The Power of Identity: How One Scholar Is Reshaping Higher Education Through Lived Experience and Equity

 When Shandra Jones first considered pursuing her Ph.D., it wasn’t ambition or prestige that pushed her toward the decision. It was a quieter, more personal call—one rooted in a deep need to understand the disparities she’d observed her entire life. Raised in Prichard, Alabama, a small, tightly-knit Black working-class community, Jones had seen brilliance shine daily in places most outsiders would never look. What puzzled her wasn’t whether her community had talent. She saw it in the way neighbors hustled between jobs, the way mothers balanced two shifts and still made time for church choirs or community meetings, and in the sharp wit of her cousins who navigated complex adult worlds long before finishing high school. What confused her was why that talent rarely translated into access—into elite colleges, powerful careers, or even basic economic stability.

Her own path diverged from many in her neighborhood. Thanks to a series of dedicated teachers and a mother who refused to settle, she entered a gifted program, attended a private high school, and eventually walked the grounds of Stanford University. But even amid the red-tiled roofs and manicured quads, she couldn’t shake the memory of the people she’d left behind—not because they lacked ability, but because they were never given the same chance to flex it. That nagging sense of injustice became her compass. Before long, she was knee-deep in the world of higher education, working across admissions, student services, and financial aid. She wanted to understand how institutions could either uplift or suppress someone’s trajectory—and more importantly, why.

Jones didn’t rush into her doctoral program. She weighed the time, the emotional labor, the sacrifice. She also interrogated her purpose. What was the value in another degree if it didn’t tangibly advance the work she was already doing? The answer revealed itself through her own life story: she wanted to bring scientific precision to the lived realities of race, identity, and success. And she wanted to ensure that students who looked like her—first-generation, low-income, racially marginalized—were not only admitted into institutions, but fully seen, heard, and supported once they got there 🎓.

During her doctoral studies, Jones immersed herself in understanding how students form ethnic and racial identities during the transformative years of college. Her work, grounded in a large-scale survey of 755 undergraduates across the United States, uncovered an essential truth that many universities often overlook. Students don’t check their heritage at the dormitory door. They bring with them a complex blend of cultural pride, generational knowledge, trauma, and resilience. And when institutions make space for those elements—not through tokenism, but through thoughtful curriculum, community-based programs, and real cultural literacy—students thrive. Academic performance improves. Mental health stabilizes. Career aspirations expand. In essence, when students are allowed to explore who they are, they begin to envision who they can become 💡.

Jones often refers to this inner framework as a “portfolio of assets.” It’s a concept that pushes back against deficit-based thinking, the kind that assumes marginalized students are entering college needing to be “fixed.” Instead, she argues, they are already carrying wisdom, tenacity, and emotional intelligence. The job of educators isn’t to mold them, but to recognize the gifts they’ve already brought to campus.

She’s quick to illustrate this with real moments from her own life. In middle school, she remembers being placed in an advanced class—not because anyone formally tested her, but because one teacher saw how quickly she solved a math problem others struggled with. That one act changed her trajectory. She attended a high school where students drove luxury cars to class, while she packed lunch in foil and quietly ignored the sting of feeling out of place. But she didn’t falter. That tension became a training ground. She learned how to navigate elite environments without losing her core identity. And now, decades later, she channels that experience to help students do the same 🧠.

What makes Jones’s voice resonate isn’t just her scholarship—it’s her authenticity. Her work is not cloaked in cold academic jargon but instead woven with narrative, empathy, and a clear sense of urgency. She understands that in higher education, policies and practices often outpace people’s stories. Faculty might implement diversity strategies without ever asking students how they define their own cultural identities. Administrators might create equity plans without realizing that a student’s decision to join a sorority or switch majors can be deeply tied to racial belonging, not just career goals. Jones invites the system to slow down, listen more deeply, and recognize that success isn't one-size-fits-all.

Now based in Durham, North Carolina, Jones has taken her work beyond campus walls. As an executive staff member at Self-Help Credit Union, a national organization focused on economic justice, she’s extending her commitment to equity into the financial world. Her mission? To support first-time homeowners, rural communities, and business owners from historically underserved populations. It’s a powerful alignment of values—an academic grounding meeting practical change, a theory-to-practice pipeline that few scholars manage to walk with such clarity and purpose 💼.

There’s something deeply poetic about the fact that she’s graduating just two weeks before her daughter completes high school. The timing wasn’t planned, but it feels symbolically perfect. Two generations, walking across two stages, both breaking barriers, both carrying their own portfolios of assets. It’s the kind of moment that reminds you education is never just about individual gain. It’s about what gets passed on—the confidence, the questions, the legacy.

Jones never set out to be a symbol, but in many ways, she has become one. She embodies the bridge between the academic and the everyday, between research and lived reality. She shows us that higher education doesn’t just happen in libraries or lecture halls—it happens in family kitchens, on late-night bus rides home from part-time jobs, in conversations with elders who never had the chance to attend college but whose wisdom remains unmatched.

Through her work, she’s urging universities to reimagine their approach to student success. Not through broader slogans or more glossy brochures, but by looking more carefully at who their students are and what they already carry. Because when education recognizes identity not as a barrier but as a catalyst, everyone wins. And when institutions start asking better questions—ones rooted in equity, humanity, and context—they can start building better answers, not just for students of color or low-income students, but for everyone navigating the complex terrain of becoming ✨.