Rashné Jehangir:
It’s an interdependent and a communal journey, right? You’re not just like and I think that’s one thing that’s also really important part of the first gen experience that, that burden of that backpack you’re carrying is your backpack, but it’s your parents and your siblings and then your cousins and then sometimes your community.

Glenn DeGuzman:
Hello, and welcome to Student Affairs NOW I’m your host, Dr. Glenn DeGuzman. The next two Student Affairs NOW episodes are dedicated to the first generation experiences of college students and professionals. But in today’s episode, I’m joined by our panelists discuss topics surrounding the experience of first generation college students, Student Affairs NOW is to premiere podcast and online learning community for thousands of us who work in alongside or adjacent to the field of higher education and student affairs, we release new episodes every week on Wednesdays. Find details about this episode or browse our archives at StudentAffairsNOW.com. Before we jump into the conversation, I want to acknowledge that today’s episodes are sponsored by Stylus publishing. So please visit styluspub.com. Check out the student affairs, diversity professional development titles use promo code SANow for 30% off all books plus free shipping. This episode is also sponsored by LeaderShape, go to leadershape.org to learn how

Glenn DeGuzman:
They can work with you to create a just caring and thriving world. As I mentioned, I’m your host, Glenn DeGuzman. I’m the associate Dean of students and director of residential life at UC Berkeley. I used to, he series as my pronouns and I’m hosting this conversation today from my home in Livermore, California, which is the ancestral home of the unseated territory of the Palin tribe of the Aloni peoples. I’m very excited about this topic and the guests to talk story about first-generation students on college campuses. We’re also filming today’s episode with hopes to release this episode near or close to the November 8th date, which is the national first-generation Polish celebration month. Yay. To honor the signing of the higher education act of 1965. And I hope this episode, as well as next week’s episode, contribute to bring attention to our first-generation students. So let’s meet our panelists.

Glenn DeGuzman:
I’d like to welcome to the show Dr. Robert Longwell-Grice from the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee. We have Rashné Jehangir who is from University of Minnesota Twin Cities, and we have Dr. Latonya Rease Miles from Menlo College in California, just kind of south of me. Welcome. So I am so excited and let’s, let’s introduce you more to the audience and just share a little more about yourselves and what do you do and your journey into the work that you do now, and how did your connection to this topic on first-generation students come to be? Rob, why don’t you kick us off?

Rob Longwell-Grice:
Okay, sure. Well, as you mentioned, I’m with the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee. I spent my last 20 years here and I recently retired. So I’m staffing, emeritus working for the school of education then as the Dean of students for a while here as well. But in regards to how I started this topic, it was my dissertation topic some 20 years ago from the University of Louisville. And for that point forward, I think that was really the time when we’re learning a lot more about first-generation students will, the literature was always very clear, at least from a quantitative analysis, that the most important thing in terms of whether you go to college, whether you graduate from college as if you have at least one parent went to college, we have this quantitative data that said, this is true. But for me, the question was always why. So for the past 20 years that’s been, what I’ve been trying to research is to answer this question of why I’m doing it on more of a qualitative basis. And now with the release of my book, we’re really taking a look at the notion of intersectionality as it applies to first-generation college students.

Glenn DeGuzman:
Wonderful. Rob, I’m looking forward to unpacking more with you in this conversation. Congratulations on your retirement.

Rob Longwell-Grice:
Thank you.

Glenn DeGuzman:
And let’s go to Rashné.

Rashné Jehangir:
Sure. Hi, my name is Rashné Jehangir. I am associate professor of higher education, but I also teach undergrads, which I very much enjoy in first year experience programs and learning communities. I am the co-editor the inaugural co-editor of the journal of a first-generation student success out of NASPA and Rob is an associate editor as well with us. I came into this work by happenstance. and, and luckily it happened very early in my career and because of that, it changed the trajectory of my life in many meaningful ways. So I’m the first person in my family to live in the United States and my parents went to college outside of the United States. And when I finished my master’s degree in counseling student personnel psychology and began looking for work in student affairs, I was hired in the federally funded trio programs, working for trio SSS and McNair scholars programs, shout out to all my trio family.

Rashné Jehangir:
Whoo, that was a moment that shifted everything. It made me see education as a civil right. And that there’s a political engagement that we need to have to open the doors of access to students. And for me personally, it felt like home. I felt like all the things I didn’t understand in my international context I and modeled through, there were other folks around me who didn’t understand them, but also understood how to speak multiple languages, a mock walk and multiple worlds which I thought of as, you know, incredible skills. So that moment and that 10 year career in trail pretty much shaped my research and my interest in sort of being at the nexus of scholarship and practice in student development and student affairs.

Glenn DeGuzman:
Thank you for that introduction and welcome. LaTonya or LT,

LaTonya Rease Miles:
LT it is high school nickname never went away. Thanks for having me, Glenn. So I’m currently Dean of student affairs at Menlo College beautiful San Francisco bay area. And I’ll just need with, I am the type of administrator that I needed as a first generation college student and try to make my journey through multiple institutions. So I was a transfer student. I was the type of student that now has named for it. We didn’t really have names for these things being first gen non-traditional food insecure. I had many of those experiences. Thankfully I was also involved in a trio program first as a student and in the McNair scholars program and then had the great fortune to be a director myself. And funny enough, even though I know I knew I was the first in my family to go to college.

LaTonya Rease Miles:
I didn’t know I was first gen I didn’t, I didn’t know about that identity until I was in my graduate program, my PhD program. And and then I realized, oh, wait, there’s other people besides me. It’s not just me and my crazy family. No, it’s a whole identity. So I actually had a lot of experience and been blessed to be involved in this work in a number of different ways. So outside of my own campus I’ve founded a digital coming online community of support. And I don’t, we’ll talk about that later, but empowering first generation students, Facebook group, I founded the black first gen collective. So I’m finding a lot of ways to address what seems like a simple topic, but really isn’t.

Glenn DeGuzman:
Most definitely. I thank you for that introduction. You know, as a myself as a first gen student, I love how you, you state that not, not knowing, not having a name and just really just having these experiences, the, what, you know, when I was a student, I didn’t really know how to identify or classify what I was going through. If, if you want to call it that. So, but for the listeners, let’s start at the top here and establish for our listeners who are first-generation students on college campuses today. And I think maybe the question I want to ask is what do we want listeners to know about the experiences of first-generation students, Rob, why don’t you start us off?

Rob Longwell-Grice:
Sure. you know, this whole notion of the, of what is the first-generation college students has kind of morphed over the years and you know, rationality with, with some geo background will know that. And one level, it appears to be simplistic. First-Generation college students are students whose parents have never gone to college. But then there’s some discussion out there about, well, does it matter if one parent wanted to college versus neither parent? Does it matter if they attempted college, but didn’t finish? Does it matter if you get a two year degree? So although as it say on the surface, it is the simple, your parents didn’t go to college. But it’s a little bit more than that. And the other thing that we’ve been exploring, I think in the last few years, it used to be that first-generation college students was kind of a monolithic term.

Rob Longwell-Grice:
Here’s first-generation your parents didn’t go to college. That’s what defines you, that’s that. And so for awhile, people were kind of looking for this magic bullet that would solve all the problems of first-generation college students. And to a certain degree, I think people are still looking for that. But now with this notion of intersectionality, that’s come in to play, we know it’s not just first gen and the story it’s first-generation and your socioeconomic status first-generation rates, first-generation in gender. First-Generation LGBT. So there’s other things that have come to make this a much more complex term than we originally thought. But I guess back to your you know, to the definition of it from from a federal standpoint and research standpoint it’s students whose parents did not go to college. So I’ll turn it over to my colleagues here to see two.

Glenn DeGuzman:
LT, thoughts.

LaTonya Rease Miles:
I think, to build upon that. I want it, I want people to also consider the whole educational pipeline and to think that there are there are different moments where students need to be reintroduced to the term. I think what happens right now when we just focus on, like Rob was saying like that earlier definition, which has obviously a lot of utility who oftentimes focus a lot on just the college application process. And so oftentimes that’s a moment where many students realize that they are first generation because FAFSA is asking questions and colleges are asking questions and they talk to their parents. Well, there are also moments, like I said, there, there are also instances where someone may not realize they’re first gen until much later going onto graduate school or later on, even as a professional member. So we have to continually remind people what the definition is and why it matters. And I think the last point I’ll add to this is the great strengths that come with being first-generation that this isn’t about deficit finding or faults or anything like that. There are a number of things and skills and funds of knowledge that first-generation communities bring to our campuses and institutions.

Rashné Jehangir:
Yeah. I, you know, I think one of the really important things to think about when we talk about first gen identity is yeah, it’s a very heterogeneous group, right? It’s not easily categorized or pigeonholed. And in the chapter that I wrote in Rob’s book, one of the things we take up is what’s in a name. Why use that? Why use first-gen? And so one thing to think about is what does it mean to have an identity that only comes into play because you enter higher education, right? Because when you’re elsewhere in the world, you might be an immigrant, you might be black, you might be a woman you might be, but these identities are, you are negotiating them before you come to college or before you come to high school or wherever else. But first gen is something that comes into play.

Rashné Jehangir:
When you enter this place that your parents, your family, your community did not know. And I think that’s a really important distinction. And so when I think about talking about first gen, I think about like, how do we talk about the demography of what it means to be first gen, right? And this this intersectionality of race and class and what NASPA is calling first gen plus identity. But I also think it’s about sort of naming how in this country in particular race and racism, class and classism, generational poverty has made the pathways to, and through college different for some people and often in this group of people than others and the structure of the place that they’re coming to was not built for them. So that’s a big part of being first gen. Right. and I think that’s an important part.

Rashné Jehangir:
And then just to say to the point that LT was making that if you think about first-gen is folks who’ve walked in many worlds, like the lived experience of being first gen, then they bring those skillsets to the academy. We just in the academy tends not to view those skillsets as skillsets, because we’re talking about all this stuff, like, did you take the act or you do on it? What do you do on your APs? Like how many clubs were you in? Not like, did you take a bus pick up your cousin, then go fill out your grandma’s insurance forms, then go back all those things that are just about massive skillsets. Right? So I think it’s all of those things that we need to attend to when we think about what does it mean to be first gen?

Glenn DeGuzman:
Wow, Thank you for starting this all up. This, this next I want to post to all of you is a question that I’m very curious to know more about. Research shows that many first-generation students experience a level of stress and anxiety. I think other research speaks to mental challenges, psychological issues. And for me, when I was a first, you know, when I first came to college I was a first in my family to go. I was the oldest, there was expectations that were, that I don’t think my parents directly put on me, but I just felt right that, that I was supposed to help and get, get the family help. The next generation. There was just a lot of stuff going through my head. And so I’m curious, for example, imposter syndrome, I know that Howard London speaks to breakaway guilt. These are the things that were running through my mind. Can you speak to some of maybe the internal thoughts and, and reflections that college students first-generation college students may experience or feel about the field and I’m going to drag that LT. Why don’t you kick us off on this one?

LaTonya Rease Miles:
Sure. I think Glen, what you’re addressing are some of the risk factors, right? That come with being first-generation you mentioned imposter syndrome. And I was chuckling a little bit when you said you may not have no one may have explicitly stated that they had those expectations, but you still felt them. Right. And our friend, Rebecca Covarrubias from UC Santa Cruz writes about academic achievement, guilt that students make first-generation students particularly may experience as they’re navigating college. And they’re encountering opportunities that their family members didn’t study abroad, being able to choose a major. And you’ll talk about being passionate about a career. Many of our, our parents didn’t have the opportunity to choose what their career is. And so all of those needs may come into play for a lot of our students. I can’t believe we’ve made it this far, and haven’t mentioned COVID yet, but you know, we do need to to address that because we have to talk about the context in the moment that many of our students also are more than just students, their identities, that some of their identities may include being a worker, maybe being a good son or good, or just a good child and how they’re negotiating and what this means for mental health.

LaTonya Rease Miles:
Right? So there could, like you said, could be a lot of anxiety and stress layered, but again, I also am a strengths-based person. So I also want to show the positive side to many of those things. And Rashné had to address this. Robert, you’ve got this great light shining on you. It’s, it’s amazing.

Rob Longwell-Grice:
Yeah. As the sun’s going down, I suppose I should switch out. I’ve been to it. You know, now that I’m retired, they gave me saint hood status as well.

LaTonya Rease Miles:
But no working phone. Well, one term that I like to share with our, with students is being a cultural broker. And oftentimes that comes into play with language translation where, you know, folks, I think Rashné was just talking about this, where you make maybe your role in a family is being the ambassador for your family. You are navigating with with social services or with, with other teachers. And that was my role in my family, in English is, are, is, is our primary language. But being the first-generation person in my family, I was the face of my family at the same time. And so while that may have caused some stress for sure, but look at all the strengths that it gave me as well being being able to own that and being again like a leader. So those are, those are many of the factors that, that folks may not be aware of when they’re talking about first generation. It’s not just that your parents didn’t go to college. There are all these other things that come into play.

Glenn DeGuzman:
Well, what you’ve just shared really resonated with me. I’ve never heard the term cultural broker in you describe my experience. My parents actually stopped teaching me my native, my first language, because I needed to represent the family here. It’s really interesting Rashné.

Rashné Jehangir:
Yeah, I was thinking about how you were talking about sort of the notion of guilt or feeling like in your success. Maybe there’s a feeling of leaving other people behind or having to sometimes shed yourself of certain identities that tie you to your community. And so one of the things I’ve found in both my research and work and the stories of first-generation students is that there is this immense pride, but also this is one theme that emerged from a study I did some years ago. And it’s this idea of feeling like a burden of privilege that you are, you have this immense privilege because you get to go do all these things and go to study abroad or whatever else it might be. But you’re also aware that your journey is not a individual journey.

Rashné Jehangir:
It’s an interdependent and a communal journey, right? You’re not just like and I think that’s one thing that’s also really important part of the first gen experience that, that burden of that backpack you’re carrying is your backpack, but it’s your parents and your siblings and then your cousins and then sometimes your community. And so if you don’t do well, it’s not just like, oh, you know, Joe didn’t do so well, well no Joe’s his whole family. And what does that mean to have to negotiate that while also negotiating these, these other identities, that imposter phenomenon that you refer to, that, that comes around. And one thing that I, that I think interesting is that I think some of the questions that first gen students have other students have those questions too. It’s just, they feel more comfortable asking them because they ask questions.

Rashné Jehangir:
But when, you know, someone’s framed your experience from a deficit experience, then it’s sort of like, if I ask this, what does this reveal about me and how much, how much vulnerability do I want to give this audience in a place that I don’t feel like I belong in? So I think it complicates it. I do think that as we do this work, one of the things I think a lot about is how do we as practitioners, scholars, how do we design things, design programs, design spaces that walk this line. And the line is, I think saying, yes, there are incredibly difficult transitions that students make and we need to we need to recognize those. And they also bring this capital, but being careful not to get into this like resilience, grit stuff, which is like, somehow there’s like some first gen superhero.

Rashné Jehangir:
And, there is some of that, you know, as the first-gen narrative has become hipper and now more and more people are talking about it. It’s sort of like we’re doing some, a little bit of this ra ra ra stuff and I’m not undermining the value of recognizing capital and navigational capital, cultural, capital, language, capital, all those things, but also recognizing that, that doesn’t necessarily make it easier to pass through these paths. Right. So it’s still pokes and you have to think about that and you have to think about how you’re giving students the language to speak to their own capital. And I think giving them a space and negotiate that I think, yeah.

Rob Longwell-Grice:
So I had two thoughts if I could jump in here. So, so one Rashné, I’m thinking exactly what you say. You know, there’s a, on the one hand we hear these great stories. You know, people who’ve come up from nothing, quote, unquote, to be something. But the downside of that sometimes it’s that that’s not that inspirational because there’s a flip side that says, Hey, if they can do it, why can’t you? Right. So I think we have to be really careful when we do that. And I think that’s done a lot in our society, especially, you know, social class about people pulling themselves, escaping the neighborhood and all that kind of stuff, which I think is a lot of who hockey, but yeah. Yeah, we gotta be careful of that. But I think, you know, the conversation we’re having about, about our families and everything, you guys, a story, it really plays up intersectionality because your stories are so different than mine.

Rob Longwell-Grice:
So at some point what I was doing this research, so I had my family, large Irish, Catholic family, eight siblings, seven boys, one girl, I was the fifth boy in a row. And so I decided that what I was gonna do was I was gonna and they’re all from rural New York state. Every time I went home to visit I’d drag my camera and interview one of my siblings to ask them what it was like to be a first gen, because everybody at least did, two years of school did have an, a brother go to school, matter how they feel about having it. And it was really the epitome of competition. You know, we weren’t helping each other. And what also happened in this is that after my first brother went from, he transferred successfully to four year school and my parents were appalled at the changes that my brother went through.

Rob Longwell-Grice:
And so they actively worked against us to go on for college. And some of the other brothers were the same way. They were really appalled that, that we would go on as those that went on and thought that the changes that happen just really pulled us from the neighborhood and the family. And it was really, really, really hard. So it, you know, in my, some of the work that I do, and I think that being a first gen, you have to develop a certain sense of biculturalism because you do go into a whole new social class when you’re losing, when you’re learning all that stuff that, that colleges want you to know. Cause it ain’t stuff that we learned growing up. Right. and it makes it a little bit difficult. So you gotta be able to, to negotiate both groups. But this conversation is, I think really speaks to the notion of intersectionality. Because again each first gen story is a little bit different potentially

Rashné Jehangir:
Not sure it’s my turn yet, but I’ll just jump in really quickly. When I was hearing you talk Rob, about taking the photos of your family. First of all, I want to see those and I want to talk to you about a, more at another time, but I was thinking of this photo voice project I did with trio programs where students took photographs and wrote narratives about their experiences being first gen in different identities. And one sort of photograph that tended to appear across whether they were talking about their multiple identities or social class or their academic identities where students often took pictures of bridges or roads that you could not see the end of. And they were using these photos metaphorically. Right. But what they talked about is like, you know, this act of crossing, right, crossing in different worlds, then re crossing again and crossing into different ones.

Rashné Jehangir:
And sometimes those worlds, like they don’t understand each other or speak the same language. I remember one time I was giving this presentation and I was talking about this process and a gentleman in the back, raised his hand and said, well, everybody goes through adult development, you know? And so this is a, this is something that all students go through. And I said, no, it’s the differences is that their worlds aren’t competing with each other sometime that’s a vital difference. Right. when you’re having to translate why a degree in journalism would be a useful degree when really it was like, there’s four degrees, you’re doing this, this or this. Right. And that’s shifting. And I think we’re doing a better job of helping students take home the language that they could speak to with regard to that. But it, it’s still this notion of like multiple crossings over time is I think real. And I think it happens then when people cross into the workforce as well. Now that cause I know LT will want to jump in here.

Glenn DeGuzman:
I, we, this is a wow, I’m really appreciate, I’m losing track where we’re at in part, because this is very personal. And I’m starting to think about like all the different types of things that are, that I was going through and you’re connecting it to some of this wonderful this research and these, these thoughts. I wanted to ask this question around you know, obviously there’s a lot of issues that, that first generation students experienced that they think about their reflect and, and just how they situate themselves and in their context and a common roadblock that I oftentimes see is first gen generation students. I know I did was how do I even find out about opportunities or that, that there are programs and services that are people who can assist me in kind of maneuvering some of these stressors and anxiety. And these were the things I was going through 10, 15, something 20 maybe more years ago.

Glenn DeGuzman:
Right. And so I’m curious to know about, has that changed? I know that when I do a Google search and on first-generation, there’s so many different amount of information now online. And I wonder about that. I wonder if I’ve seen things from like the first generation student success. I know LT you and empowering first gen college students on Facebook is my go-to. I just joined and I, I went down that rabbit hole and I was amazing. Amazing. but there’s also lots of information also on Instagram, but if you could speak to that has, has the how our students are first gen students becoming aware and, and the method to learn about resources change over time.

LaTonya Rease Miles:
Yeah. Thanks for that. Because what you’re getting at is one of my favorite topics besides basketball and the flash talking about the print curriculum, France and the hidden curriculum, such an important concept. When, like, when I learned that, and again, I was in a doctoral program in literature, not even in education, but once I understood hidden curriculum as the set of rules, behaviors, and expectations that are that folks are expected to know, but not explicitly taught my mind was blown. It helped explain a lot of things why I didn’t know things. And so, again, going back to what Rashné and Rob were talking about already, of course, like if you’re new to an experience all first year, students are going to not, you know, they’re going to not know some things, right. It’s who do you, who are the resources around you that have help you explain something?

LaTonya Rease Miles:
I just think of my own daughter who, when she was 16 and we were talking about her college application experience, and she reminded me that she was going to get a BFA and not a BA. And I was thinking, and I was when I was 16 years old, I did not know the difference between getting a bachelor’s of fine arts versus a bachelor’s degree in arts. Right. But she’s grown up around, or you always use my children as the extreme experience, literally growing up on a college campus and being around higher education, literally their whole lives versus someone who is new to that experience. Right. And so folks don’t know what they don’t know. It is contingent upon the institution to help be more explicit and transparent about what it is we are expecting of students. And sometimes oftentimes we jumped to things like policies, which are important, but we forget other things too.

LaTonya Rease Miles:
Like, is it okay to walk across the grass? For example, how, how does students know that? And if you don’t feel like you belong, you kind of looking around looking for cues or having to pick up cues all the time. Whereas if we were more explicit and direct about what it is that we want out of students and would certainly help their journey, you asked if things change. Yes. I think they have, especially within the past five years where you could not Google, Rob was saying a suit, you couldn’t Google first gen and come up with like a whole list of a fun clubs and boards. It’s just flag and buttons and things. Whereas literally five years ago, someone said, is it okay to say first gen don’t they feel badly about their experience? You know? So w we’re shifting from that, it is nice to see online communities that helps support that type of thing too.

LaTonya Rease Miles:
I’m just concerned that just because things are can be found, you know, on a website, you can Google that people feel like, oh, our work is done. I would say, you know, the cure to things could be found on a Google search if we knew where to look for them. Right. And so students still students will go to, they will Google something. Anyway, before they go on ask a staff member or a faculty member, if they’re asking any one of us, we are their last resort. Right. They’ve already gone online. So we just have to be mindful of what we’re sharing on there and making sure that we’re not using acronyms and things like that.

Glenn DeGuzman:
Love that. I remember when I was, when I first started college, I didn’t know what office hours were that was hidden to me. I had no idea, like, so eight to five, right? Like anyways, Rob, would you like to add to that?

Rob Longwell-Grice:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I’ve got it. I sure would hope that things are improving. We certainly are pumping a lot of money into it and resources into itself. If it’s not improving, I guess, shame on us. I had to share this that the LTS you’re talking about this, just say reef, they, you know, back when I did my first, when I was working on my dissertation and I went to college at the end, the mid seventies, and like we all said, you know, first generation, we didn’t know what that was. But certainly had my struggles then what I did by dissertation study. And what I decided to do was do a group of first-generation white low-income males, people just like me, a lot younger. And I followed them over the course of their year. And just met with them every two, three weeks.

Rob Longwell-Grice:
To just ask the question of how’s it going? What’s, what’s going well, what’s that go well, and I got to tell you if the stuff that they’re saying, the stuff that they were feeling, it was almost like a therapy group for me, group therapy. Cause I thought, holy cow, this is 20 years, 25 years later. And you’re having the same experience or at least having the same feelings that, you know, issues related to preparation feelings about not belonging feelings of lack of support. How do you get that? Who do you turn to that kind of thing that is that ha this is really something. And I still think on some level, those feelings are still there. They’re still there. So and the reason that I wrote the book and you know, is trying to make people on some level, understand if they’re a first-generation student themselves and now they’re professional. Maybe they’ve never really dealt with these feelings of how they got there, trying to understand some of that, but also for people who aren’t first gen to try and understand what it’s like almost from a counseling perspective of how some empathy to understand what it is like for students. Because even though we have a lot more services, they’re still going through these feelings. And I think that’s probably for me, the most important thing that we could do for people working with students these days.

Rashné Jehangir:
I think after listening to the contributions, of LT, and Rob, one of the things I think a lot about is yeah. You know, as you said, like, you know, we tend to go to policies and practices and that’s certainly a big part of it, you know, breaking those down. But I think even before that, like what are we asking our students, they know stuff and they know what they don’t know. We don’t always know that. So think about like, what is the exercise of putting in front of students, your syllabus, your programmatic materials, your plans for when you’re going to hold a parent orientation, because it’s, their parents are working at that time. They can’t come. Then what use is that? So in what way are we engaging students in structurally or deconstructing the way things have been built so that we’re not continuing to build them the same way.

Rashné Jehangir:
Right. It’s like, it’s great to get a beanie that says first gen, I love it. I want one, but that isn’t necessarily going to help me traverse the path any easier. Right. so I feel like when I think about the roadblocks of now some of it is that sometimes this elevation of first gen is happening at, happening on campuses at a 30,000 foot level. And the way in which first gen is being employed becomes a complicated proxy for diverse students, whatever that term means. And it it’s then not attending to like the lived experience of what’s happening for students in their everyday life and their everyday experience. I think the other part of it too, just to touch a little bit on the stress and anxiety component is if you’re in classes or in spaces in co-curricular spaces where suddenly your full world and way of being is unpacked, and you have to then take that and like, you have to do something with that, right?

Rashné Jehangir:
And you can push it down or you can negotiate it through and you can talk to other people about it, but there is a, there’s a waiting list to that. And so how we support students as we’re empowering them is also vitally important. I just finished a study on first-generation graduate students. So students who have a family to go to college and now in graduate school. And one of the things they talked a lot about is the reason they came to graduate school is they wanted to make they wanted to deconstruct things that didn’t work in their own communities wanted to fix things, but that also involves unpacking racism, classism, social systems. And that is hard when it’s your research, right? So you’re examining yourself and your community. And that there’s a weight in that. So I think that’s, that’s a part of the, some of the challenges that are what happens when the work now becomes central and everybody’s talking about it, it’s still, it’s still means you carry those weights and you have to negotiate them.

LaTonya Rease Miles:
I just want to add to that. I love listening to Rashné but we have to ask students what they want, what they need, and we really have to be open, open to listening to them. And that’s really critical. It seems so obvious, but it really isn’t. So we have to be open to the feedback and be willing to do things differently. And again, it can be like I think, I think one of my most brilliant students, Chris, who was resistant to going on a, what do you call it when those alternative break trips, like throughout the state, like, we weren’t even traveling outside of the state. And he just didn’t want to do it. And actually like sat down with him. His concern was that he didn’t know what colors to wear outside of his neighborhood.

LaTonya Rease Miles:
Right. Rob talk about intersection. Right. That was his issue. And he was like, I don’t know what they’re wearing central valley. So I need to, and I can’t wear LMU colors because then that’s red. So that was that the, I wasn’t prepared for that, but I had to be open to listening to him and find out what we’re Chris’ concernes. And so Chris, can you wear gray? Can you wear black? And so, as opposed to shutting him down and, and and not taking his lived experience seriously, we had to listen to him and think about, okay, what could work for you? And then that establish trust, he was like, okay, I can LT’s cool. You know, like someone, someone is there for me, but we really have to be open to that type of feedback and accepting new students’ stories and not trying to change them.

Rob Longwell-Grice:
Yeah. Can a situation like that. Be very easy to say, oh, come on. Don’t be ridiculous. What do you mean, what are you going to wear? Right. And I think sometimes the first gens questions that we get are on that level of, well, how do you meet that? That’s a crazy question. Why don’t you just go to the office hours or that kind of thing, you know, whereas something so has some consequences

LaTonya Rease Miles:
That’s right. Real fear, like, oh, what are you doing with that financial aid check? Hey, you’re sending her back home. That’s what you’re doing, but we can’t be judgmental about that.

Rob Longwell-Grice:
Absolutely.

Glenn DeGuzman:
Yeah. You LT you sorta and start to answer the question the next question that I have, and and it also stays aligned with what Rashné was speaking to about the deconstruct and assistance. Only post this question and get your thoughts on this student affairs, executive leaders, campus leaders you know, what can we do? What can they do to make sure the experiences of first gen students is heard? So you answered it by saying, we need to listen to the students. Right. But I’m going to oppose this. Is there more, is, is there things that they can do when it comes to college systems and structure the deconstruction of it potentially. Right. or I, I’m curious to know your thoughts on that. And, and is there a, or is there no solution? I mean, I, and I’m certainly mean that because, I mean, we’ve been tackling this issue for decades and

Rashné Jehangir:
Always solutions.

Glenn DeGuzman:
Okay.

Rashné Jehangir:
Right. Is this question five? Yay. I can speak now.

Rashné Jehangir:
Sure I wasn’t jumping the line. So, you know, I think systems are complicated. They’re variant and the geography and the politics of scale are different at different places. So I think we’ve got to attend to that. You can’t pretend that one cookie cutter miles going to work everywhere. It isn’t nothing that can be packaged and sold is going to solve it. Right. but I do think there are some ways to think about you know, first is, you know, how are first gen students being defined on your campus? Where are you assessing that definition? You know, for example, when I started to look at the first gen students with the grad study we noticed that the way in which they fill that out, even on the grad application was unclear. So we didn’t know who we were getting. So once that was fixed, that changes things drastically.

Rashné Jehangir:
Right. So just thinking about how it, how has it been defined on your campus even across offices or across campuses, if you will, you know, live in a multi-system campus? The other is, you know, what is then the intersectional experience of the first gen students on your campus? You know looking at the issues of race, social class, immigrant refugee, other identities what, what ways do you have of knowing who your students are? Because once you know that you can start to tailor things, right? You can tailor things to meet their particular needs. What works, you know, at a small, private, liberal arts college in Portland, Oregon is not going to work at UCLA. We need different things. So I think that’s part of it. And then you can get into sort of unpacking, I think the ways in which people would always say like, oh, we, we did that.

Rashné Jehangir:
You know, we did learning communities in 1971. Okay. But there’s different. They’re different ways of doing them now. Can we talk about that? I, so, so I think thinking about if we want to kind of, if we want to attack those sort of structural inequities, there’s some very concrete ways in which we can go about just assessing information on our campus first to, to feel out what’s missing and those very beginning stages. Before we, we want to change things drastically and change is necessary. I’m not, I’m not questioning that. It’s just what are ways we can begin that that don’t have to feel so daunting

Glenn DeGuzman:
If this wasn’t a recorded podcast? I would’ve shouted. Yes.

Rashné Jehangir:
I already did a big woohoo, you know,

Rob Longwell-Grice:
Would you like to build off that? I’m sure. You know, I, I like to say there’s no silver bullet, there’s no answers, but probably not an answer. And I think unfortunately at some of the schools, we’re at some of the places that we’re at, people are looking for an answer. There must be one answer, but we know that’s not the case. We know that there’s issues related to preparation for college or first generation. So we know this issue related to support when they get here. We know there’s issues related to developing some sense of belonging. So knowing that, you know, the literature is pretty clear about those three things. So there any the answers, all right what are we doing to help students get prepared? And maybe that is dipping down into the high schools. So working with local high schools and helping people take the pre sat and the sat and the faster we help people do that.

Rob Longwell-Grice:
And then would the support here? Do we have sufficient supports? And are we really letting people know about them, encouraging people to take care of them? And then the sense of belonging, which, which I guess can be kind of a nebulous sense. You know, we all want to feel like we belong, but I think the literature is very clear with first gen’s that, they almost eat first gen almost is they have a hero, someone to take them, the person under their wing, walk them through this, make sure they, they get that. So rather than it being well it’s everybody’s job. So somebody is still in, it’s gotta be my job. People feel like I take on that responsibility for the person. So the person really feels like they belong there because they know if they don’t show up for class, somebody’s going to miss them. They don’t show up for for the residence hall and meeting somebody’s going to miss them. If you don’t feel like anybody who’s gonna miss ya. Well, you know, what’s the point. So to me, that’s where we have to make sure that we’re putting our efforts into those three areas of preparation and support and belonging. It’s that easy? It’s that easy?

LaTonya Rease Miles:
I’ll just talk about staff for a second, because what we find oftentimes is first-generation folks who go on to careers are often in higher ed, particularly often drawn to supporting you know, folks like them. And so you find them in trio programs, student success centers and things like that. So overwhelmingly first-generation off often people of color, not enough, not exclusively, but they’re clustered in those entry-level jobs, right, as coordinators and assistant directors. So what are those of us who are in positions to support those staff members? What are we doing to help their professional development? We talked about this earlier, making sure that folks are current, you know, sending them off to conferences to make sure that they know what the, what the, you know, the state of affairs is now, but also being transparent about things like travel, reimbursement, salary negotiations, things like that. So that’s another form of hidden curriculum all over again, that is not made available to a wide swath of people because ultimately we need folks from these backgrounds who understand these students to be in key leadership positions. We need them to be tenured faculty. We need them to be our vice provost and eventually our presidents as well. So how are we cultivating leadership of our first gen staff that that’s, that’s really a strong interest of mine to make these changes.

Glenn DeGuzman:
Thank you for raising that. I know we were having that conversation before we actually start recording, and I think that’s an important point to highlight and raise. So we’re getting close to time. Believe it or not, this is all I know. Right. Don’t feel like we can go on longer. You have time with this question and I want to make sure that this is, this is a student first now, and we always ask this question to serve our wrap up. Whether it’s something you heard on this, in this conversation or in, from this panel group, or maybe in your work and your, in your research when you’re writing if you could take a minute or two or three to summarize, what are you still pondering about or what are some of the questions that you still have, or if we think about today’s first-generation students, what are you excited about? What are you thinking about now and LT you’re up first.

LaTonya Rease Miles:
Wow. So much

Glenn DeGuzman:
Yeah, let’s do it in like three minutes, you know, 10 seconds,

LaTonya Rease Miles:
Three minutes, I’ll say first building upon my own background in literature, cultural studies, I’m always fascinated by the representation of first-generation students in popular culture and media on TV shows. Like we’re starting to see more explicit storylines about first-generation folks like the, I haven’t seen it yet, but I’ve been told to watch Made on Netflix that it’s a explicit first-generation story. And I always find about a value and highlighting those storylines as far as my own research though. Rob you’ll really appreciate this. I’m going to, I’m doing a deeper dive in black first gen identity. One of my arguments is that black first gen identity is over hypervisible and invisible at the same time. So it’s great that we have icons like Michelle Obama, right? Arguably one of our most popular figures. She’s explicitly talking about that identity and her work. But there’s so many other figures out there that we haven’t done a deep enough dive in, but our existing in our imagination, I think of Breanna Taylor, who was never talked about as having been a black first gen student who started off at the University of Kentucky actually, and then went to, to did the reverse transfer process, right.

LaTonya Rease Miles:
Start off with a four year, then went to a community college and was trying to make her way back when her life was taken away from her. We don’t talk about her experience. When we think about the life of Colin Powell, another black first generation college student who used the military also as a pathway to success who described himself as an average student. Right. But then went on to get a master’s degree. Like it’s, it’s incredible. So I’m really interested in focusing on mental health and black first gen students career support and representations as well. So that’s where, that’s where my mind, is always all over the place, but that’s, that’s where it is today. If you ask me in six months, who knows, I’ll be talking about,

Rashné Jehangir:
Thank you. So I thought about certain things. My LT is, takes me to another place

Rashné Jehangir:
I so I’ll come back to the point around what LT was talking about. But I, but one thing I want to say, I, we haven’t talked about it really, but it’s so it’s so obvious how COVID has laid bare on the, what we already know as these incredible inequities around social class and race and the first gen status and the intersection of that. So one of the things I’m really, I’m, I’m kind of I’m not sure whether to be hopeful or worried. I think a bit of both to what extent will we take those lessons in higher ed and employ them to do things differently because COVID forced us to do a lot of things differently, real fast, right? Which doesn’t happen in higher ed. And it was like, oh, we actually don’t need five people in person at a committee meeting.

Rashné Jehangir:
You can do two. And it still works. Look at that. So, you know, those are little things, but what are ways in which those experiences have taught us that there are other ways to go around addressing issues around inequities? And will we take, will we heed the call. I think there are places that are already doing that. And then there are places that are hungry to get back to the normal and are calling it whatever the new normal is. And like there’s no normal, that’s gone. Please let that go. And let’s use this information to move forward in meaningful ways. The other is financial issues and financial aid continue to be pressing for students who are first in their family to go to college and in graduate school. And whether we’re talking about the Pell grant and increase the Pell grants, whether we’re talking about the canceling of student debt, these issues will continue to be you can create the most wonderful sense of belonging, but in the end, if there is no money to pay that bill, you are going home and that is real.

Rashné Jehangir:
And we cannot forget about that. And in trio that’s a really big part of the work, you know? The other thing I’ve thought a lot about is because I grew up in student affairs and I thought originally alone, what is the work we can do to sustain students? But then as I started to look at higher ed sort of like from a ecological model, you see that, you know, all of the student affairs stuff, it’s circles around the center and the center is classrooms and moving towards your degree program and things like that. So to make change and to make sustainable change around the experience of first gen students, students of color, indigenous students, I think that how we orient faculty to what they do in their classrooms, in their labs, how they unpack their fields and their disciplines, we, we have to, and if we don’t get in those uncomfortable places to do that work because, you know, the domain of faculty can sometimes feel distant in a way, if we, as faculty and I’m talking about myself, don’t push that, then we will, we will lose ground. Because of all these other issues, the financial constraints, et cetera, that the students that we get there won’t stay. Because we have to intentionally deconstruct that and realize the way in which that creates so many blockades for students that really don’t need to be blockades. And that’s going to be difficult, but I think it’s, it’s really important. It’s really important part of the work.

Glenn DeGuzman:
Yeah. Thanks for sharing that fantastic insight. And I heard a call to action, several call to action in that, that was, that was wonderful. Rob, take us home.

Rob Longwell-Grice:
Well, you know, Glenn, when I, when my book came out this spring and then I retired, I thought my thinking days were over and then Rashné had the audacity to ask me beyond the, beyond the journals. So I, you know, I had to, had to get back up to speed. And so I got to say, you know, was getting the articles in the journal. It’s just fascinating. The kinds of things people are thinking about in this field. And so to read these articles I’m just really jazzed about where it’s going, especially for me in particular, this, the notion of intersectionality, which we’ve touched about, you know, thank goodness we’re getting away from the idea that, you know, first gens are a monolithic and let’s, let’s talk a little bit more about the other intersections in their life and thing that I’ve been thinking about lately, and actually Rashad, I talked about it briefly and said, you know, there’s this theory when students study abroad, this you theory that students start out really happy to go abroad, and then they go to go abroad and then they’re really miserable because the food is different and they don’t speak the language and they dress funny and all that kind of stuff.

Rob Longwell-Grice:
And then they have to sort of bottom out and then hopefully they start working their way back up the curve to the point where they’re really so happy. They don’t want to go home. And I’ve been thinking that, you know, there’s a lot of parallels there with first-generation students conceivably. Hopefully they’re excited to come on campus and then they get here and then, oh my gosh, it’s really tough. And then this, that, and we have to make sure that when they hit that bottom, if they do, they don’t just give up. We work the back up to the top of that at the top of that curve. You know, and being silly of course in the curve is a big smile, so that big smile on their face when they get to that point. So now that Rashné has made me think beyond my expiration date, those are the things that I’ve been thinking about lately,

Rashné Jehangir:
Standing on the shoulders of giants, keep pulling up our mentors and our guides back in.

Glenn DeGuzman:
Now, I want to, this was a pleasure to be hosting this podcast with all of you. And I want to thank our guests, Rob, Robert, Rashné and LT. I want to also just really mentioned to our audience, our listeners out there, go to our website and go to this episodes resources. This panel of we have authors writers, researchers. We have Facebook, moderate. I mean, we have, this is a, this is an incredible the conversation we had before this podcast. And I’m sure right after I finish recording. It’s amazing. And I really hope you check out what they’re going to put in that section. I want to thank Nat Ambrosey really quick as well, obviously, Nat, thank you. Behind the scenes, she handles all these episodes transcribes it gets it ready for airing. And again, we want to thank our sponsor Stylus publishing.

Glenn DeGuzman:
Stylus is a proud sponsor for Student Affairs NOW podcast browse their student affairs, diversity and professional development titles Styluspub.com. Use the promo code SANow for 30% off all books plus free shipping. You can also find Stylus on Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter as and whatever the next social media thing is. They’ll probably be there too. LeaderShape they partner with colleges and universities to create transformational leadership experiences, both virtual and in-person for students and professionals with a focus on creating a more and caring thriving world. LeaderShape offers, engaging learning experiences on courageous dialogue, integrity, equity, resilience, and community building to find out more, please visit them leadershape.org/virtualprograms or connect with them on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn. These shows would not be possible without their support. So thank you and to our audience and listeners. Thank you for joining us. Again, this is part one of a two part series. Next week we’ll be focusing in on first-generation professionals. If you’re listening today and if you’re not receiving a newsletter, go to studentaffairsnow.com go to the bottom and sign up for the MailChimp list. Again, I’m Glenn Guzman. Thank you for listening or watching wherever you are. Go out, make it a good day. Make a difference. Bye everybody.

Websites: 

https://www.facebook.com/groups/empoweringfirstgens

Books: At the Intersection: Understanding and Supporting First-Generation College Students (2021, Stylus).  Longwell-Grice, R & Longwell-Grice, H.

Jehangir, R., Stebleton, M.J. & Deenanath, V. (August 2015).  An exploration of intersecting identities of first-generation, low-income college students. Monograph Report. Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina, National Resource Center for the First-Year Experience and Students in Transition. Stylus Press.

Jehangir, R. (2010). Higher education and first-generation students: Cultivating community, voice and place for the new majority. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan Press. 

Guzman, G., Rease Miles, L. & Youngblood, S. (Eds.) (November 2021) Campus Service Workers Supporting First-Generation Students: Informal Mentorship and Culturally Relevant Support as Key to Student Success and Retention, Routledge Press. 

Podcasts: RashneJehangir Guest on Minnesota Public Radio’s Daily Circuit with Kerri Miller. (Dec 5, 2013).  When the first in a family goes to college: http://www.mprnews.org/story/2013/12/05/daily-circuit-first-college?from=education

Article/Book citations:

Jehangir, R. & Romasanta, L. (April 2021). How TRIO Sparked the First that Fuels the First-Generation Movement; An Interview with Arnold Mitchem and Maureen Hoyler. Journal of First Generation Student Success, 1, (1)

Jehangir, R. & Collins, K. (April 2021).  What’s in a name? Narratives and counter-Narratives of the first generation moniker.  In Longwell- Grice, R., & Longwell- Grice, H. (Eds.) At the Intersection: First Generation Students and the Influence of Identities. Stylus Publishing.

Jehangir, R. First-Generation students (2020). In Amey, M. & David. M (Eds.) SAGE Encyclopedia of Higher Education, 5v. SAGE Publications Inc.

Stebleton & Jehangir, R. (2020). A call for career educators to recommit to serving first-generation and Immigrant College students: Introduction to special issue. Journal of Career Development, 47(1), 3-10. doi: 10.1177/0894845319884126.

Jehangir, R., & Deenanath, V. (2018). As they see it: First generation college students and photo-voice.  In Bell, A. & Santamaria, L.J (Eds.) Understanding Experiences of First Generation University Students: Culturally Responsive and Sustaining Methodologies (pp. 164-189). Bloomsbury Publishing. (this is book features international FG perspectives)