McNair Scholar 2020 Lillie Lee
Lillie Lee is a senior at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities majoring in Family Social Science. Her research interests focus on providing opportunities for minoritized communities and higher education. Lillie plans to pursue her master’s degree in social work and pursue a Ph.D in higher education.
I want to work in a non-profit organization as a social service manager to serve and provide opportunities for poor families in need of help.
Research project
Embroidering Collaboration between University, Community, and School: Using the Hmong Children's Longitudinal Study as an Example
Abstract: The purpose of this chapter is to describe the context for the Hmong Children’s Longitudinal Study (HCLS), delineate the collaborative process between university researchers and the Hmong community and charter schools in Minnesota, and share some preliminary data of the HCLS, as well as some lessons learned from working with Hmong charter schools and community members. The HCLS is a community-driven study based on the citizen health care model and funded by members of the Hmong community. It involves 188 children from 3rd through 5th grades in three Hmong charter schools in Minnesota. The collaborative took two years to carefully plan and launch the study. We learned that it is imperative for researchers to spend more time building relationships in the community before reaching out to start any study, get a buy-in and commitment from school administrators, community members, and students to be successful community-driven project.
Faculty mentor
Dr. Zha Blong Xiong received his B.A. degree from Winona State University in 1992, and his M.A. in 1997 and PhD in 2000 from the Department of Family Social Science. His research interests center around strengthening immigrant children and youth development in the contexts of family, school and community. The reason why Dr. Zha wanted to pursue his PhD in Family Social Science was because he saw a significant gap in the literature about Southeast Asian youth and families, and he wanted to do more research to fill this gap in the literature. He chose the Department of Family Social Science to pursue his graduate education because he believed that family is the foundation for children’s successes (or failures) in life, and partly due to a wonderful faculty member in the department, Dr. Dan Detzner, who was willing to mentor him. Dr. Xiong has published widely on Southeast Asian parent-adolescent relationships and Hmong children’s education and often travels to present his research at various national conferences. In addition to his academic work, he also serves on multiple local and national organizations, including the Hmong 18 Council, Hmong National Development, and the Journal of Southeast Asian American Education & Advancement. He has been mentoring McNair Scholars for over 10 years at the University of Minnesota.