My experience as an American Association of Hispanics in Higher Education (AAHHE) Graduate Fellow this past year has forever changed my experience in the academy, more so than I had ever expected. I first learned about the AAHHE Graduate Fellows Program from a faculty member whom I met while acquiring my master’s degree at Miami University. Now a dear friend and mentor, Dr. David Pérez II highly encouraged me to apply when I began my doctoral program at The Ohio State University in the 2016–2017 year. I applied without knowing what to expect.  Looking back on it, the AAHHE Graduate Fellows Program was everything that I needed.

Before attending AAHHE’s annual conference and participating in the Graduate Fellows program, I began pursuing a Ph.D. in higher education and student affairs because I wanted to positively impact the lives of college students with historically marginalized identities. As a first-generation college student from Phoenix, Arizona, I started my undergraduate career at New York University confused about what my purpose would be in life. Moreover, during this time, I was making sense of my racial identity and how it intersected with my sexuality. As a queer Latino man, I have constantly asked myself the question of how I fit within the academy. The mentors I found at NYU helped me along in this personal journey, leading me to discover that I would want to do the same for other students in the future. Nevertheless, to this day, I continue to struggle with navigating higher education institutions that were not built for me. As a doctoral student, I have searched for communities that embrace my identities and affirm my voice as a scholar. The AAHHE Graduate Fellows Program created this very space for me.

The sessions we attended throughout the program showed us how to embrace our worth in the academy. Furthermore, I will forever be thankful for the scholars who took their time to share the ways they shaped their careers and the important decisions they encountered along the way. Finally, I remember taking a look around the room whenever I was with the other AAHHE graduate fellows and thinking how lucky I was to share a space with such incredibly talented, brilliant and kind individuals. I know I will learn from these fellows for years to come. These are the people who have encouraged me to always be my holistic self as I embark on my scholarly career. Moving forward, I want to reimagine higher education scholarship and practices by centering students with multiple marginalized identities, recognizing that they have a unique perspective to contribute as we envision equitable educational institutions. As an aspiring faculty member, I recognize that it is my responsibility to give back to the communities that have provided me with so much over the years. AAHHE is certainly one of these communities that I look forward to serving in years to come. •