Jenay Willis

Assistant Professor of Higher Education

• Faculty
• Instructor

• Email:

  jfwillis@olemiss.edu

• Office Location:

  201 Guyton Hall

• Phone:

  662-915-7047

Assistant Professor

Research Interests

• access and opportunity for rural students
• intersectionality of rurality and Blackness
• youth participatory action research
• rural communities and schooling
• access to higher education

Biography

Jenay F.E. Willis, Ph.D. is an Assistant Professor of Higher Education at the University of Mississippi. As a Black woman who grew up and did much of her schooling in the Deep South, she centers those experiences in her research as a scholar practitioner. Jenay amplifies the notion of centering individuals identifying as rural and Black through community driven and shared power approaches. Through employing critical lenses and methodologies in qualitative research, her research agenda highlights the experiences of rural Black students and communities as it pertains to college access, success, transition, matriculation, and graduation.

• Office, Department or Center

  Department of Higher Education

• Associated Program/s

  Higher Education/Student Personnel, M.A.

  Higher Education/Student Personnel, Ph.D.

  Higher Education, Ed.D. (Online)

• Areas of Expertise

  rurality and Blackness, spatial equity, college access, college success, matriculation, college graduation, higher education, colleges and universities