After New Legislation, The University of New Mexico Opens the Afro Hair Shop for Black Hair and Student Stylists

For many Black students at MSIs and PWIs across the country, finding someone who knows how to care for their hair can be an ordeal that sends them hours from campus, costs them weekend after weekend, and signals, quietly but unmistakably, that the institution was not built with them in mind. The University of New Mexico is now working to change that calculus — one chair at a time.

The African American Student Services office at UNM, known on campus as the Afro or the Fro, has opened the Afro Hair Shop, a dedicated on-campus salon space designed to meet the cultural hair-care needs of Black students. The shop, housed within the AASS center, was designed and brought to life by AASS staff members and features a timeline of hair history in the Black community lining its walls.

The space is open to UNM students who are stylists, creating a pathway for them to practice their craft and serve fellow students within what AASS calls a trusted and affirming environment. The initiative is framed not merely as a service amenity but as a statement of institutional values a gift from community members and alumni that AASS describes as an investment in belonging, dignity, and opportunity.

“The Afro Hair shop at UNM is a living embodiment of what it means to enact servingness as a Minority Serving Institution at the intersections of Black students’ lived experiences. The shop is a milestone in a long legacy of the department serving as a space for community, belonging, and innovation.”— Dr. Brandi Stone, Director, UNM African American Student Services

The salon’s opening arrives in the wake of significant legislative change in New Mexico. House Bill 281, which took effect in July 2025, exempts hair braiders from state cosmetology licensure requirements, removing a 1,200-hour training mandate for natural hair braiders and allowing them to legally practice twisting, wrapping, weaving, and extending hair without a license. The new shop positions student stylists to take advantage of that legal landscape, lowering barriers to practice while providing a sanctioned campus venue.

For students, the significance of the space is immediate and personal. Kamryn Kizzine, a UNM senior, put it plainly: “This is an essential thing for Black college students here to know they have a safe space on campus to get their hair done. Most students have to go home and get their hair done, but you don’t have to do that. Get out your dorm and come get your hair done at The Fro.”

Her classmate Nicole Wells, also a senior, connected the hair shop to a broader pattern of intentional investment by AASS. “African American Student Services has already made such a huge impact on our campus,” Wells said, “and creating an intentional hair care space shows their commitment to safe spaces for students. This initiative means so much to students like me who do hair, because it allows us to help others feel seen, welcomed, and truly belong here on campus.”

Kaelyn Moon, a Student Success Specialist at AASS, offered perhaps the sharpest articulation of what the department believes the shop represents, not as a luxury, but as an act of institutional courage and historical accountability.

“The Afro hair shop means more than getting to be a part of history, it means that we are honoring our past and staying in the present to prepare for our future. It means that at UNM, we aren’t quiet about what’s right. We take dreams and turn them into reality so that our path forward is clear.”— Kaelyn Moon, Student Success Specialist, UNM African American Student Services

That phrase — we aren’t quiet about what’s right — captures something that universities have long struggled with: the gap between stated commitments to diversity and the lived, daily experience of Black students navigating campuses that were not designed for them. The Afro Hair Shop is, by any measure, a modest physical space. But the intention behind it, and the community that made it possible, suggests that at UNM, that gap is being taken seriously.

The Afro Hair Shop is located within the African American Student Services center at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and is open to UNM student stylists and their clients.