Student-Parents

Patriot Profile: Valeria Fernandez

Rebecca Kobayashi — Tue, 09 Apr 2024 18:21:51 +0000

Patriot Profile: Valeria Fernandez Rebecca Kobayashi Tue, 04/09/2024 - 14:21

Valeria Fernandez
Year: Senior
Major: Psychology
Hometown: Woodbridge, Virginia

Valeria Fernandez’s journey as a fellow with Generation Hope’s FamilyU* began even before she arrived on campus. The mother of a three-year-old, Fernandez realized when applying to Mason that the housing application did not account for the needs of student-parents, so she raised the issue and potential solutions in a FamilyU interview. Fernandez, who had just finished an associate’s degree in psychology at Northern Virginia Community College, was selected as Mason’s FamilyU fellow for the 2022–23 cohort.

Valeria Fernandez and her daughter in the child-friendly Contemporary Student Lounge on the Fairfax Campus. Photo by Evan Cantwell/Office of University Branding

Growing into Leadership: Each FamilyU fellow develops an advocacy project during the year. To help address the gap in student-parent mental health care at Mason, Fernandez created a child-friendly support group that focused on mindfulness activities. “Even when I encountered people who would admit to having zero concept of what it’s like to be a student-parent, [Mason] was still a safe, welcoming environment.” She now has greater pride and confidence as a student-parent because of the peers and others she met at Mason who were willing to listen. For Fernandez, it was also encouraging to meet other parents who were pursuing personal dreams alongside raising children.

Advocating for a New Normal: Fernandez says some problems, like how difficult it is for student-parents to meet each other, have simple remedies, like highlighting child-friendly campus activities; but others require long-term solutions, such as changing assumptions about the typical college student. For example, inflexible online tests or assignments present challenges to student-parents with limited child care who may need to schedule an alternate time. Faculty members should recognize that students, whether parenting or working, “have lives outside of being students,” explains Fernandez. “And that doesn't mean that they have less respect for your course.”

Building Momentum: Fernandez currently works as a student-parent ambassador with Mason’s Contemporary Student Services. The mindfulness group she created grew into Student Parent Community Spaces, where student-parents can connect with each other and learn about university services. She is also working to increase student-parent visibility at Mason for potential transfer students. Sometimes her daughter even accompanies her to campus, which Fernandez says she feels comfortable doing because of relationships she is building with colleagues. She has applied to graduate programs at Mason and elsewhere with the goal of someday working in forensic psychology or perhaps pursuing teaching.

* Mason alum Nicole Lynn Lewis, MPP ’06, founded the nonprofit Generation Hope to support young parents and their children as parents pursue further education. Read more about her.

Learn about FamilyU Cohorts

Mason honored for an innovative approach to serving contemporary students

Lauren Reuscher — Wed, 31 Jan 2024 20:50:17 +0000

Mason honored for an innovative approach to serving contemporary students Lauren Reuscher Wed, 01/31/2024 - 15:50

More about Contemporary Student Services

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Contemporary Student Services

��AV’s Contemporary Student Services has been recognized by the National Association of Student Personnel Administrators (NASPA), a leading voice for student affairs, for its innovative approach to serving post-traditional and off-campus students.

Photo by Evan Cantwell/Office of University Branding

Contemporary Student Services (CSS), part of University Life, earned the Bronze Excellence Award for supporting success in "Commuter, Off Campus, Military-Affiliated, Non-Traditional, and Other" student populations. Mason’s approach to serving these students sets it apart from other institutions of higher education. The CSS office launched in 2019 as a first-of-its-kind unit dedicated to serving the multifaceted identities of contemporary students at Mason.

The choice to include a variety of post-traditional student populations under one umbrella was intentional. At Mason, “contemporary students” include those who are adult learners (25 and older), living off-campus, transfer students, married/widowed/divorced, veteran or military-affiliated, returning to college after taking three or more years off, pregnant or parenting, or previously in the foster-care system. The definition is flexible and may continue to grow.

“Contemporary Student Services provides the latitude to evolve alongside our student population and remain flexible and inclusive,” said Joisanne Rodgers, director of Contemporary Student Services. “Mason didn't take the path of creating individual units to serve specific contemporary populations, because most contemporary students hold more than one of those identities—for example, they're a military-affiliated student parent living off-campus. The Venn diagram of contemporary student identities has a lot of intersections.”

Kids Zone in the Contemporary Student Lounge. Photo by Joisanne Rodgers/Contemporary Student Services

The Contemporary Student Lounge, in The Hub on the Fairfax Campus, is a place of refuge and support for these students. The space includes a well-equipped Kid’s Zone with age-appropriate furnishings, books, and activities. The lounge is staffed with contemporary student employees and peer mentors who help serve these students and connect them to the broader Mason community. The space has proven to be a vital resource. Last year, the lounge relocated to a larger space to accommodate the growing number of students using it.

"It's a great privilege to work with a team of innovators who not only put our students first, but also work incredibly hard to ensure we're seeing and recognizing the unique students in front of us,” Rodgers said. “The contemporary student population at Mason keeps growing, and we're honored to be part of the support network and village that advocates, celebrates, educates, and serves our contemporary students.”

Mason will be formally recognized for its work in Contemporary Student Services at the NASPA annual conference in March. View the complete list of awardees.

FamilyU cohort supports student-parents on campus

Colleen Rich — Wed, 23 Aug 2023 18:13:45 +0000

FamilyU cohort supports student-parents on campus Colleen Rich Wed, 08/23/2023 - 14:13

Attending college as a student-parent can come with work, family, and financial responsibilities. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, more than one-fifth of all college students are student-parents. That’s nearly 4 million college students with children.

��AV team with members of Generation Hope's Learning and Innovation Team attending the 2023 FamilyU Cohort celebration at the Martin Luther King Library in Washington, D.C. Photo provided

At ��AV, parenting and expecting students are seen as valued contributors to the community. To augment existing resources available to student-parents on campus, Mason’s senior leadership partnered with Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit Generation Hope to better support this student population.

Founded by Mason alum Nicole Lynn Lewis, Generation Hope focuses on supporting student parents through mentorship, financial resources, and systems- and policy-based advocacy.

“Mason and University Life have been working with Generation Hope since 2017—initially working to set up a partnership with the organization to eventually supporting student-parents at Mason through their Scholars program,” said Sally Lorentson, assistant vice president of University Life.

In August 2021, Mason joined Generation Hope’s inaugural FamilyU Cohort, which is a comprehensive, customized, evidence-based, two-year capacity-building experience designed to build and refine institutional competencies to improve student parent success. Mason was one of four institutions participating.

"Being an advocate for student-parents means I get to use my voice and experiences to shed more light on the resources and options available, while also helping to create more so as to bridge any gaps."
- Valeria Fernandez, FamilyU Student-Parent Fellow

“Being among the first cohort of FamilyU means that we were able to work alongside and in collaboration with other [Washington, D.C. area] colleges and universities who have committed to making their campuses more family-friendly,” said Shyama Kuver, associate director of Contemporary Student Services at Mason.

“FamilyU [helps] institutions identify barriers, set goals, and stay focused to achieve them, while working alongside advocates and experts in the work of supporting student-parents,” Lorentson said. For the FamilyU Cohort experience, Mason targeted four main areas of the campus ecosystem: people, policy, culture, and data.

Based on national and Mason-specific qualitative and quantitative research, Generation Hope provided Mason with a work plan that supported Contemporary Student Services and the Student-Parent Task Force to make direct impact on student-parents’ access to success and support campus partners in connecting with these students.

“Some of the direct benefits of this work were more consistent and robust student-parent and family-friendly programs across the three Mason campuses in Virginia, a toolkit from Counseling and Psychological Services that speaks to the many mental and emotional well-being obstacles that student parents may face, and the expansion of child-friendly spaces on campus,” Kuver said. 

Kuver shared that Generation Hope also “provided funding for us to have a student-parent fellow who supported our efforts by connecting directly with other student-parents and hosting a monthly student-parent community gathering.”

Throughout the two-year program, Mason student-parent fellow and psychology major Valeria Fernandez provided great insight by offering her lived experience as a student-parent at Mason. Fernandez also helped kick off the first Student Parent Outdoor Fun Day event on Aug. 5 through the Student Parent Community Spaces program she helped establish.

The time I spent as a FamilyU Fellowship member was something that I will never forget because it completely changed my student-parent experience for the better.

"Being a student-parent fellow helped foster a new level of pride and confidence that I did not have before," said Fernandez, who has a three-year-old daughter. "It also helped me see another layer to being a student-parent that I didn’t even realize before. Student-parents are not only changing their own future along with our families, but we are also providing our children with the knowledge that they can do anything they put their minds to by setting the example for them."

The FamilyU Cohort celebrated its “finale” in July at the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Library in Washington, D.C.

Looking ahead, Mason is considering additional funding for the program through grants, actively seeking the FamilyU seal from Generation Hope, and leading the Student Parent Task Force, which was commissioned by Provost Mark Ginsberg and University Life Vice President Rose Pascarell last fall.

Learn more about FamilyU

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Mason alumna, Generation Hope founder recognized as a leader for racial justice

Mariam Aburdeineh — Thu, 19 Nov 2020 05:00:00 +0000

Mason alumna, Generation Hope founder recognized as a leader for racial justice Mariam Aburdeineh Thu, 11/19/2020 - 00:00

Nicole Lynn Lewis was named one of 31 inaugural awardees of the Black Voices for Black Justice Fund.

For Nicole Lynn Lewis, Master’s in Public Policy ’06, completing her undergraduate degree as a single mom not only opened doors of opportunity, but symbolized how far she had come despite the challenges involved.

With an overwhelming desire to help other young parents earn their degrees, but finding no organizations in the Washington, D.C. area with such a mission, she founded Generation Hope in 2010.

Since then, the organization has reported helping more than 200 teen parents in college and their children with mentoring, emotional support and financial resources, providing more than $800,000 in tuition assistance, and celebrating 93 college degrees.

For her impact, the ��AV alumna was recently named one of 31 inaugural awardees of the Black Voices for Black Justice Fund, an initiative championed by actress Kerry Washington, philanthropic leader Wes Moore, among others, that draws on $10 million to invest in Black leaders across the United States working on issues of racial justice.

“It means everything to have someone say, ‘We see you and we honor the work that you’re doing and what your vision is for the world,’” Lewis said. “It’s a validation of [teen parents’] experiences and how important it is that we support their dreams for their futures, because that is so connected to the journey that we’re on as a country for racial equity and justice.”

About 90% of the students Generation Hope works with are students of color, said Lewis, who has also been named a CNN Hero, a Minority Business Leader by Washington Business Journal and a “Top 40 Under 40” by Washingtonian. Funds from the award will be used to support Generation Hope’s mission and continue to tell the story of why teen parents’ success matters.

“[Teen parents] have so much to offer their communities [and they] tend to have higher GPAs than their peers, but there are so many systemic barriers and hurdles to their success,” Lewis said. “As we talk about higher ed, as we talk about solutions to poverty, and as we talk about racial equity and justice, we have to be talking about helping this population thrive.”

In her professional career, Lewis said she still draws on the skills she learned at Mason.

“A big takeaway for me was understanding the unintended consequences of legislation,” Lewis said. “As students, we were encouraged to uncover and ask the right questions and that’s been really helpful in the work that I do now when we’re thinking about free college efforts, financial aid reform, or how do we increase SNAP benefits to cover college students and be more accessible to college students.”

“Nicole is changing lives for the better every day,” said Schar School Dean Mark J. Rozell. “With her ability she could have chosen any other path professionally and made a lot of money, but instead she followed her passion to help people.”

“It’s gratifying to see people who never sought personal reward be recognized for doing good,” Rozell said. “I’m very proud of her. She represents the best of Mason.”

Nicole Lynn Lewis (left) with Mason alumna Karen Escobar, who received support from Generation Hope while a student, in 2019. Photo by Lathan Goumas

Schar School fact: The Schar School has achieved remarkable racial and ethnic diversity, with 36 percent of students coming from minority backgrounds. ��AV is a majority-minority institution.

Schar School of Policy and Government

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