Nichole Garcia

Nichole Margarita Garcia, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Higher Education, has always been interested in teaching as well as reading and writing books that reflected her experience as a Chicana/Puerto Rican. From her experience in college classrooms and K-12 settings, Garcia was immersed in community partnerships working with elementary, secondary, and post-secondary students of color. Exposing these students to various college campuses and the different disciplines available to them fascinated and led her to realize that she had a very strong interest in education. Upon realizing the low statistics of Latinas and Chicanas in higher education – only 1% go on to graduate with a Ph.D. – her willingness to ensure that her community had access to education became the driving force in her research. Focusing on comparative studies of Chicanx/a/o and Puerto Rican students, her research addresses group differences and the need to disaggregate to best articulate sources of support and barriers in terms of college access and completion. In particular, she studies Chicanx/a/o and Puerto Rican families that have completed a bachelor’s degree or higher to try to understand how intergenerational resources are utilized. Aligning herself with the anti-deficit perspective, her work confronts institutional issues and how they can be addressed to grant families the resources they need for pursuing a higher education.

Garcia is alum of the Ronald E. McNair Post Baccalaureate Achievement program which she credits for putting her on the path to graduate school. She received her Master’s degree in Chicana and Chicano Studies from the University of California, Santa Barbara. Continued her studies at the University of California, Los Angeles and received a Ph.D. in Social Science and Comparative Education with a specialization in Race and Ethnic Studies. Garcia has published in Race, Ethnicity, and Education, The Journal of Latinos in Education, Journal of Hispanic Higher Education, and Frontiers. She is an avid blogger for Diverse Issues in Higher Education, and writes the college preparation column for Motivos, a bilingual magazine for Latinx high schools students throughout the nation.

• Expertise & Research Interest

  Higher Education & College Access

  Race, Ethnic, & Gender Studies

• Recent & Selected Publications

  Martinez, A., & Garcia, N.M. (2018) #HuelgaUPR: The Kidnapping of the University of Puerto Rico, Students Activism, and the Era of Trump. Frontiers: Education.*invited contributors for a special issue of Minority Serving Institutions and Student Activism in the Era of Trump

  Mireles-Rios, R & Garcia, N.M. (2018) Undergraduate student perspectives at a Hispanic Serving Institution: The importance of mentoring relationships. Journal of Latinos and Education.

  Garcia, N.M., Lopez, N., Velez, V. (2018). Rectifying quantitative methods through critical race theory. Race, Ethnicity, and Education.

  Garcia, N. M. & Mayorga, O. (2018). The threat of unexamined secondary data: A critical race transformative convergent mixed method. Race, Ethnicity, and Education.

  Garcia, N.M. & Mireles-Rios, R. (March 2019). Historical Development of Multiculturalism and Diversity in Student Affairs Practice. In N. Zhang & M. Howard-Hamilton (Eds.) Multicultural and Diversity Issues in Student Affairs Practice: A Professional Competency-Based Approach.

  Garcia, N. M. & Solórzano, D.G. (2018) Foreword: Máscaras, trenzas, y greñas. In A. Batista, S. Collado, & D. Perez (Eds.) Latinx Perspectives in Higher Education: Exploring Identity, Pathways and Success. Washington, D.C.: NASPA

• Clinical Experience

  Assistant Professor, Rutgers University (2018)

  Lecturer, University of Pennsylvania (2017-2018)

  Teaching Fellow, University of California, Los Angeles (2014-2016)

  Teaching Assistant, University of California, Los Angeles (2014-2015)

  Teaching Assistant, University of California, Santa Barbara (2011-2012)

• Honors & Awards

  Dissertation Fellow, Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Inter-University Program for Latino Research

  Regents Fellow, University of California, Los Angeles

  Graduate Student Summer Mentorship Fellow, University of California, Los Angeles

  Regents Fellow, University of California, Los Angeles

  Jose Tarango and Susana Escamilla de Tarango Graduate Student Fellow, University of Santa Barbara

  SAGE Diversity Fellow, University of Santa Barbara

  AERA Conference Undergraduate Fellow, American Educational Research Association

  Designated Undergraduate Research Scholar, University of Utah

  Ronald E. McNair Post Baccalaureate Achievement Program Fellow, University of Utah

  Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program (UROP) Fellow, University of Utah

  Utah Opportunity Scholarship Fellow, University of Utah

• Files

  Download Nichole Garcia’s CV