General Resources
College Belonging by ISBN: 9781978809536Publication Date: 2021College Belonging reveals how colleges' and universities' efforts to foster a sense of belonging in their students are misguided. Colleges bombard new students with the message to "get out there!" and "find your place" by joining student organizations, sports teams, clubs and the like. Nunn shows that this reflects a flawed understanding of what belonging is and how it works. Drawing on the sociological theories of Emile Durkheim, College Belonging shows that belonging is something that members of a community offer to each other. It is something that must be given, like a gift. Individuals cannot simply walk up to a group or community and demand belonging. That's not how it works. The group must extend a sense of belonging to each and every member. It happens by making a person feel welcome, to feel that their presence matters to the group, that they would be missed if they were gone. This critical insight helps us understand why colleges' push for students simply to "get out there!" does not always work.
Crack the Code by Call Number: LB2343.32 .L54 2020ISBN: 9781735460505Publication Date: 2020Start college with your own wise mentor-in-a-book. Be prepared for challenges and opportunities by learning from the experiences of dozens of First Generation students who speak to you in this Guide about what they wished they had known and now, want you to know.
First-Generation College Student Experiences of Intersecting Marginalities by Call Number: LC4069.6 .F57 2019ISBN: 9781433157028Publication Date: 2018First-Generation College Student Experiences of Intersecting Marginalities examines the intersecting relationships between a student's identity as a first-generation college student (FGCS) and other identities such as race, class, LGBTQ+, and spiritual identity. This book breaks new ground by examining highly diverse populations of FGCS, rather than predominantly White undergraduates at four-year public universities. First-Generation College Student Experiences of Intersecting Marginalities explores the intersections of identities that may be marginalized in different ways across a student's educational journey in research-grounded chapters that discuss real academic experiences of faculty, administrators, graduate students, and undergraduates.
First-Generation College Students by Publication Date: 2012-05-25Contents:
1. Who Are First-Generation Students? --
2. Transition into College --
3. Transition Through College --
4. Class, Culture, Race, and Ethnicity --
5. Transforming How We Work with First-Generation Students --
6. A Holistic Approach to Student Success.
The First-generation Student Experience by Contents:
Introduction;
1 HOW MANY FIRST-GENERATION COLLEGE STUDENTS ARE THERE?; Definitions; Counting First-Generation College Students; How Institutions Can Count Students; What the Data Show; First-Generation Student Status as a Proxy for Ethnicity; Counting the Institutions That Will Be Counting First-Generation Students; Now Is the Time for Action; Sonoma State University; Notes;
2 THE OBSERVABLE BEHAVIORS OF FIRST-GENERATION COLLEGE STUDENTS; Learning the Culture of College; First-Generation Status Is Not the Same as Low-Income Status; Section One: Learning at College.
Higher Education and First-Generation Students by Call Number: ebookPublication Date: 2010-11-22Higher Education and First-Generation Students offers readers a rich understanding of the experience of students who are first in their family to attend college. This book contends that first-generation students are isolated and marginalized on many large college campuses and considers learning communities and critical multicultural pedagogies as vehicles to cultivate community, voice, and place for this new majority of students. This book is a theoretically informed study of the lived experience of FG students and draws on their voices to demonstrate how their insights interface with what we, as educators, think we know about them. What can we learn from these students? How might their insights inform and shape the learning spaces we create for them?
Relationship-Rich Education by ISBN: 9781421439372Publication Date: 2020A mentor, advisor, or even a friend? Making connections in college makes all the difference. What single factor makes for an excellent college education? As it turns out, it's pretty simple: human relationships. Decades of research demonstrate the transformative potential and the lasting legacies of a relationship-rich college experience. Critics suggest that to build connections with peers, faculty, staff, and other mentors is expensive and only an option at elite institutions where instructors have the luxury of time with students. But in this revelatory book brimming with the voices of students, faculty, and staff from across the country, Peter Felten and Leo M. Lambert argue that relationship-rich environments can and should exist for all students at all types of institutions. In Relationship-Rich Education, Felten and Lambert demonstrate that for relationships to be central in undergraduate education, colleges and universities do not require immense resources, privileged students, or specially qualified faculty and staff. All students learn best in an environment characterized by high expectation and high support, and all faculty and staff can learn to teach and work in ways that enable relationship-based education. Emphasizing the centrality of the classroom experience to fostering quality relationships, Felten and Lambert focus on students' influence in shaping the learning environment for their peers, as well as the key difference a single, well-timed conversation can make in a student's life. They also stress that relationship-rich education is particularly important for first-generation college students, who bring significant capacities to college but often face long-standing inequities and barriers to attaining their educational aspirations. Drawing on nearly 400 interviews with students, faculty, and staff at 29 higher education institutions across the country, Relationship-Rich Educationprovides readers with practical advice on how they can develop and sustain powerful relationship-based learning in their own contexts. Ultimately, the book is an invitation--and a challenge--for faculty, administrators, and student life staff to move relationships from the periphery to the center of undergraduate education.
Series of articles on First Gen students from the Chronicle.
Snell, Theron P. "First-generation Students, Social Class, and Literacy." Academe. 94.4 (2008): 28-31.
"The author works as an academic adviser and adjunct instructor at a small, public, four-year university that provides the usual spread of bachelor's degree programs, as well as several master's degrees. He has done similar work at a private liberal arts college and at a branch campus of a large state school. He brings to this work not only a PhD in American studies but also experience teaching English in a Colombian high school for two years and teaching English as a second language in a language institute in Bogota, Colombia, for a year. At each of the U.S. institutions at which he has worked, administrators and faculty alike have worried about and studied first-generation college students, looking at specific academic and social challenges these students face and how best to ensure student success. In this article, the author looks at this concern about first-generation students from the perspective he has gained from working at a smaller, regional university and from teaching cross-culturally. Although faculty members and administrators invoke first-generation status to explain many of the academic problems they perceive, his experience suggests that social class and local social environment, particularly their respective effects on literacy, are just as crucial indicators of success. Class, in fact, may act as a multiplier to first-generation status."
Pyne, K.B, and D.R Means. "Underrepresented and In/visible: a Hispanic First-Generation Student's Narratives of College." Journal of Diversity in Higher Education. 6.3 (2013): 186-198.
"Despite improvements in the rates of college admission over the past few decades, college persistence, retention, and graduation rates continue to be problematic for underrepresented students—students of color and students from low-income and/or first-generation families. This article presents a case study of a female, first-generation, low-income Hispanic student during her 1st year at a highly selective, private, predominantly White university. Drawing on critical race theory and qualitative research methodologies, it explores and understands key incidents prior to matriculation and throughout 2 semesters, focusing on those connected to racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic identities, as well as social and academic interactions and relationships. It recenters discussion on the lived experiences and insider’s perspectives of a historically marginalized student, stories often omitted from the research or hidden within the broader statistics on success and failure. Using the metaphor of invisibility/visibility to capture ongoing tensions, it highlights her strategies for success while deconstructing the subtle social and institutional discourses that work against her and create hidden stress, struggle, and doubt. It paints a complex portrait of what “success” may look like for such students in our current higher educational spaces." (journal abstract)
Hand, Christie, and Emily Miller Payne. "First-Generation College Students: A Study Of Appalachian Student Success." Journal Of Developmental Education 32.1 (2008): 4-15.
First generation students represent a crucial population in institutions of higher education. Often considered "at-risk" in academic persistence and retention discussions, these students present both a challenge and opportunity to postsecondary education. This study focuses on a subgroup of first generation students, those from Appalachia, and the factors contributing to their academic persistence. The participants were students from the Student Support Services program at a major Appalachian university. The phenomenological method was employed, enabling the themes to flow from the data rather than being presupposed by the researcher. The themes (factors) emerging from the students ' experiences were the importance of home culture and family, financial concerns, significance of an internal locus of control, relationships and emotional support, and communication of information. Each of these has shown a definite impact on the students' academic persistence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
Ishitani, Terry T. "Studying Attrition And Degree Completion Behavior Among First-Generation College Students In The United States." Journal Of Higher Education 77.5 (2006): 861-885.
The article presents a research study concerning college degree completion among college students. The researchers looked first generation students in particular. A number of factors, including rank in their high school classes; educational level of their parents; types of financial aid awarded; participation in work-study programs; and income levels affected the likelihood of graduation. The researchers also examined how ethnicity affected college completion rates. Students who attended private colleges and universities and those who had higher family income levels as well as those who received grants rather than loans had higher rates of graduation.
U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, Students Whose Parents Did Not Go to College: Postsecondary Access, Persistence, and Attainment, NCES 2001–126, by Susan Choy. Washington, DC: 2001.
Williams, C. R., & Butler, S. K. A new retention variable: Hope and first generation college students. Ideas and Research You Can Use: VISTAS 2010. (2010).
Resources for Faculty
The College Fear Factor by Publication Date: 2009-10-30From the Publisher: They're not the students strolling across the bucolic liberal arts campuses where their grandfathers played football. They are first-generation college students-children of immigrants and blue-collar workers-who know that their hopes for success hinge on a degree. But college is expensive, unfamiliar, and intimidating. Inexperienced students expect tough classes and demanding, remote faculty. They may not know what an assignment means, what a score indicates, or that a single grade is not a definitive measure of ability. And they certainly don't feel entitled to be there. They do not presume success, and if they have a problem, they don't expect to receive help or even a second chance. Rebecca D. Cox draws on five years of interviews and observations at community colleges. She shows how students and their instructors misunderstand and ultimately fail one another, despite good intentions. Most memorably, she describes how easily students can feel defeated-by their real-world responsibilities and by the demands of college-and come to conclude that they just don't belong there after all. Eye-opening even for experienced faculty and administrators, The College Fear Factor reveals how the traditional college culture can actually pose obstacles to students' success, and suggests strategies for effectively explaining academic expectations.
Collier, Peter J, and David L. Morgan. "“Is That Paper Really Due Today?”: Differences in First-Generation and Traditional College Students’ Understandings of Faculty Expectations." Higher Education : the International Journal of Higher Education and Educational Planning. 55.4 (2008): 425-446.
Wiggins, Janice. "Faculty And First-Generation College Students: Bridging The Classroom Gap Together." New Directions For Teaching & Learning 2011.127 (2011): 1-4.
"Drawing on her thirteen years of experience as director of Indiana University-Bloomington's Groups Program, which serves first generation and low-income students, the author details the challenges facing first generation college students (FGS). She argues for the need for sourcebooks such as this one to educate higher-education personnel about the academic, cultural, and social experiences of FGS. Educating college and university personnel is the first step toward improving FGS' college success, retention, and graduation rates." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
New Directions for Teaching and Learning, Fall 2011 - Issue on First Generation teaching and learning.
Greenwald, Richard. "Think Of First-Generation Students As Pioneers, Not Problems.." Chronicle Of Higher Education 59.12 (2012): A37-A38.
Programs
Arizona Western College Upward Bound Program - "We are a federally funded educational program, designed to increase the academic skills and motivational levels of low-income and/or first-generation college students to the extent that they will complete high school and successfully enter a postsecondary educational program and graduate."
Dalton, Donna, Carol A. Moore, and Robert Whittaker. "First-generation, Low-Income Students: Strategies for Success at Lyndon State College." New England Journal of Higher Education. 23.5 (2009): 26-27.
"Lyndon State College is a small, four-year public college in the rural Northeast Kingdom of Vermont. In an effort to improve its first-year retention rate, two years ago the authors began to analyze which students return to Lyndon for their second year of college. They found that more than 60% of the students were first-generation college students and more than 30% were both first-generation and low-income (FGLI) based on Pell eligibility. With further analysis, they found the first- to second-year retention rate for FGLI students was 54%, compared with 60% for the rest of the population. With a $100,000 year-long Project Compass planning grant from the Nellie Mae Education Foundation, the authors established a task force to collect data and identify strategies for improving the success of FGLI students. Funded by the foundation and managed by the New England Resource Center for Higher Education, Project Compass aims to help a select group of public New England colleges and universities improve the success rate of their most underserved students. Project Compass is guided by the premise that by developing systemic initiatives to increase the retention rates of the most underserved students, colleges can increase the chance of success for all students. In this article, the authors list the strategies for success at Lyndon State College."
Gose, Ben. "At Hamilton College, Top Administrators Were Themselves First-Generation Students." Chronicle Of Higher Education 61.36 (2015): 1-4.
Hamilton College gives special consideration to students who break family barriers by pursuing a higher education.
More on Hamilton's First In the Family, First Year Forward programs
Gose, Ben. "At Illinois College, A Fellowship Helps Students Succeed." Chronicle Of Higher Education 61.36 (2015): 1-4.
The program begins with a summer session for incoming freshmen and continues with special classes and social opportunities.
More on the Yates Fellowship Program at Illinois College
I'm First - A list of colleges and database of stats organized by the Center for Student Opportunity (CSO), a national nonprofit based in Bethesda, Md. that works to empower first-generation college students on the path to and through college. I’m First! (ImFirst.org) is an an online campaign celebrating first-generation college students and web application designed to help aspiring first-generation college students research and plan for college.
Inkelas, Karen Kurotsuchi, et al. "Living–Learning Programs And First-Generation College Students’ Academic And Social Transition To College." Research In Higher Education 48.4 (2007): 403-434.
This study examines the role of living–learning (L/L) programs in facilitating first generation students’ perceived academic and social transition to college. Using a sample of 1,335 first generation students from 33 4-year institutions who participated in the National Study of Living–Learning Programs during Spring 2004, the results of the study show that first-generation students in L/L programs reported a more successful academic and social transition to college than their first-generation counterparts living in a traditional residence hall setting. In addition, interactions with faculty members and using residence hall resources facilitated an easier academic transition for first-generation students in L/L programs, and supportive residence hall climates were related to an easier social transition. A preliminary interpretation of this study’s results is that structured activities, such as faculty interaction and residence hall programming, are more influential for this population than informal peer groups.
Lewis & Clark Great Expectations
PETTY, TANJULA. "Motivating First-Generation Students To Academic Success And College Completion." College Student Journal 48.1 (2014): 133-140.
"Institutions play an important role in motivating students by understanding intrinsic and extrinsic factors that motivate students to remain in college. Postsecondary institutions should provide a range of programs to help these students face their challenges and weaknesses. Colleges and universities should escalate the process of creating bridge programs that link higher education to secondary education. These experiences provide academic and social pathways that assist first generation students overcome inadequate preparation for college. It is recommended using creative approaches to motivate students, such as field trips, presentations by other first generation college students, and collaborative planning for transition could benefit this population of students." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
Transy's Trailblazers workshop, June 2013: Faculty Workshop on support systems to enhance academic success among all students from underrepresented groups.
If you do a search for "first generation" in the linked notes you'll see in the discussion notes that we did talk briefly about first gen students.
TUCKER, GERI COLEMAN. "First Generation." Diverse: Issues In Higher Education (2014): 24-28.
The article discusses how first generation students in U.S. colleges and universities offer academic and moral assistance to peers particularly those who belong to low-income and minority communities. It cites efforts of concerned institutions to increase recruitment and retention of first generation students. It also explores the increase in minority student enrollment in the country, the success of peer-to-peer academic programs, and the involvement of nonprofit groups in said initiatives. This article mentions efforts by Franklin & Marshall and Kenyon
More on Kenyon's REACH Program
T. W., D. "Bridge Scholars Program." University Business 19.4 (2016): 26-27.
The article discusses the Bridge Scholars Program of Colorado College. Topics covered include the importance of integrating students from underrepresented backgrounds into the full collegiate environment, the program's targeting of first generation college students, and students' participation in interdisciplinary forces and co-curricular and extracurricular activities. Contributions to the program by faculty, administrators and student peer-mentors are also mentioned.
More on QuestBridge
More on Colorado College Bridge Scholars Program