Dr. Vanessa Sansone has used her personal background of being a first-generation college student and growing up in a low-income community as influence for her teachings and research on underrepresented groups.
Sansone, who is an assistant professor of Higher Education Administration in the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies at the University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA), was raised on the east side of San Antonio which she described as being similar to “any urban inner-city marginalized community”.
Going into high school, Sansone was offered a sports scholarship by a local college preparatory school. During her time there, she found many reasons to attend college.
“What influenced me as a first-generation was the fact that I had to commute 45 minutes a day from my community to the ‘good side of town,’” says Sansone. “I began to see the inequity of where you’re from and how much zip code mattered. I kept seeing that a common pattern between my friend’s parents who were successful and were affluent was the fact that they had a college degree. And so that pushed me to pursue that.”
Attending college was something that Sansone had to navigate on her own because she was a first-generation college student, not only amongst her parents, but also within her extended family.
“The reason why I took all that on was to get out of poverty,” says Sansone. “It was not only just for myself, it was for my family. So this idea of community uplift too, familial uplift, it was trying to be that one that got out of poverty but also help my own family and hopefully my community which is still what I do to this day with my own research in higher education.”
Sansone’s experience at the college prep school prepared her academically for her undergraduate years at St. Mary’s University at San Antonio, Texas. However, other aspects of college made adjustment adjusting difficult for Sansone because she worked three jobs while being a full-time student in order to help support her family.
