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Developing future campus leaders who will inspire next generation students through inclusivity and care, is a critically important task that educators like Southern Illinois University Edwardsville’s Pietro Sasso, PhD, do not take lightly.

Sasso excels in that mission as assistant professor and immediate past director of the University’s College Student Personnel Administration (CSPA) program. His influential work and its reach are being further amplified as he serves as the Vice Chair for Convention Programs of the American College Personnel Association’s (ACPA) Coalition on College Men and Masculinities (CMM).

Sasso assumed this national position in August, joining a leadership team comprising distinguished scholars and administrators from across the nation. In his new role, he will coordinate the CMM’s sponsored programming review process while serving as a reviewer for sponsored program proposals. Additionally, he will assist in coordinating activities for the annual ACPA Convention and future ACPA events.

“I am really looking forward to expanding my leadership with CMM to continue to facilitate research discussions that pushes the constructs of intersecting masculinities and the theoretical complexities of multiple masculinities,” said Sasso. “This will also inform my own teaching of our CSPA students as it challenges our conceptualization of college male identifying populations within the margins, and those who are edged to the boundaries of campus support systems.”

The broad aim of the CMM is to promote men’s development throughout college campuses. The coalition’s vision is to focus on marginalized understandings of college masculinity, centering the experiences of men who experience systemic oppression. Our hope is that by centering these voices to be heard, new conceptions of what it means to be a man can emerge and influence educational research and practice. This aligns with Sasso’s current research focused on topics of masculinity in higher education.

In 2017, Sasso was named an Emerging Scholar in Residence by the CMM for his prior research related to men and masculinity within student affairs and higher education. During his two-year residency, Sasso worked with fellow emerging researchers and supported the work of the coalition as a resident expert by authoring critical thought pieces and delivering conference presentations.

Sasso has two forthcoming publications exploring masculinity on college campuses: an article for the Journal of Critical Scholarship in Higher Education & Student Affairs exploring white supremacy in college male student protests, and a text on multiracial masculinity, tentatively titled, Intersecting the Borders of Manhood: Multiracial Masculinities among American College Students. During his board service, he will continue to investigate such topics while developing programming to raise awareness of the ideas and issues surrounding men and masculinity in higher education.

To learn more about the CMM, visit myacpa.org/scmm.

Photo: SIUE’s Pietro Sasso, PhD, assistant professor and immediate past director of the CSPA program.