Date of Award

2026-05-01

Degree Name

Doctor of Education

Department

Educational Leadership and Administration

Advisor(s)

Jesus Cisneros

Abstract

At Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs), students often juggle financial need, job obligations, family duties, and academic persistence. In these settings, access to meaningful and equitable experiential learning opportunities is critical for student development, belonging, and professional growth. This qualitative study examines how undergraduate students experience and interpret their participation in a community-engaged work-study internship program at an HSI on the U.S.-Mexico border. The study is guided by the research question: How do students experience and make meaning of their participation in a community-engaged work-study internship at a border HSI? It explores how students interpret their experiences within institutional and community contexts that purposefully integrate employment, mentorship, experiential learning, and community engagement. This study uses the Servingness Framework (Garcia et al., 2019; Garcia, 2023) to conceptualize community-engaged work-study as an institutional practice. Through this, HSIs put equity-oriented support, community responsiveness, and experiential learning into action. The study does not view work-study only as financial aid or student employment. Instead, it positions community-engaged work-study internships as institutional structures. These internships connect students' academic, professional, cultural, and community experiences within a place-based border context. Using qualitative narrative inquiry, the study centers on students' lived experiences and meaning-making. The data was collected through in-depth, semi-structured interviews with 10 undergraduates in a community-engaged work-study mentorship and internship program at The University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP). The findings show that students experienced community-engaged work-study as relational and developmental. Their learning, sense of belonging, and sense of contribution were v all deeply affected. Four key themes emerged from cross-case analysis. The first, From Uncertainty to Confidence , reflects how students developed professional skills, agency, and self-confidence through sustained engagement. The second, Learning Through Contribution and Reciprocity , shows how students saw learning as emerging from meaningful community participation and mutual engagement. The third, Bridging Classroom, Career, and Community , highlights connections students made between academic learning, professional experiences, and community realities. The fourth theme, Relationships as the Mechanism of Learning , emphasizes how mentorship, supervision, institutional support, and community partnerships shaped student development and meaning-making. Across these themes, compensation and access emerged as critical structures that enable participation and lower barriers, underscoring the importance of paid experiential learning at access-oriented institutions. This study positions community-engaged work-study as an institutional infrastructure through which servingness is put into practice at a border HSI. Findings show that institutional structures, mentorship, compensation, community partnerships, and culturally responsive support all shape how students experience belonging, validation, identity development, and professional growth. By centering student narratives, this study adds to scholarship on HSIs, experiential learning, community engagement, and student employment. It illustrates how community-engaged work-study acts as an integrated, equity-oriented experiential learning model. The implications call on institutions to intentionally design and maintain accessible, relational, and community-connected experiential learning opportunities. These must align with the mission, responsibilities, and servingness commitments of HSIs in border-region contexts.

Language

en

Provenance

Received from ProQuest

File Size

143 p.

File Format

application/pdf

Rights Holder

Heriberto Jose Garcia

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