Assistant Professor of Higher Education
Assistant Professor
EDUCATIONAL LEADERSHIP AND POLICY
Access and Equity; Diversity; Immigrant Issues; Higher Education; Race, Inequality, and Education; Legal Issues
Dr. Stephen Santa-Ramirez (he/him/his) is an Assistant Professor of Higher Education at the University at Buffalo (UB), which operates on the unceded ancestral territory of the Seneca Nation of the Haudenosaunee Six Nations Confederacy. His vast experiences in U.S. higher education and student affairs include work in Multicultural and LGBT+ Affairs, Residential Life and Housing Services, and Migrant Student Services. In addition to teaching at UB, Dr. Santa-Ramirez has taught for the Philadelphia Freedom Schools, Michigan State University, The University of Texas at Arlington, and Arizona State University.
Dr. Santa Ramirez's personal and professional experiences in higher education – and identity as a scholar-practitioner-advocate – have played formative roles in the development of his research agenda, which centers on the lives and knowledge of historically marginalized and economically neglected students. Broadly, he investigates the historical, ideological, and structural inequities that impact Black, Latinx, Indigenous, migrant, and other marginalized communities. Particularly, by employing critical and asset-based frameworks, he investigates campus racial climate, transitions and belongingness of first-generation students of Color, college student activism and resistance, and the various ways race, ethnicity, im/migration status and policy inform the educational experiences of collegians who are undocu/DACAmented.
In addition to authoring a host of book chapters, some of his recently published peer-reviewed articles can be located in The Review of Higher Education, NASPA's Journal of First-generation Student Success, Journal of Diversity in Higher Education, International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, Journal of Hispanic Higher Education, Journal of Negro Education, Education Sciences, and New Directions for Higher Education.
Dr. Santa-Ramirez is an Associate Editor for the College Student Affairs Journal (CSAJ), and the 2023 invited special issue editor for New Directions for Higher Education (journal) centering on the experiences of undocumented college students.
Dr. Santa-Ramirez is a 2022 National Academy of Education (NAEd)/Spencer Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow and a 2022 Diamond Honoree via ACPA - College Student Educators International, a prestigious honor for professionals who have made and continue to make a tremendous impact in the field of higher education and student affairs. He also received the 2023 UB Pillar of Leadership and the 2022 UB GSE S.T.A.R. Faculty Teaching awards. Furthermore, in recent years, he has received the Legacy of Leadership honor from West Chester University and was selected as a Fellow for NASPA's Emerging Faculty Leadership Academy, the American Association of Hispanics in Higher Education (AAHHE), and New York University's Faculty First-Look. He is also a Diversity Scholar via the University of Michigan’s National Center for Institutional Diversity and a recipient of the ACPA Latinx Network Community Advancement & Service Award.