I'm Milad Mohebali
and I'm an
assistant professor in the
Educational Administration Department.
My area of work is more focused
on higher education.
I have recently joined the department.
But previously, I worked as a
postsecondary scholar,
as a postdoctoral scholar
at the University of Iowa
in the College of Education.
My background is in materials science
and engineering.
The degrees that I got from Iran,
where I come from,
and also in higher education
and student affairs
from the University of Iowa
and Oklahoma State University.
My research is highly interdisciplinary
and I use different
theories from various disciplines
to think about sociology
of higher education
through historical
and political economy lenses,
with the aim of decolonizing
higher education.
In the theory of my research as trans,
I investigate the relations of
knowledge and power
the coloniality of knowledge and power
in higher education institutions.
I investigate
the experiences
of basic needs and security and precarity
among college students,
specifically community college students.
And then finally, you know,
study how to be in difficult dialogs
across different and,
you know, help
students and adult learners to develop
a skills to be in these kinds of dialogs.
I incorporate these skills
in the classes that I teach,
including administrative theory
and higher education planning.
I'm also active
in different organizations
and associations
in higher education,
including ASHE and ACPA,
as well as regularly attending
the CIES and ICQI.
Our program is intentional
about helping a student succeed.
In my role,
I support the students
to really think
deeply about who they are,
as a newer, as a learner and as a scholar
so that we can better think,
what does it mean
to engage
in higher education as a professional,
but also how to be in the classroom
with each other
and with different learners and norms.
I believe as students
who develop their skills
for engaging across different
development skills for reflexivity
are best suited to succeed,
not just by
engaging with the different contents
that they will be exposed in our program,
but also to engage
with the community of learners
and scholars that we are.
Learning from me is a practice of joy.
Actually, I'm feeling happier
when I actually learning,
when I go into that mode of wonder.
So when I am in graduate school,
I was in the mode of trying
to learn new things
and be in that joyful type of community.
So my invitation for my students
and my advisees and my supervises
is to join me in that joyful experiences
of being in graduate school.