Introducing Dr. Andrea S.D. Hazzard
As a result of the Excellence in Academic Advising (EAA) self-study conducted in 2018-19, the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa now has a Director of Mānoa Academic Advising. Dr. Andrea S.D. Hazzard joined the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa in July 2023 and serves as the inaugural Director.
Dr. Hazzard is a first-generation college student and second-generation Guyanese-American. She grew up in a multi-ethnic neighborhood in the Bronx and completed her last two years of high school in Central Florida. Dr. Hazzard graduated from Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio with a bachelor’s degree in psychology, a minor in medical anthropology, and a pre-med concentration. Keenly interested in social justice and cultural diversity, she served as a full-time volunteer for three years after graduation, working with indigenous youth in both Alaska and the Marshall Islands. As a graduate of the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa’s Master’s in English as a Second Language (now Second Language Studies) program, Dr. Hazzard’s interest in social justice expanded to education and teaching English in global contexts. Her 25 years of educational experience includes a doctorate in Developmental Education Administration from Sam Houston State University in Texas and spans the Pacific, Caribbean, Continental U.S., and Hawaiʻi. Dr. Hazzard’s roles have encompassed teaching, advising, academic support, residential life, faculty development, and assessment coaching. She has worked in a wide range of educational milieu: elementary, secondary, post-secondary, and medical.
Her professional interests include examining pedagogical and institutional factors which promote student success, particularly for diverse students from underrepresented and under-resourced backgrounds. Dr. Hazzard believes that student success requires a holistic approach to education, informed by dynamic institutional relationships. She promotes developing students’ sense of agency and advocacy to prepare students to be change agents in their communities and future professions.
Dr. Hazzard enjoys spending time with her husband Terry and their two sons, Dante and Sebastian. She is an avid knitter/crocheter/crafter and believes that life is enhanced with coffee, conversation, and board games.
A Message from the Director of Mānoa Academic Advising
As the inaugural Director of Mānoa Academic Advising, I am grateful for the comprehensive and collaborative work done by UHM's advising community, which resulted in the Excellence in Academic Advising report. In addition to the report's guidance, I am prioritizing meeting and hearing first-hand from advisors and those in campus units with whom advising intersects. I am also working collaboratively with others to promote student success. What follows are my associated initial goals:
- To understand and build relationships across advising units
- 'Talk story' to understand advising successes and needs from advisors and share my vision of collaboration
- To understand and build relations across campus 'non-advising' units
- Meet key personnel in offices that intersect with advising to discuss how we can work together to promote student success
- Meet key personnel in offices that intersect with advising to discuss how we can work together to promote student success
- To understand and begin taking small steps towards improving policy and practices affecting advising and student success, such as
- New student orientation and advising
- Continuing student registration (regular and priority; holds and clearances)
- Transfer credit evaluation and equivalencies and General Education
- Examining articulations agreements between UH's Community Colleges and UHM's College of Engineering: Optimizing Equity via Curricular Analytics [A Gardner Institute Initiative]