Cassandra Michel, a senior at the University of Miami, is the epitome of a “people person.” Her dedication to community empowerment, mental health advocacy, and student mentorship has shown her to be a particularly effective student leader.
Michel knows firsthand that the path to academic and professional success for first-generation college students is not always smooth. It takes the support of a community, including the help of mentors, to counter the kinds of structural disadvantages that impede the futures of so many young people today.
"Coming from a first-generation background, I didn't have much guidance on applying to colleges when I was in high school. My guidance counselor saw that I had potential and helped," says Michel, a native of Boca Raton, FL. "She was the first person who suggested that I apply to the University of Miami."
Michel says that everything she does is modeled after the idea of servant leadership. “I believe in the idea of serving people and serving communities," she adds. "We impact our communities, and our communities impact us.”
Fueled by this philosophy, Michel founded First Gen Canes, a group dedicated to cultivating leaders among UM's first-generation college students. "I started the organization because I wanted to help first-generation college students create community and get connected," Michel says. "Teaching other first-generation college students how to navigate higher-ed institutions is an important way that we learn and grow from each other."
Her dedication to mentorship goes even further. Michel has also served as a mentor through Inspire U Academy, which holds monthly college preparatory sessions with Booker T. Washington High School students providing them with one-on-one support with college goals and aspirations—and it’s been very successful. Her mentee will be attending Lynn University in the fall. As a double major in psychology and community and applied psychological studies, Michel has a strong commitment to mental health.
"In the future, I want to be a community psychologist," says Michel. "My research focuses on identifying and addressing barriers that formerly incarcerated individuals face when they return to society. I eventually want to work with that population and with racial minorities specifically Haitian women who suffer trauma derived by living through natural disasters as well as sexual violence. "
Michel also serves as a peer educator with COPE (Counseling Outreach and Peer Education) helping connect undergraduate students to campus mental health resources.
"The things you care about are the things you make time for," Michel says, and clearly, she cares a lot. Michel is also the president of Cru, a group for Christian students to discuss their faith, and Speak What You Feel, UM's spoken word poetry group. After graduation, Michel plans to pursue a master's in public health, before enrolling in a psychology doctoral program.
