Kiyama recognized for Outstanding Contribution to Literature

Dr. Judy Marquez Kiyama, Associate Professor of Higher Education, has been awarded the 2020 Parent and Family Relations Knowledge Community (PFRKC) Outstanding Contribution to Literature Award from the National Association of Student Personnel Administrators (NASPA) for her work with Dr. Casandra Harper, Associate Professor, University of Missouri.

Kiyama and Harper have created a body of research that helps the field of higher education counteract the widely used characterizations of parents as helicopters, bulldozers, and lawnmowers. Through their publications, they demonstrate how engagement with families of first-generation, low-income, and students of color can lead to inclusive paradigms of student success.

“I am very grateful to receive this recognition from the PFRKC, particularly because members of the PFRKC are involved in daily efforts to engage parents and families in inclusive and supportive ways,” said Kiyama. “I am also grateful to be able to carry out this research alongside Dr. Harper.”

The 2020 Parent and Family Relations Knowledge Community Outstanding Contribution to Literature Award was established in 2017 to recognize a professional in the field of parent and family programs who has had an important impact on the body of knowledge about, and practices of, engaging parents and families in an institution of higher learning and whose achievements have advanced this profession on any of its aspects. Award winners are chosen by the PFRKC , which is comprised of about a dozen members across the United States whose work support the advancement and impact the parent and family population has on the success of college students. Together, the committee discussed and selected the nominee who met and scored high on the following criteria:

• The nomination contributes to the field of higher education.
• The nomination contributes to the topic of engaging parents and families through research, scholarly work, or other publication.
• The nomination recognizes work published within 5 years.

Dr. Kathy Adams Riester, Associate Vice Provost for Student Affairs and Executive Associate Dean of Students at Indiana University, who nominated Kiyama and Harper, said in her nomination “they demonstrate how engagement with families of first-generation, low-income, and students of color can lead to inclusive paradigms of student success. They offer a new conceptual framework of parental engagement, The Model of Parent Characteristics, Engagement, and Support, that offers institutions an alternative way to view the engagement that families of first-generation, low-income, and students of color provide but that might be missed by the institution (Kiyama & Harper, 2018).”

Riester continued, “The value of their work over the past five years is that they have sought to understand the experiences of this population and have captured the voices of their participants, including both the families of first-generation college students, and the staff and administrators who help serve them in their work on campus. The implications that they offer are then applicable to both families and institutions, with the onus for change laying almost exclusively with institutions.”

“It is an honor knowing that our scholarship offers the possibility of informing practice,” Kiyama said. “The next phases of our work include developing a quantitative measure and further exploring how components of the model influence student success.”