30-Minute Flash Topics: I AM FIRST - Resources for First Generation College Students

Hello everyone.

Welcome to our 30 minute flash topic for our I am first program here at Kent State University.

My name is Rachel Klaja and I am one of the visit coordinators and the Admissions office. Thank you so much for attending tonight's event. We'll give it another second for people to filter into the event. But while they're doing so, I just want to go over a couple of housekeeping items with you all. So on the right side of the presentation that you should be able to see on your screen. There is a chat where you can post any questions that you have. We're going through our presentation today, so please utilize that. We want to answer any questions.

You have and in addition to that, if anyone needs a live captioning of today's event, there is a closed caption button at the top right hand corner of your screen.

So please go ahead and select that.

So you can use it while going through the presentation today.

Wonderful, all right? Well thank you everyone for attending our 30 minute flash topics event or I am first program. I'm going to pass it off to Melanie Jones and Alexandra Henry to introduce themselves and get started with the presentation.

Thank you so much Rachel for that introduction and we are thrilled to be here and share a little bit about our first generation initiatives, what we affectionately call the item first.

Celebration and and really what has grown to be a system wide event for Kent State. But also we have developed some really nice programs and ways that we want our first generation students to connect but also first Gen advocates and we'll talk a little bit about who those folks are.

So I'll start the presentation by sharing with you.

What we'll be talking about in the next few minutes here, and so this is so you have an idea of the road map of what we'll be sharing with you. But really, we'll start off with what it means to be first generation. So if you yourself are wondering if you fall into that category and we'll talk about how we define that here at Kent State, we'll talk about the office support. So we're the office that houses those efforts, but we also work in partnership with several offices.

And departments across campus and we'll talk a little bit about that, and then I'll share the purpose of our. I am first initiative and Alexandra will come on at that time and talk a little bit about some of the programs and specific initiatives that we have. And then we'll wrap up with some first Gen resources.

And so, as I mentioned, I'll start with sharing how we define a first generation college student. Me myself, I'm first generation. A proud version of a college grad and 1st Gen Masters graduate as well. And so there are several different ways that universities and institutions define what first generation is, and we use a lot of the literature to guide us and how we define that here. It can state.

But it is students who are or will be the first in their families to earn a bachelor's degree. And so if you live in a household with your mom or your dad or your guardian or grandparents who have not received a bachelor's degree, then you would be considered a first generation college student. So congratulations and I look forward to assisting you on your journey. But we also have many student staff and faculty who are not first Gen but support our efforts by being a first Gen.

Advocate

and so our first and advocates are folks who provide welcoming environments for our first generation students. So really making their resources and opportunities to connect with programs and academic support resources and very accessible ways. A lot of times when you're first Gen, it's difficult to understand and navigate campus. And so those folks really help students do that. Advocates support personnel.

Career development and so we partner a lot with our career exploration and Development office along with our academic success center. All of these offices and many more are housed in University College and we partner with them regularly to make sure that students have the resources they need to be successful.

Advocates provide guidance and support, and so if there are opportunities or things where folks will be able to mentor and guide students, share tips and tools and strategies for how to get through that first year, and then maybe that sophomore slump, they call it sometimes providing that guidance is critical to our students, and then lastly, supporting the future success and beyond for graduation.

We look forward to helping students reach graduation, but a lot of our programs and initiatives are designed to make sure that students have a really good understanding of what it looks like or what they can envision for their life after graduation. And so we try to create environments where we have staff and faculty who helped make that happen.

So I talked about who houses these efforts and as I am the director of Academic Diversity Outreach, that's the office that I serve in. And we also provide a number of other programs and initiatives for students. And it's really to help folks our students engage in life changing experiences for academic success. One of the things that we love to tell students is that we help.

You make graduation happen and really what that means is that we meet students where they are. What you come in with, your knowledge, your skills, your talents and your gifts and we try to help you hone in on that and apply them in the areas where you can capitalize on that and really accomplish your dreams and your things that you want to do, not only while you're a student at Penn State but beyond. And so some of the programs that you probably will hear about as you get closer to your time.

I'm coming to Kent State that our office.

Operates is summer advantage summer Advantage boot camp academic advantage those are programs where students can take a course in the summer to stay on track for graduation or get back on track and really designed to make sure that we close any achievement gaps that the students might have in order to reach the goal of graduation. We also help students with any financial needs that they might have beyond what your financial aid might be able to cover.

So after all of your scholarships, your grants and your loans have been applied to your account, we help a number of students figure out through some of our scholarship opportunities and emergency funds, how you might be able to leverage some of that money so that you don't have to focus on an outstanding tuition bill. Or if you need books or core supplies for your classes, we have funds to help students cover those things so that hopefully students can work less and engage more in the campus.

Community and student organizations, but then also to be able to take advantage of faculty connections.

And then lastly for our office, we support all students, but in particular we prioritize those students who are racially diverse. Those who are first generation and those who might come from limited income backgrounds, and so that's really important to us, because historically we know that there are some barriers that students face in those areas, and so we really try to make sure that we can help students overcome that. In addition to our office supporting the I am first initiatives, we work closely with.

Student Support Services who also helps them partners with us to plan the events during our celebration that you'll hear more about but also helps with a lot of the different programs and events that I just mentioned, as well as helps with some financial support that students will have.

So the purpose of I am first is really to help increase campus awareness and engagement of first generation student staff and faculty.

So it is designed to promote resources and programs and services that support first generation student success, and so Alexandra will talk a little bit more about the compilation of resources that we have for students. But just to give a little bit of context, the the first Gen celebration started as a day celebration and it has grown to a week of events.

And that's in part because we recognize that student, staff and faculty really enjoy and appreciate the way that we have honored the first Gen journey, but also how we continue to celebrate and acknowledge so many folks within our community who have that identity. And so I'm going to pass it to Alexandra at this time so she can talk a little bit more in detail about how we do that.

Alrighty it so this is an example of our item first web page. This is what we consider our virtual hub for first Gen students. So this is essentially an overview of some things that we're currently offering on our website.

And what gets updated? So I'm going to be talking about our glossary and our FAQ page. Our student, faculty, and staff stories. So these are our first Gen student, faculty and staff stories. The I am first week of celebration. This is a really big event for us, and so we'll be getting into that in a little bit. Along with that is our first generation awards, and so this is during our.

Week of celebration.

And then we do have a couple incoming initiatives. One of them is our faculty connections, which I'll talk a little bit about and then also our reading circle, which is still in development.

So here you'll see a couple screenshots of our glossary and our FAQ page, so our glossary is really a list of terms and departments that might be helpful when navigating the college environment. So for first Gen students, the college experience is brand new and there might be some terms that you're unfamiliar with. A lot of times students come to Kent State and don't know necessarily what.

An academic advisor does, or they don't know what the ones that for student services does or they don't know you know what the GPS is or what some of these acronyms are, so that's kind of why we have the glossary. It's so that you can go to our web page and see all of these terms, and so that you have a better idea and understanding of some of these terms.

Our next one under our Resources tab is going to be our FAQ page, so these are just frequently asked questions that we have provided. Some of the answers to. So for example, what is a first Gen advocate? So a first Gen advocate is someone who provides a welcoming environment to 1st Gen students to support personal and career development and who provides guidance and support during the students college Journey for future success beyond.

Graduation and so. For example, if you had clicked on that, you would have seen that definition there.

So that's just a really great resource that can be found on our web page.

So the next topic I wanted to go ahead and get into is our. I am first stories, so these are our first Gen stories for students, faculty and staff on our web page you are able to submit your first Gen story and the purpose of the stories are to share experiences, tips and advice with other first Gen students, staff and faculty who are navigating campus life.

College success, so we have been really successful with this initiative and you know it allows students to really kind of discuss their first Gen journey. The types of experiences or the people in their life who have helped them along their college journey towards degree completion, as well as advice for other first Gen students. You know, I went through this situation. This is how it ended up like.

You know another student might be in that exact same situation. In this advice can be extremely beneficial, you know. So sharing it, invite sharing tips, sharing challenges and how they have overcome some of these barriers that they have faced. And that's really big for first Gen students, and I think that is one of the most helpful pieces of our stories is that other students can see you know this student went through the same barrier that I'm experiencing and this is how they overcame.

Team it or these are the resources that help them overcome it. Maybe I can also use those resources.

So that is the student, faculty and staff story.

Our next one here is our. I am first.

Speak up selebration so this is like I said, one of our biggest events. It is a very very important event and it's actually a national event. So to give you some background to give you some history. Back in 2017 the Council for Opportunity and Education and Center for First Generation success launched the inaugural First Generation College celebration. So this took place on November 8th and it still continues to take place.

On November 8th, but the really cool thing about Kent State is we didn't want it to just be one day. So Kent State gets to celebrate first generation students, faculty and staff all week long. You know one day just wasn't enough, so we are able to celebrate for the whole week with different events and workshops and presentations and our actual celebration during this week.

So four 2022. The IMF first week is taking place from November 7th to the 11th.

And some of the examples of last year celebration events included the Iron First Pride competition and in kind of relation to that was the I am first social media takeover. So there were a lot of virtual events as well as in person events such as our I am 1st celebration. So this event was really it had a keynote speaker. This is where we did.

Our first generation awards. I mean, it was just really to celebrate.

You know, first generation students, faculty, and staff, so it was a really great event and then some other ones that were more of the educational side were the workshops from high school to college. So navigating the transition session and then the future focused Friday. So Melanie mentioned that we work a lot with our career exploration and development center and during the semester they put on their future focused Fridays. So this one was the first Gen edition.

This specific to 1st Gen students and it was a really great session. So we partnered with them. The exploratory program in University College for that session.

So as I was saying during the celebration, we did the first generation of words so.

The first Gen Awards are really for members of the KSU community to be recognized and receive, and I am first award within the certain categories. So we have an undergraduate and graduate first Gen alumni. We have a first Gen advocate for faculty and then a first Gen Advocate for Staff award and then we have our first Gen undergraduate and graduate student awards.

So these awards.

Really bring a lot of meaning to 1st generation college journeys and how far people in these categories have come in, what they've accomplished. And so this portion of the week and of the celebration is especially meaningful to all of us.

Alright, and then it just to kind of finish out here a little bit. We did really want to include some photos from the week of celebration, so as you can see here it was just a really really great time with a lot of really great people.

And we have in that lower corner our first generation T shirts. So we have the Advent shirts and the first generation graduate students, faculty, staff. We have all of us together, so it really is a great time for everybody to come together and be recognized and celebrate.

Yeah, and I think what's really cool about our first Gen efforts is that not only do we have multiple offices and departments partnering with us every year to put on the celebration, but we also have the support of the university leadership in that photo. Our President is pictured in in the purple 1st and advocate shirt as well as our Provost.

Is pictured beside him, and so it just really demonstrates that we have the support that we need to pour into our first Gen students to make sure that they're successful. We also in 2020 were designated as a first Gen forward institution along with two hundred other institutions in the nation, and So what that means is that we get regular professional development to learn how to cultivate our first generation.

Populations and also how to engage them regularly. And so when Alexander had mentioned earlier that we've got a couple of programs on the horizon, we're looking forward to jumpstarting our faculty connections program, which will allow first generation students to be mentored by a faculty member. And so being able to unpack research opportunities or internships, or academic avenues to.

Explore majors and jobs after that is really where we want students to be able to learn and grow. And then we also want to start a reading circle with a book that one of our former faculty members wrote that is a guidebook for how to move past your first Gen fears and be successful. And so this this work is really been passion. Work for us as we both have enjoyed.

Working together but also working with our students to make sure that we help them make graduation happen.

And so Rachel that concludes our slides. If anyone has any questions and and hopefully there's some way that we can get our resource link out to you as well as the link to our department and my email as well.

Yeah.

Yes, first year. These are all things that we can email out to anyone who's attended today. So you can have these resources with you to follow these links, but if anyone has any questions, this is the time. Now put them in the chat and we can answer them and help you out.

I'll give it a moment for some of you to type, but Melanie and Alexander thank you so much for the wonderful presentation. I hope it all this information was helpful to you all just learning about all the resources that we have here on Camp, States campus. And for any of our incoming students who might be a first time college student. So please don't feel like you need to be shy. There's no bad questions or anything like that. Please feel free to submit them and we can help answer anything you might have.

I wonder if there are any first Gen students on the call.

I would love to.

And now that.

Sure, and if you want to know in the chat, you can do that as well, but we do have one question here. Do you offer an assigned mentor to assist first generation students?

Oh, great question. Thanks for asking. So. There are so many amazing mentor opportunities for first Gen students and so we try to partner with a lot of our departments and offices not to overlap. However, we do actually have a peer support team in our office. They're called our lead.

Ambassadors and those upper classmen are a mix of first Gen students as well as first Gen advocate students, and so we do. We assign our lead ambassador some of the first Gen students who would like to get plugged into the resources in our office as well as get connected to some other resources within University College and beyond.

Great question, thanks.

Awesome and I see that we have at least two first generation students in the crowd tonight and one question related to that is if a first generation student is transferring the Count State University, are they still able to take advantage of having a mentor to work with through the program?

I see Alexandra nodding, absolutely you do, and so in that case we would probably work with our partners in, UM, student success programs where transfer information is housed. But absolutely any way that we can have a student who is first in plugged into our efforts, and they can come from any aspect of the university. So if they were transferring in, if you've been at Kent State in your sophomore, and you're like I remember that presentation.

Not really, love to get connected with. I am first. We typically last year we sent out a survey to all of the first Gen students, and that's where we received a lot of those students stories and so we have a number of touch points for students to get plugged into our efforts.

Wonderful, that's perfect if anyone else has any questions that they have, please feel free to submit them in the chat as well.

Melania Alexander is there anything else in regards to any incoming transfer students or transfer students in general that they might need to know about resources or anything you know that might be unique to them?

Or good to knows, tips, anything?

You know, I hope that we will have some space during DKS destination. Kent State or TKS to be able to share more about our. I am first resources and that's a really good place to share that you're interested in getting connected. We work very closely with that office and so we would be able to get your name and your email and start to plug you into the opportunities.

As well as I know, Melanie, you know talked a little bit about student success and

you know another great place. If you you know, get halfway through your freshman year sophomore whatever, and you're like, wow, I really, you know, wish I could reach out to that. I first, but I'm not really sure where to start for really. Any resources, you know, your academic advisor, or even potentially, you know a professor or some, but somebody that you know I'm reaching out to them for resources is always a really great opportunity. Usually you know advisors are are pretty aware of a lot of resources.

On campus and they can. They can direct you to our office and so if you just forget or you know don't even know where to where to start. That's always a great place because you should be connected with your advisor and they should be able to get you the resources so they can definitely send you over to us. And then we can kind of get started from there.

Wonderful and one other thing I'll add to that is if you are still.

You know, pretty.

Have a little bit of time before you are an official student and get to go through orientation. If you do have those types of questions and want to learn more about those resources and you're like, hey, I think I remember talking to this presentation and then contact info. You can always reach out to our admissions office each. All of our students you know, regardless of you know where they're coming from or if you're a first year student, a transfer student. I'll have a specific admissions counselor to help guide.

Them through that whole transition process to college, making that decision and then getting them more information about the resources that we have here at Kent State. So again, while you're going through that process and you don't have a professor yet or an advisor, you can always reach out to our admissions office. And I'm going to put that phone number in the chat. But while I do that as well, I just want to clarify, Melanie. I think you mentioned that there was hope that there's going to be some more information during our orientation programs, decks, and TKS.

About I am first but uhm.

I believe the best thing is just letting someone know during that program that they are interested in the program is you know what's recommended, correct?

Yeah, absolutely. If there isn't a space where you hear from me directly or someone from my office about I am first or one of our partners asking any of the SP staff who makes DKS happen so brilliantly they'll be able to get connected with us for sure. Thanks for that clarification, Rachel.

Yeah, absolutely.

Wonderful. Are there any other questions?

I'll give you all moment to type, but I will include contact information and any links that were shared during the presentation today in an email to all that you, all of you who attended and thank you all so much for virtually coming to our 30 net flash topic event for our I am first program. I hope it was beneficial to you all. You were able to learn lots of resources.

About the program and thank you Melanie and Alexander for doing a wonderful presentation. And if no one else has any questions, just wanna tell you all goodnight and thank you so much for attending and please reach out to us especially our admissions office if you have any questions in the future we can get you connected to the right spot.

Wonderful thank you everyone. Have a great night.

Thanks so much. Good luck everyone.

Take care goodnight.