academia in spite of continued barriers. Through this research, Dr. Hernández aims to influence policy that leads to opportunities for minoritized scholars to enter, and succeed in, the professoriate.
Dr. Hernández has nearly 15 years of student affairs administrative experience in: GEAR UP/TRiO programs, diversity and inclusion, residence life, leadership development, and service learning. Her practice has centered on interrogating community structures: who belongs, who does not, and who has power therein. As an instructor in higher education for over ten years, she has also had the opportunity to cultivate a teaching pedagogy that redistributes power asymmetries in the classroom, validates all learner contributions as legitimate forms of knowledge, and aims for transdisciplinary learning--one that educates for everyday life.
Dr. Hernández has been particularly excited to join the CLAVE team, given the team’s focus on diversifying U.S. graduate programs, with a particular focus on Latinx populations. She has looked forward to the prospect of returning to a Hispanic-Serving Institution and working alongside similarly motivated and inspiring colegas. In particular, she is excited to mentor NLU doctoral students in their academic socialization, scholarly development, and as they cultivate their voices as change-agents in higher education.
The 2021-2022 CLAVE Postdoctoral Fellowship program
The Centro de Excelencia is now accepting applications for the 2021-2022 CLAVE Postdoctoral Fellowship program. The application information is located here: https://nl.edu/centro-de-excelencia-at-nlu/graduate-students/clave-postdoctoral-fellowships/ Please direct questions to CLAVEfellowship@nl.edu.
