Graduate Spotlight: Exita Lealofi, MA

The Samoan word tautua means service, specifically service to one’s community, but for Exita Lealofi, ’26 MA, it's a family tradition that takes on multiple meanings when it comes to her career in education.

“We serve our elders, we serve our guests, we serve our friends, we serve our peers, even our colleagues,” she says. “And within that, we serve it together. We serve a community. And in order for anything to thrive, you have to be united with one another. You have to be in that one piece.”

Arriving in Tacoma at age 13 from the American Samoa villages of Faleniu and Aasu, where her father, Mua'autau Seve Anipale, is a high talking chief devoting his life to service, Lealofi found a career path devoted to serving her community in Pierce County. This led her to Seattle University and earning a master’s degree in Student Development Administration (SDA) through the College of Education’s Higher Education Leadership and Administration program.

After earning her bachelor's degree, Lealofi went to work at her high school alma mater, Mount Tahoma High School in Tacoma, as a student support specialist serving underserved youth. While working there she learned her mentors and advisors had graduated from SU’s SDA program. She attended an orientation with Assistant Professor and Director Paige Gardner, PhD, and Associate Teaching Professor Erin Swezey and knew the next step she would take.

“They really opened up a door to this sense of belonging,” she says. “I wanted to basically understand my students' issues. I wanted to understand the barriers within the system that they work with, especially in the K-12 system.”

She then commenced on the arduous path of a commuter graduate student while also working full time.

“It wasn't easy,” she says. “There's a lot of all-night sessions. There's a lot of group work over the weekends.”

For one of her projects, Lealofi focused on Samoan women in higher education leadership roles, a path she might take one day.

“I wanted to know their struggles,” she says. “I wanted to know their experiences. I wanted to know their narrative, their story. And I really wanted to focus on that word tautua.”

On top of that, she assisted with the student-led organization for her program called SUSDA (SU-Student Development Administration) and if that wasn’t enough, she leads a dance and academic group for students at Mount Tahoma—called Tautua—that competes in the La’u Samoa Academic & Samoan Cultural Competition.

The future is wide open for Lealofi, but however she chooses to serve students and her community, she will be the person helping to hold it all together.

“I love planning, I love coordinating, I love bringing people together,” she says. “I think it's always something that I can do. It's a hobby and it's a passion of mine.”