From Surviving to Thriving: Cultivating Possibilities for Parenting Students in Illinois

8:00am – 9:00am: Breakfast

9:00am – 1:00pm: Resource Fair

Connect with campus and community partners offering resources and information to support parenting students’ academic and personal success.

9:00am – 9:15am: Introduction and Welcome

9:15am – 10:30am: Panel 1: Parenting Students Experiencing Institutions

This panel presents personal narratives by parenting students alongside scholarly research, both of which explore the systemic barriers that parenting students encounter, and the formal and informal strategies they use to navigate institutional systems.

Speakers:

• Alison Brooks, PhD student, Environmental Occupational Health Sciences, University of Illinois Chicago
• Elexis Kirkwood, Undergraduate student, Human Development/Education, University of Illinois Chicago
• Mykela Collins, Community leader
• Dr. Ariel Sylvester, Early childhood education mentor, DePaul University
• Moderator: Dr. Dalal Katsiaficas, Associate Professor, Educational Psychology, University of Illinois Chicago

10:45am – 12:00pm: Panel 2: Visions For The Future

How can universities create thriving environments for parenting students? This panel brings together student advocates, leaders from community-based organizations, and researchers working to address the needs of parenting students. Through a discussion of advocacy initiatives,  innovative support programs, and other institutional efforts, panelists will present a vision for fostering equitable campus communities.

Speakers:

• Elaina Frieson
• Dr. Veronica Castillo Le Maitre, Graduate student, Public Health, University of Illinois Chicago
• Dr. Theresa Anderson, Senior Fellow, Workforce, Education, and Labor Division, Urban Institute
• Nina Owolabi, PhD student, Education Policy, Organization, and Leadership, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
• Moderator: Dr. Jessica Rothstein, Assistant Professor, Public Health, University of Illinois Chicago

12:00pm – 1:00pm: Lunch Keynote

Speaker:

• Dr. Sekile Nzinga, Vice President, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, School of the Art Institute of Chicago

1700 Student Services Building
1200 W. Harrison St. (click for map)
Chicago, IL 60607
(northwest corner of Harrison and Racine)

Via CTA:

• The 7 west-bound (WB) bus stops on Harrison, in front of the building, on the northwest corner of Harrison and Racine.
• The  7 east-bound (EB) bus stops on Harrison, across the street, on the southwest corner of Harrison and Racine.
• The 60 WB bus stops on Racine, across the street, on the southwest corner of Harrison and Racine.
• The 60 EB bus stops on Racine, across the street, on the southeast corner of Harrison and Racine.
• The Blue Line Halsted stop is one block north and three blocks east of the building. (The Racine stop is currently closed.)
  

Via UIC Shuttle:

• The WB Intracampus and Semester Express buses stop on Harrison, in front of the building.
• The EB Semester Express bus stops on Racine, across the street, on the southwest corner of Harrison and Racine.
• The EB Intracampus bus stops on Harrison, across the street, on the southeast corner of Harrison and Racine.

Parking:

• Parking for UIC students, staff, and faculty is available for a fee at the Harrison Street Parking Structure (1100 W. Harrison St.) and Lots 1A & 1B (card access only).
• Parking for visitors is available for a fee at the Harrison Street Parking Structure (1100 W. Harrison St.).

Panel 1: Parenting Students Experiencing Institutions

Alison Brooks, MPH
she/her

Alison Brooks is a PhD student in the Environmental Occupational Health Sciences Department at UIC’s School of Public Health. Ms. Brooks earned her MPH from Emory University in 2015 and has worked in the field of environmental health for most of her career. She is passionate about health and the environment with specific focus on worker protection and environmental justice. Ms. Brooks and her 3-year-old son relocated to the Chicago area from Georgia in the summer of 2024. UIC has been an anchor of support for Ms. Brooks and her family as she shows up each day trying to live the lessons that she tries to teach.

Elexis Kirkwood
she/her

Elexis Kirkwood is a 22-year-old fourth-year student in the College of Education at UIC. Her major is Human Development, with a concentration in early Childhood Education and Family Studies, and a minor in Criminology, Law, and Justice. She transferred to UIC in the fall of 2022 after giving birth to her daughter and taking a semester off. She is an honor student and a dedicated mom to a 3-year-old. Elexis balances her academics with full-time work while attempting to gain hands-on experience in her field. She aspires to create meaningful impacts while embracing parenthood and persuading others in a similar situation as the one she was in to do the same.

Mykela Collins
she/her

Mykela Collins has been advocating for children since her own daughter was a tiny tot in an early Head Start program.  She is the proud mother of a 17-year-old daughter, Tremyah, and a 7-year-old son, Cadele.  Mykela’s number one priority in life is ensuring a quality education for her children and advocating for systemic change in early care and education.  As a fierce parent advocate, Mykela has an impressive track record of parent leadership in the Early Care and Education arena including Chicago Public Schools (LSC and PAC Member 2019-current); Family Ambassador for Ada S. McKinley (current); Parent Ambassador & Parent Café Leader (2020-current); Parent Ambassador for CCAC (Child Care Assistance Council, 2021-current); and Raising IL Family Leader (current); Co-Chair for Right To Chair Campaign(We the Village, 2022-current).

Dr. Ariel Sylvester
she/her

Dr. Ariel Sylvester has been working in the field of early childhood education since 2013. She began work as a full-time teacher in Pre-K-2nd grade classrooms in 2016 with Chicago Public Schools and currently substitute teaches with them from time to time. Dr. Sylvester has taught early childhood education courses at Northern Illinois University and DePaul University. She is currently a full-time early childhood education mentor at DePaul University. She has been a supervisor and observer for early childhood student teachers at Northern Illinois University and DePaul University. Dr. Sylvester obtained her bachelor’s degree in early childhood education, her Illinois Professional Educator License, and ESL endorsement, a master’s in early childhood administration, a Doctor of Education in early childhood education, and an Illinois Principal License. She currently conducts research on college students who are parents, on-campus childcare, and Black homeschooling families and organizations. She speaks at different conferences and on podcasts across the country pertaining to her research findings. She has published research and has her own self-publishing business – Pretty Nerd Publishing – that she writes and sells her 12 books in 7 different genres under.

Dr. Dalal Katsiaficas (moderator)
she/her

Dalal Katsiaficas, PhD, is an Associate Professor of Educational Psychology at the University of Illinois Chicago. Her research broadly focuses on coming of age in the United States through an intersectional lens.  A constant theme in her work is to examine the ways in which young people weave together their multiple selves in the face of socio-politically fracturing forces. She partners with communities to understand the impact of politically fracturing forces on their identities, developmental and educational outcomes, employing a variety of tools to disseminate findings both scientifically and artistically. Recently, she partnered with student mothers to examine motherhood in socio-political context, particularly at UIC, and will be sharing the findings today.

Panel 2: Visions For The Future

Elaina Frieson

Elaina N. Frieson is a dedicated and results-driven student at Governors State University, pursuing a Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration with a focus on Entrepreneurship.

Dr. Veronica Castillo Le Maitre
she/her

Veronica Castillo Le Maitre, MD, LM, is a pediatrician from Venezuela, passionate about maternal and child health, with experience working in resource-limited environments where social cohesion, bonding, and support networks are essential for building resilience. Currently, she is in her second year of the Master of Public Health (MPH) program with a concentration in Maternal and Child Health. As a Research Assistant at the Center of Excellence in Maternal and Child Health, supported by the Irving Harris Scholarship, she collaborated on research focused on tailoring play-based early child development interventions for Latinx families in Chicago. Additionally, she is completing an internship with the Illinois policy team at Start Early and working as a Research Assistant with the Department of Family Medicine.

Since Veronica began her journey at UIC as a single mother, migrant, and Fulbright scholar without any immediate family support, she sought out every resource the university and the surrounding community could offer. She quickly realized that there were many opportunities to improve access to support for parenting students. In 2024, thanks to the incredible network within public health and Maternal and Child Health, she connected with the Little Sparks initiative, which has become a vital resource for students like her.

Being part of support groups for parenting students, where we can sit together, share resources, exchange ideas, and laugh, has been an incredibly rewarding experience. She has also been actively advocating for the needs of parenting students by participating in UIC meetings where student feedback is heard, ensuring that our voices and challenges are considered in decision-making.

Dr. Theresa Anderson
she/her/ella

Theresa Anderson, PhD, is a senior fellow at the Urban Institute in the Workforce, Education, and Labor Division and co-leads the Student-Parent Action through Research Knowledge (SPARK) Collaborative. She works closely with the City Colleges of Chicago system office and two institutional partners on the Data-to-Action Campaign for Parenting Students. Across her portfolio, she leads teams in conducting in-depth, mixed-methods research, evaluations, and other analyses of workforce, education, and social safety net programs and policies. She is particularly interested in improving access to and success in education throughout the life course, from early childhood to adulthood. Her work has focused on student parents, low-income families, opportunity youth, adult education students, underprepared college students, high school students from historically underserved populations, and public housing residents. She received a BA from Hampshire College in Massachusetts and an MPP and a PhD in public policy and public administration, with a concentration in program evaluation, both from the George Washington University.

Nina Owolabi
she/her

Nina Owolabi is a mama-scholar who has spent the last 18 years advocating for youth, college students, and their families. That effort has included college advisement and education justice efforts, as well as student, program, and curriculum development work in Washington, D.C., New York City, and Chicago. She is a doctoral candidate at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, studying education policy, organization, and leadership with a concentration in higher education. Nina is also a Senior Research Assistant at the Office of Community College Research and Leadership and a working board member with the SPARK Collaborative. SPARK is a value-driven, action-oriented, big-tent community empowering parents pursuing their education goals. Her research centers on the Black student experience at community colleges. Threads of her research draw upon a critical lens to explore the lived experiences of parenting students, interrogating the community college as a place of access and enclosure. Nina’s journey as an educator, storyteller, researcher, and mama of two under 4 shapes her belief that colleges need to be spaces of radical hospitality, with particular attention to creating welcoming spaces for historically excluded folx through policy and practice.

Dr. Jessica Rothstein
she/her/ella
Moderator

Jessica Rothstein, PhD, MSPH, is a social and behavioral scientist who uses mixed methods to understand and improve child nutrition, health, and development. Her research explores the determinants of parenting/caregiving behaviors and aims to inform the design and evaluation of interventions to reduce health inequities. In the past, she has conducted research on barriers to breastfeeding in both international settings and in the midwestern U.S.

Dr. Rothstein is currently leading a needs assessment of UIC’s lactation rooms with support from a Student Affairs Faculty Fellowship. We know that one of the greatest challenges for new parents who are also students is maintaining their breastfeeding/lactation routine while spending extended periods of time on campus. The risk of not achieving one’s breastfeeding goals is particularly pronounced among parents from underrepresented minority and low-income groups. She strongly believes that enhancing UIC’s existing lactation rooms is an essential part of ensuring an equitable and inclusive environment for UIC’s student-parents.

Keynote Address

Dr. Sekile Nzinga
she/her

Sekile M. Nzinga is an intersectional feminist executive leader whose expertise spans academic, governmental, and not-for-profit sectors. She currently serves as the inaugural Vice President for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and served as the inaugural Chief Equity Officer for the State of Illinois, where she established the Office of Equity within the Office of Governor JB Pritzker. Prior to her state service, she was an associate professor of social work and the founding director of the Women and Gender Studies Bachelor of Arts program at Nazareth University. She established the Feminist in Residence program to support the creative process and projects of Chicago-based feminist artists and activists during her time as the Director of Northwestern University’s Women’s Center.

She is the author of Lean Semesters: How the University Reproduces Inequity published with Johns Hopkins University Press, and the editor of Laboring Positions: Black Women, Mothering, and the Academy on Demeter Press. She writes about the intersections of child sexual abuse survival, bodily autonomy, and reproductive freedom at her blog, I Usta be Monique. She has a forthcoming chapter on the radical histories of mindfulness in communities of color. Nzinga’s Black feminist praxis prioritizes the healing, wellbeing, care networks, and reproductive justice of Black and other underserved communities. She is a former board chair for the Chicago Abortion Fund and a member of the Statewide Women’s Justice Taskforce, and partners with equity-oriented organizations and cultural institutions throughout Chicago.

She earned her PhD in Human Development from the University of Maryland, her Masters of Social Work from Ohio State University, and her BS in Social Work from Morgan State University, and has studied abroad in Africana Studies at the University of Ghana in Accra. She had her two sons while she was in her PhD program and her daughter when she was a pre-tenure junior professor. These days she spends her time taking care of her plants, practicing yoga, and getting free.

9:00am – 1:00pm: Stop by the Resource Fair throughout the symposium to connect with campus and community partners offering resources and information to support parenting students’ academic and personal success.

UIC Women’s Leadership and Resource Center and Campus Advocacy Network

WLRC and CAN provide programs, support, and institutional advocacy for pregnant and parenting students, as well as a student-parent listserv and a welcoming space to study and build community.

UIC CCAMPIS/Little Sparks

Little Sparks supports UIC parent-students by providing affordable, high-quality childcare for infants, toddlers, and young children, along with a comprehensive wraparound care system, study-play areas across campus, accessible lactation rooms with counseling support, year-round family events, and fostering a culture of visibility and belonging.

UIC Center of Excellence in Maternal and Child Health

CoE-MCH builds and strengthens the Maternal and Child Health (MCH) workforce by training graduate and undergraduate public health students and working professionals and advancing MCH science, research, practice, and policy.

UIC Asian American Student Academic Program

AASAP promotes access and acclimation to college, academic achievement, social integration, persistence, and graduation via academic advising, financial management and career exploration programming, mentorship, and one-credit Global Asian Studies seminars.

UIC Dean Of Students – Student Assistance

DoS strives to be the campus leader in fostering a caring and supportive environment where all students matter. Through various offices, including Student Assistance, Community Standards, Student Veterans, and Student Legal Services, they assist students in resolving issues so they can focus on their academic and social development.

UIC FLAME Lab

At the FLAME Lab, the UIC Department of Psychology focuses on cognitive neurodevelopment. Using both behavioral and neuroimaging methods, they study how memory develops and how improvements in memory support other important abilities like reasoning, creativity, and imagination.

UIC Office for Access and Equity

OAE provides resources, accommodations, and policies that support pregnant and parenting UIC students and employees.

UIC TRIO

TRIO’s mission is to increase access to post-secondary education, and increase retention and graduation rates of low-income individuals, first-generation college students, and students with documented disabilities.

UIC Wellness Center

The Wellness Center supports student learning, academic success, and retention by providing services that promote healthy attitudes and behaviors, empower students to make informed choices, and enhance holistic well-being. The Pop-Up Pantry provides parenting students with essential items like diapers, formula, and wipes, along with access to fresh fruits, vegetables, and dairy and other foods to serve their nutritional needs.

Birth to Five Illinois Region 1-A (City of Chicago)

Birth to Five supports the mobilization of communities to build and sustain equitable access to inclusive, high-quality early childhood services for all children and families in Illinois.

Chicago Public Schools – Office for Students with Disabilities/Parent Support Specialist

OSD provides tools, guidance, support, and services necessary to ensure that every student with disabilities receives meaningful, rigorous, and relevant access to grade-level core instruction.

Crown Family YMCA

Crown has an early learning center for children ages six weeks to five years and partners with the UIC Little Sparks Program to assist students with childcare tuition.

Illinois Action for Children

IAC advocates for child care providers, families, and children and supports everyone in creating safe, healthy, and sustainable places in the community for children.

Maryville Crisis Nursery

The Maryville Crisis Nursery provides free short-term respite and crisis childcare for families in distress and/or experiencing a crisis. It protects children ages birth through 6 from abuse, neglect, and/or trauma and seeks to help families on their journey to becoming more stable.

Play Smart Literacy

Play Smart empowers parents and caregivers by bringing awareness to the connection between talk, play, and child development. It also supports adults in developing skills and forming habits that create positive environments rich with opportunities for talk and play.

Rush University Medical Center – Child & Family Connections #11 – Early Intervention

Rush provides free developmental screenings and evaluations for infants or toddlers with possible developmental delays.

• Masking: We ask that all adult attendees wear a mask fully covering their nose and mouth, if it does not interfere with their access needs. Masks continue to help prevent the spread of airborne respiratory illnesses and allow us to be in solidarity with those who are immunocompromised. We welcome and encourage children in attendance to wear a mask as well. We will provide free masks for anyone who may not have one.
• Building Accessibility: The Student Services Building (SSB) is accessible via wheelchair. The entrances have ramps and push buttons.
• To reach Conference Room C: Once inside SSB, visitors should navigate to the east side of the building. A ramp next to the Disability Resource Center leads up to the conference room. SSB has a reception desk near the east entrance at Harrison and Racine where guests can request assistance in finding the conference room.
• Scent: We ask attendees to refrain from wearing perfumes, colognes, or strongly scented personal products as they can trigger serious health issues for those with fragrance allergies. We cannot, however, guarantee a scent-free space.
• Lighting: The conference room has overhead fluorescent lights.
• Sound: All speakers will use microphones to amplify their voices.
• Restrooms: The building has both single-gender and all-gender multi-stall restrooms on the first floor.
  • Visitors can access first-floor restrooms with push-button doors (a men’s restroom and an all-gender restroom) on the west side of the building.
  • Additional single-gender (men’s and women’s) multi-stall restrooms are available up a flight of stairs or an elevator ride to Floor 1 North (right in front of WLRC’s suite). These restrooms have accessible stalls but do not have accessible push-button doors. The women’s restroom has free tampons and pads.
• Zoom: For those joining us via Zoom, we will provide CART live captioning.
• Staff Assistance: Staff and volunteers will be available throughout the event, both in person and on Zoom, to answer questions and provide assistance.
• Questions/Access Requests: Please send any questions or access requests to wlrcsymp@uic.edu or (312) 413-1025.

We thank the following UIC units, programs, and committees for their generous partnership on the symposium:

• Little Sparks Program
• Center for Excellence in Maternal and Child Health
• Life Scholars
• Office of Student Success and Belonging
• African American Academic Network
• Office for Access and Equity
• Student Affairs
• College of Education
• Chancellor’s Committee on the Status of Women