Kathy Adams Riester
I also think, starting with the, you know, getting rid of kind of the term and concept in your language of who you’re working with about a helicopter parent, and moving from, you know, thinking about how do you manage parents to how do you really involve them and include them in what you’re doing and engage them in supporting their students.

Heather Shea
Hello and welcome to Student Affairs NOW the online learning community for Student Affairs educators. I’m your host Heather Shea. The week that this episode is being recorded has been designated as first generation college celebration week on or around November 8 each year campuses acknowledge and elevate the identity and contribution of first generation college students. Building upon past episodes, today, I’m bringing together a panel of scholars and college administrators whose research has paid particular attention to parents and families of first gen students. Before I get to introducing my panel, let me tell you a little bit about our podcasts, Student Affairs NOW is a premier podcast and learning community for 1000s of us who work in alongside or adjacent to the field of higher education and student affairs. We hope to find these conversations make a contribution to the field and our restorative to the profession. We release new episodes every week on Wednesdays and you can find us at studentaffairsnow.com on YouTube or anywhere you listen to podcast. Today’s episode is sponsored by Symplicity. A true partner Symplicity supports all aspects of student life with technology platforms that empower institutions to make data driven decision. And this episode is also sponsored by Vector Solutions. Formerly EverFi, the trusted partner for 2000 Plus colleges and universities. Vector Solutions is a standard of care for student safety, well being and inclusion. Stay tuned to the end of the podcast for more information about each of these sponsors. As I mentioned, I’m your host, Heather Shea, my pronouns are she her and hers and I am broadcasting from East Lansing, Michigan, on the campus of Michigan State University. MSU occupies the ancestral traditional and contemporary lands of the three fires confederacy of Ojibwe, Ottawa and Potawatomi peoples and the university resides on lands needed in the 1819 Treaty of Saginaw. I am so grateful to my colleagues and friends doctors Kathy Adams Riester, from IU Bloomington, Casandra Harper from the University of Missouri, and Judy Marquez Kiyama, from the University of Arizona, where we all used to work many years ago. So it’s so great to be back in community with you all. Thank you for joining me for an episode of the podcast and welcome. Let’s begin by each of you telling us a little bit about you. What is your work and how does your scholarship and research intersect with today’s topic? First Gen parents and families and Judy, I’m gonna start with you.

Judy Marquez Kiyama
Great. Well, thank you so much for inviting us and Heather. It’s always so fun to be back on one of your episodes and shows and evolutions of all of the incredible work that you’re doing. So thank you. I’m Judy Marquez Kiyama I use she her hers pronouns. And as Heather mentioned, I’m at the University of Arizona, which is home to the tribal communities. I am in the current role of Associate Vice Provost for faculty development, this position is specific to our HSI designation, which is relatively new still to the University of Arizona. And I get to work with faculty across the institution in really considering how we support and build capacity around our research and scholarship, teaching and service in direct relation to our HSI designation, and commitment, I’m also a professor in the Center for the Study of Higher Education in the College of Education. And, you know, my my research has always been with families in particular communities, and the ways in which families, Mexican families, low income families, Pell eligible families, Latino communities, and families, first generation college families have worked to support their college going children and developing college coin pathways and college knowledge within the home. And about 10 years ago, Casandra and I decided to engage in a partnership in really building a research agenda around the college transition points and engagement of families as they move into and through post secondary education with their children. So I’ll pause there and we’ll share more as we go through.

Heather Shea
Great. Thanks so much, Judy. It’s so great to see you. Casandra. That seems like a good segue to you. Tell us a little bit about you where you work and what you do and research.

Casandra Harper
Sure. I’m Casandra Harper, and I use she her hers pronouns as well. I’m an associate professor of higher education at the University of Missouri and my research agenda looks at the differential effects of college on students and, as Judy mentioned, we engaged in some research and some common interests around really combating this helicopter parent narrative that we saw within our Student Affairs experience and backgrounds and wanted to challenge that and and kind of shift the narrative to the many ways in which parents are engaged in the college experience of their children, and perhaps in ways that go unseen, sometimes by college and university, faculty and staff. And so it’s been a great partnership. And we have some ideas in the pipeline for upcoming projects related to that. But that’s kind of my interest in parent and family engagement.

Heather Shea
Thank you so much for being here. It’s great to see you. And Kathy Adams Riester. Welcome back to the podcast, this might be your third or maybe fourth time. I keep coming back to Kathy. Welcome back.

Kathy Adams Riester
Thank you, Heather. I’m excited to be back with you all, and especially excited also to be here with Judy and Casandra. I, as Heather said, I’m KKathy Adams Riester. I use she her and her pronouns. And I’m the Associate Vice Provost and Executive Associate Dean of Students at Indiana University in Bloomington, where I oversee students service areas and the Division of Student Affairs, including our Parent Advisory Board and our parent family programs here at IU. Previous to this role, which I’ve only been in for just about four years, I was at the University of Arizona. And in my role there, I work really closely overseen parent family programs at the University of Arizona. And I was fortunate enough while I was there in 2015, to actually do some collaborating on an ASHE monograph with Judy and Casandra, as a practitioner, around parent and family engagement. And then additionally, I also was working during that time also on my dissertation, which actually looked at how families of first generation college students experienced the transition with our students from high school to college. So I did some qualitative research in that area as well. I also want to acknowledge that Indiana University sits on the ancestral homelands of indigenous resources. And I want to acknowledge and recognized on Miami, Delaware at Potawatomi and Shawnee peoples as past present and future caretakers of the land that I am coming to you from.

Heather Shea
Thank you to all three of you. This is going to be a fabulous conversation. And I love how have overlapped and intersected over time. And so I think that the we have lots to build upon hopefully, you know, we can do this in in in the amount of time that we have a lot of if not, we’ll just have to have a part two to this conversation. Because we are kind of replicating this notion right of parent family and really thinking about it through the lens of first gen students. And, Judy, as I mentioned in the introduction, this week, was designated as a celebration for first gen students back in 2017. Before we get to talking about their parents and families, maybe we can spend just a moment talking about who our first gen students, and why is an acknowledgement of their identities and accomplishments, achievements, important to higher education. So we’ll start with that.

Judy Marquez Kiyama
Yeah, you know, we had on our first gen cats unit do a little bit of celebrating yesterday as well. And that’s how a lot of people walking around with their first gen cat T shirts. And last year had the opportunity to talk with some of the students and their families, they brought some of their families and shared my own path as a first generation college students and the wrong directions that I took, even during that first week of coming to campus. But also shared the number of people and resources and a fierce commitment behind my own first generation college story and that that we see our students and their parents and families. And so when we consider who first generation college students are there’s there’s a multitude of definitions. But Casandra and I draw largely on the definition that the US Department of Education uses and that’s, you know, we see it with TRIO programs and GearUp programs and others, and that is that parents did not complete a four year college or university degree regardless of other family members degree completion. So it might be that a sibling has completed a four year degree but the parent or guardian has not. So that typically is is the definition that we will draw from in our own scholarship and research. And I think in some places we might see people pushing this as a proxy for race, ethnicity or other identifiers. And we can’t do that, right? I mean, I guess there’s, there’s different intersecting intersecting elements of our identities. And some of our first generation college students also belong to minoritized, or underserved racial and ethnic communities, or Pell eligible or are, you know, fill in the blank with multiple identities. But we can’t ever substitute or swap them as proxies for one another. But I do you know, I think I was I’m so grateful that our institutions are recognizing who are not only our students are as first gen students, but faculty and staff too. But there’s, there’s such a connection that can be made when you know that somebody has gone through the same path, and that there’s possibilities, and people who can turn to for questions. I think our institutions are doing a better job of collecting that data from the very beginning. Whereas before, on college applications, we didn’t even know who might have identified as first generation college students. And it’s very helpful for us when we consider the role that parents and families play and how how to approach engagement with parents and families from an asset based lens. That’s, I think, a good place for me to pause.

Heather Shea
That’s, that is a great place to transition because I do want to talk fact that maybe you can share a little bit about how some of these common notions of how parents are perceived and assumptions that institutions make about the role that they play in their incoming students lives. Yeah, how are these damaging? And in what ways are these assumptions potentially keeping campuses from serving the full range of incoming students and their families? So you got to kind of go there?

Kathy Adams Riester
Sure. So I think one of the challenges that we see is that campuses often make the assumption that parents are someone that needs to be managed, or people that need to be managed. And with that type of viewpoint, I think it’s pretty limiting in the types of interactions because I think that has a say, Oh, we want to keep them at arm’s length. You know, it’s not necessarily the open, let’s involve everyone who can support a student and student success, and how we can support their students success. I think we also have seen that campuses have a viewpoint that a very restricted viewpoint that parents are the only supporters of student students, when I you know, we know that multiple other people support students besides parents and, and just labeling the supporter as a parent might be a misnomer for a particular student that relationships, I think we need to open our concepts there. And I think we also when we look at the term helicopter parents that was originally coined by the media, when we look at that term, and the way that campuses have employed it and used it, it also goes back to the how do we manage parents? How do we keep them at a distance, and it’s really damaging, because really, on campuses, that term has also come. Often in the research, it really relates to upper middle class, often white families who are only one small subset of the parents and families that we have supporting students. And it really is often doesn’t apply those types of behaviors don’t apply, especially to families of first generation college students. And so we’re taking one viewpoint and labeling all parents perhaps is that viewpoint. And then it doesn’t let us see the nuances of different types of support in different ways we can help really move from engaging to helping to engage parents and families in different ways to help support their students resources.

Heather Shea
That’s great. What Why would the rest of you add, now we’ve unpacked a little bit about who first gen students are and why acknowledging their accomplishments is important, as well as who, who parents and families are and the assumptions that institutions make. But also do add about kind of why this topic is relevant and important.

Casandra Harper
Think I would add that first gen parents because they might be less seen on a college or university campus, we might have assumptions about them that are incorrect, and that they really do want welcoming outreach, connection with institutions. And so being able to, again, kind of challenge that helicopter parent narrative can be really helpful. And then what you said about the celebration part, I think that’s so important, too, that there’s a sense of pride that first generation could be seen as a label that has a sense of pride and community to it, that you’re not the only one and that there’s a you know, a variety of families that exist and could meet each other. Maybe in some forward each other, I think is really encouraging.

Judy Marquez Kiyama
You know, one of the things I thought about when while both Kathy and Casandra mentioned that helicopter parent notion on media has been so perpetuated so many deficit, definitions and framings and views of who parents and families are, particularly first gen parents and families. And I remember as Casandra and I were first starting some of this work, there was one media article that talked about parents viewing and watching their kids from a space station, as if it presented this like image of they were just so far removed and so far away, and they had no idea what was going on, you know, in a different world, right. And that’s kind of the image that it asked. And then there was another one that talked about parents just sending their kids off, having to then like, earn money to like, solve all the family’s problems. And there was just so negative such negative language around expectations of the of the students, and then the role that the families would play. And it really prompted us to go deeper in thinking about the ways in which families could be engaged, but also the knowledge that they bring, it may not be the step by step college knowledge that we would see from a family who has gone gone to college for generations. But there’s so much cultural and historical and community knowledge shared, and we shouldn’t dismiss it, and certainly shouldn’t perpetuate the deficit notions that we were seeing in media.

Heather Shea
The other common thing I’m kind of noticing from all of these analogies is that it’s about distance. And it’s about keeping parents separate, and families separated from the campus and from their students, which, if we, if we count that notion, and really kind of recast parents as partners, parents and families is a central component of our student success initiatives, I think we can really accomplish a lot more right versus like, we’re just going to put you up in outer space, or we’re going to depict that kind of hovering over but not really engaging with mindset. So Casandra, I think one of the particular point in time is that transition moment, right. So how, and what role do parents and families play at that point when students are coming into a campus environment for the first time? And so, you know, talk a little bit more about how we avoid falling into this deficit mindset that, you know, parents and families have not, you know, haven’t haven’t given their, their students the tools. So talk a little bit more about the assets that first gen students and parents and families bring. Yeah,

Casandra Harper
I think our data really have spoken to the fact that parents are involved, they’re invested, they’re engaged, first gen parents are thrilled, they’re excited for you know, their, their kids, I use that term intentionally to describe how parents are describing their kids, they’re not students, their kids, you know, that there’s a sense of, you know, pride, celebration, they want their students to do well and to be successful, but that that transition time really is a time of change for both the students and the parents. So there’s a role shift there of adjusting to something that’s new and different, right? And, you know, what does that look like? And what we’ve seen is that first gen parents are supporting their students emotionally, sometimes financially, just a variety of forms of support. And again, that that’s different than that narrative of first gen parents and that they might not be attending all of the same events or at the same frequency, we have to think about, again, that just access to programming, but through that transition, I think parents have expressed that they really want their kids to grow and to become more independent. And and that’s a commonality there that parents and Student Affairs has, you know, in alignment that we both want that and so how do we, as you said, partner with parents and bring them into that conversation? And I think that’s the conversation that we need to continue to have within student affairs. It’s a shift for us of, okay, what would this look like if we do invite parents into the conversation and what does too much support look like what is to little, what is helpful? What is excessive? So I think there’s more work to be done there. But to know that parents and staff want the same thing, I think is helpful to keep in mind.

Heather Shea
Kathy, I know you looked at this in detail in your dissertation, in terms of what support supportive members of a campus community and as a parent and family organization is, can you talk a little bit more about what specifically that transition point? What did you find that parents and families contributed during that time period?

Kathy Adams Riester
Sure. So I in Casandra, I’ve mentioned some of this. So the families were often and I’m going to use the term family a little bit loosely, because in the interviews that I did, so it wasn’t just a parent. So sometimes it was a sister, brother, a cousin, a grandparent, a boyfriend, girlfriend, so a partner. So there were multiple different types of supporters, when I asked students to identify who they got their most support from, and it wasn’t just a parent. So I think that’s one of the things I think, to keep in mind of who is supporting our students. And they also had pretty deep relationship networks that they had created for themselves, to help kind of with other types of support through the process. But as part of that, so they were, you know, they had emotional support from from their family member they had, sometimes they often had religious support, which was part of kind of their family foundation. As part of that they had financial resource support, as well as sometimes care packages. You know, even some points where different family members are part of the relationship would help with editing papers, you know, you know, I had a grandparent who was really great with business who was helping with business homework. So I think that there are multiple ways that families are drawing upon their knowledge and their community knowledge, As Judy said, to help support the student success in college, and a lot of it was just the regular check ins of how are you doing? How can I help you, you know, remember, when you get stressed, like, here are some things that are helpful for that. So they are employing lots of strategies, I think the challenge is thinking about the strategies that they’re employing are really not visible to those of us working on campus and campus jobs. So I talk a lot about invisible strategies that are being employed that are offered behind the scenes. So you’re not really seeing that support that’s been offered to that student. So it’s not necessarily and I think when we think we need to shift a little bit what our model of support looks like. So if we consider parent involvement, to be a parent showing up on campus for an activity to support their students, that’s really not often that that will happen a little bit. But that’s not what we’re seeing with first generation college students. But if we shift our model to think about parent engagement, and how are they engaging with their student, and with the institution that then starts to capture, some of them are invisible strategies that we’re seeing in part and then looking at how do we make those strategies more visible, and help connect, you know, parents or they were able, in some cases to, you know, know that there were resources and suggest to their students? You know, have you talked to your professor, have you talked to, you know, do you need a tutor? So those things are happening, they’re just not visible to us on campus?

Heather Shea
That’s great. I think the key here is that found that I keep hearing over and over is engagement. Right. And Judy, you and Cas andra developed a model that talks about all of the dimensions of parent and family engagement, I’d love to hear a little bit more about that model, we’ll provide some links in the show notes that will help people kind of both visualize as well as learn more if they’re interested.

Judy Marquez Kiyama
Yeah, and it builds so much on what Kathy just said. And it also was a way for us to capture in writing and through the development of a visual and a model itself, the ways in which we can combat all these deficit notions that we that we talked about, right? And so it is I’m gonna look at the names, I don’t mess it up at the model, a parent and family characteristics, engagement and support. And what we really tried to do was capture all of the different elements that influence contribute to engagement with both parents and families with their college aged children, as they make those decisions about college transition in and then continue that engagement in college. And so there are elements around family and community like we’ve been talking about different college characteristics, institutional contexts, of course, which we’ve talked a little about pre college characteristics, but then within the the notion that you are constantly also engaging with things like your own self efficacy and independence development, like Cassandra mentioned, educational aspirations that are not just pre college aspirations, but aspirations that shift as you learn about yourself and your interest and your professional path, the social networks that students are connected to pre college and within on the different involvement and engagement that students and families participate in various dimensions of support. And we leave that broad because like Kathy mentioned, family is not bound by a household, they’re not bound by these nuclear definitions that we’ve seen. In fact, some of the students, you know, that we learn more about are coming in without these quote unquote, traditional definitions of family altogether, they may be former foster youth, they may be independent students, they may be bringing support people with them who are part of their kinship network. So these elements and factors are all interconnected. And then, of course, the family characteristics themselves. We were purposeful not to present this in a stepwise or higher hierarchical kind of fashion. Because there is no maybe temporal order to them. These are things that students are engaging with, throughout throughout their time as a student, and we want them to so that was the other maybe intentional element of how we develop this is we don’t want there to have to be that separation from parents and families, we don’t want it to feel distanced. We want it to look like in terms of a visual, but then also, as we engage the model, we want it to appear that that parent and family engagement is as important now in post secondary settings, as we stress it in in K 12. Right. So that was the maybe the impetus behind it and how it came to be, we drew quite a bit on some of the maybe cultural assets framing, k 12, models of parent family engagement, the ways in which we consider collectivist orientations of engaging with parents and families. And now are trying to, you know, as we go through and do additional analysis on our own studies, and data, maybe zero in a little bit more on some of these factors to learn more about independence, or to learn more about, like the role of the institution, the assumptions of the institution, the communication patterns by the institution, so we can build out these different factors within

Heather Shea
When I think about this model, and I think I mentioned before we started recording that Michigan State University has just recently established a parent family program office. And so, you know, making actionable plans around a model like this, I think is one way that could be kind of actualized right, so can you can you talk about some of the recommendations that might actually translate into either institutional actions or individual unit actions or, you know, recommendation for student success kind of initiatives?

Judy Marquez Kiyama
Casandra, do you want to jump in and you want me to keep I have my list?

Casandra Harper
Go for it. And I’ll I’ll follow up if needed.

Judy Marquez Kiyama
Okay. And this, I mean, this has come not only from the development of the model itself, but the the research that Casandra and I along with our incredible, like, grad students, in the last 10 years, so they’ve been doing a lot now published on their own and Kathy’s work, but, you know, things like, considering different formats for engagement. Right, not. And I think the pandemic has pushed us all to really rethink this altogether. But the fact that not everything has to be in person, that we can utilize virtual formats. But there’s a lot that we can do even with our with our phones, by ways of engagement with parents and families. Don’t dismiss parents and families as problematic. And Kathy mentioned this, so we get at the beginning, people or problems to manage, right, I think we’ve got to just move away from that whole notion altogether. Considering the cost, of course of what engagement might be, and this is I think, really specific to perhaps multi day events, whether that’s orientation or family weekend events or whatever it might be pre college events. You know, there are there are situations in which families cannot take the time off, or they cannot afford to pay the cost of having multiple family members attended an event for multiple days. So again, I think it goes back to how do we consider different formats and make them as accessible and inclusive as possible, and then having resources is available after doing what you’re doing today recording things and having it accessible after for people to view. And then a big one that came up with a lot of our work is making sure that services are offered in multiple languages and really getting to know who families are and the languages that they are using in their homes. And so if there’s not, simultaneous presentations available in multiple languages, was making sure that there’s translation or interpretation services offered. So I that you know, we have a list, but could keep going, because I do I’m sure I missed some.

Judy Marquez Kiyama
Yeah, that was really good. I was just gonna say, I think, you know, common and what we found, and what our focus is, is that we can’t let the the responsibility be only on the families. Right, so what can institutions do to reach out earlier, maybe even pre college? Or how do we build relationships more intentionally, one thing that we heard from first gen parents is that the authentic communication that they would get was really appreciated the relationship building, but what they tended to see more often was fundraising or, you know, calls for, for those sorts of things of donations. And so being able to build authentic relationships, because we found that first gen parents might be less likely to reach out. But if they do build a relationship with someone that that’s someone that they’re going to return to. So for example, we’ve had, you know, one participant who, whose student majored in engineering, met the advisor, the student change their major, but for all future questions, the engineering major advisor was the person that they went to, so we can be strategic, and that knowledge of who can be set up a meaningful connection with that the parent can kind of return to over time.

Heather Shea
That is great. That is great. Well, as you were talking about, talking about those ranges of the model, I kept thinking about context and how different and I think this is part of it too, right, institution type, and, and context. And I do think it does mean that our institutions bear some responsibility and understanding who their parents and families are, what kinds of support might be needed. But like, what do we know about two year institutions, four year institutions public, private? Casandra, can you build on that a little bit? How context might adjust what the expectations are a bit?

Casandra Harper
I love this question. Because context does really matter. And so thinking about the students who are attracted to different institutions, because they have different needs, and they are looking for different things out of, of the higher education experience, so just as the students are different, their parents and their key supporters, and that network is going to look really differently. So I think, you know, I’m thinking about direct entry from high school students, and you know, the range of students we have in that category. You know, some of those students are having financial responsibilities for their families actually, or, you know, might have a lot of support from from parents and key supporters. And then think about returning adults who have work experience families of their own, maybe you’re doing some parental care responsibilities. Those are really different populations. So partially, my answer is, you know, I think that context matters, and that there’s a lot there. I also think that we just don’t fully know, I think we need more data and need to collect more data on the key supporters that students are turning to, because I think you’re absolutely right, that this would look very differently at these different campuses. And how do we know more about them? How do we connect with those key supporters? Can we get their contact information and permission to follow up and share information, and maybe even seek opportunities to allow family members and supporters to connect with each other?

Heather Shea
Yeah, I think that’s a great idea. And that’s what I that’s what I love about all these recommendations, I think they do provide really like key pieces for how do we create opportunities for engagement. So we’ve been talking kind of broadly and Kathy, I’m going to drill down into very specific types of units for which all of this has implications. And so you know, when you think about all the things that we’ve already discussed around parents and families, particularly first gen students, parents and families, you know, what are the implications for New Student Orientation for parent family program offices for various Student Services Unit, student success initiatives communication, I’ll like throw the broad list out there. And then you can kind of talk through and we can kind of then go into a little bit more detail.

Kathy Adams Riester
Sure. So I think, Judy can set and Casandra have just listed some really key things that I think you have to take into consideration in on how you’re building all of these programs. So when you look at New Student Orientation, how long is it? What is the cost? Are there alternatives? Is there a session that’s, you know, adjacent to the beginning of the school year, so that families aren’t having to come twice and pay that expense twice, depending on the background of the families and languages spoken at home, you know, are things provided an alternate languages so that families really are are being able to understand if English isn’t their first language, the context of what’s being shared in a session for parents and families. So I think looking at some of those things is really important. When you think about new student orientation, and how that’s structured. And I think also one of the things that I think, regardless of what type of student we’re talking about, if we’re talking to parents and families, talking about that transition from high school to college, is also super important, because I think we get all caught up on Oh, you’re in college down, here’s what college looks like. But I think sometimes helping connect the dots of high school is different and hear it from college and hear the differences and spelling those out for for any group that we’re talking to, for families and supporters is super important, because sometimes that connection isn’t always made. And that helps them I think, better support their students. I also think for Parent and Family programming offices, creating good connections across campus, because I don’t, I don’t know that there are a lot of places where parent and family programs and programming and something like our first generation or first cats like like University of Arizona House did, they’re connected. And making those connections, I think is super important. Because then I think you can look at you know, are there different populations, and different types of needs and different ways to connect with different populations, so that you’re really serving everyone and being inclusive and what you’re doing. And I think if you follow kind of some of the traditional parent family programming models that are out there, you’re probably missing kind of your, your level of being inclusive and that service. So I think being able to take a look at and it really evaluating what you’re doing. And are you being inclusive of all the families that are part of the student groups, and making sure that if you’re sharing, and this kind of goes to communication, but for parent family programs, if you’re sharing communication, you know, how are you doing that? What type of programming are you doing? And are there multiple formats of that programming, you know, as you’re really one big events come for family weekend, and then that’s not super inclusive, because not everyone can come for family weekend. So I think really looking at that lens of how inclusive is our programming? And are we sharing things, and multiple types of formats and modalities and perhaps multiple types of languages? As well, that, you know, I know, Judy talked a little bit about that. So I think all of those are important to think about. I think what student success initiatives, as we’re looking at those, I think it makes sense to look at how our parent family members partners in success, like you mentioned earlier, whether and how do we you know, work on bringing them in to embrace and help support students success instead of trying to manage them. And I think that’s such a different lens and philosophy. But I think if we’re all working together, that I think ultimately we have more ability to support our students. So really looking at how our are maybe parents and families part of our success strategy with with how we’re trying to support students, as far as that goes.

Heather Shea
That’s super great. Judy or Casandra, anything else you would add as far as repercussions for these very specific units or offices?

Casandra Harper
I think from the Financial Aid piece is huge. Finances come up over and over again, have parents want more information. So there’s really, you know, no, no limit there of additional communication and then for communications offices. I think the work that Judy and I have done has spoken to the philosophy that we need to talk about of, of not only can the messages towards parents, but kind of what is our value and the intentionality behind what we want to say and how do we want to say it, I think the data also showed that first gen families want to be invited. And so there’s there’s a way of phrasing those sorts of invitations in a way that communicates that their presence is desired and needed and that’s slightly different maybe than how we’re thinking about communications.

Heather Shea
I love that. So my next question is really around advice and resources. And what what should we be doing to kind of collectively as practitioners as faculty as grad students? What should we be doing to improve our understanding of and better serve first gen Students, as well as the parent, their parents and families? Judyy? I’ll start with you, and then we’ll see what else everyone else will add.

Judy Marquez Kiyama
Okay. You know, I’ll start maybe from like a umbrella institution perspective, one of the things that came up a number of times when we were talking to administrators or directors of parent family offices, is that there’s just not enough resources to build out the intentional programming that they want to do. And that often, parent family offices get moved, when whatever might be. I don’t know, organizationally the fit at the moment, but not always the best intentional fit when we consider how how to best then build this entire kind of intentional programming for, for parents, families and their students. And so we saw a lot of different organizational models and a lot of different resource and funding models. We also talked to quite a few people who mentioned that they had a significant fundraising component to their jobs, which meant that whenever they were doing to serve parents and families they had to raise the funds for and so I guess one, one piece of advice was that if this is really important for our institutions, and institutions need to invest in the resources that these offices and departments need to then serve parents and families and engage them in intentional ways. The other piece that I think we could do better in terms of really understanding who, who our students are, who their parents and families are, is, is tap into institutional research and data. And if we’re capturing who students are on their applications as first generation college students, then we we can we can analyze disaggregate, right, by different identifying factors, we can understand their college going paths a little bit more, we can see, whatever institutional data is collected, right, there’s ways to like pull it and analyze it, and then use it to inform the work that we’re doing. So those two pieces from from an institutional perspective, and, and certainly, as you know, for those of us who are teaching, and preparing graduate students, I think there’s an element of that as well that I know, you’re gonna ask a Casandra to talk about.

Heather Shea
Yeah, that’s perfect. Casandra as a faculty member, what would you suggest?

Casandra Harper
I’m just expanding that narrative, you know, I think in our coursework, we can really make sure that we are questioning What assumptions do we have about parents, you know, of today’s college students? What images do you have, in your mind? Who are you serving? Who do you think about? And then for programming? You know, I think the data point is, is a great one to come back to to have. You know, are we collecting data about who’s participating? Who isn’t? And are we making conclusions about that? What could we be doing differently on the institutional side? Related to that, but I think, you know, the, the involvement of parents and families is such a shift. So I think that should start and in graduate school preparation programs to have those conversations early and often of what would this look like? What are the logistical barriers? What are the FERPA needs that we need to look through? What are the considerations on campuses, but I think if campuses can see the benefit and the value, it’s not an added task alone, but it’s it’s expanding our ability to reach students to really enhance their students success, which Kathy’s work, you know, really speaks to? I think that that’s, that could be a benefit and a rationale that we could use to get that additional support.

Heather Shea
That’s great. Kathy, I’m going to tweak this question just a little bit for you. So as a former director of a parent family office, and it’s somebody who now supervises that office, what advice would you give to campuses that don’t have this office that are thinking about starting what are what are the essential components that you think that you think they should include?

Kathy Adams Riester
So I would say that they need to do some looking as to kind of a little bit of program evaluation, what’s out there? Who are their students who are their family members, as Part of that, you know, what’s the population they’re going to be serving. And there’s some there’s some decent data, I mean, I was able to do a lit review for my dissertation. So I know, you know, there’s information out there that you can look at. And I think there’s some good recommendations about how to build more inclusive models prepared and family programming. And in looking at what, what, what you build from the ground, how can it be inclusive from the beginning? And I think that would be the place to start is how do you how do you build that type of model of programming with how you’re doing outreach and the type of programming that you’re doing? In those kinds of things, I think would be word start. I also think, starting with the, you know, getting rid of kind of the term and concept in your language of who you’re working with about a helicopter parent, and moving from, you know, thinking about how do you manage parents to how do you really involve them and include them in what you’re doing and engage them in supporting their students. So I think having going in with that philosophy, and hopefully, and I, you know, I’ve worked in places where fundraising is a component of that office. But I think if it is, you also have to be super protective, that the also the focus, if you really want to build an inclusive programming, it can’t really also just be about fundraising. And there’s, you know, there’s a place for that, but, but you need to be able to have think, be able to think about them separately, I think as part of that. And, and, you know, there’s a place for the fundraising part, too, but I think to build it inclusively, you know, you need to have the ability just to have programs that don’t cost and provide resources and supports that are benefit in support to all and not just because you’re you know, donating money or you’re involved or part of the association or things like that based on financial contribution. So I think that’s where it gets a little tricky when, when fundraising is tied to the organization is part of what you’re doing. So I think those would be some places to start. And I think there is some good information out there on and what do you need to think about and building I mean, Judy and Casandra have done a lot of work in that area. And you know, there’s been some good things written, I think that you could, could start as a basis to look at.

Heather Shea
That’s great, that’s perfect, thank you, for my own campus has benefited as well as others other places that are thinking and are just really in the beginning stages of building these types of programs. So we’re toward the end, and we always run for a little short on time. This podcast is called Student Affairs NOW and we always kind of take a moment at the end. To summarize, what are you pondering, questioning, thinking about excited about now? And if you would like to share how we’re where people can connect with you, that would be great. And so Kathy will stay with you for her final thoughts. What do you think about now?

Kathy Adams Riester
So I am thinking about, I just think there’s a lot more work and possibility in this area, especially as we’re I mean, Indiana, we’re in the throes of strategic planning, and thinking about, you know, how do we, you know, where’s the role in possibility of engaging parents and family members of supporters as part of that, and trying to kind of, for me, in the roles that I have in there, we’re working that into to some of the conversations about how do we, how do we do that and engage that as part of our Student Success area. So I think that’s probably one of the big things. I also for finding me, I’m at the me, excuse me, Indiana University in Bloomington. And I think I can provide maybe my bio, make sure my email addresses there.

Heather Shea
Okay. Thanks so much, Kathy. Casandra, what about you?

Casandra Harper
Ah well, we’re thinking about, I think independence development, faculty and staff who have questions about how this might look and how their work might involve parents, I’m sure that there’s some hesitation on the part of them. So I think continuing that research and application to practice will be important. And then Judy and I are collaborating on a book project, and are looking for contributors. So this, I think what we’ve talked about today kind of highlights just how complex this is, and how, you know, things might be shifting on campuses, and that people are doing really good work in this area. And we’re looking for contributions related to case studies or discussion questions, or you know, what this might look like on different campuses. So we’ll put some information in the shownotes, I believe, to connect that way. And then I can be found via email, and I think, the informational video in the show notes there as well.

Heather Shea
Great, thank you so much for Casandra. Judy. Final thought.

Judy Marquez Kiyama
Yeah. So check mark and echo. Right. But Casandra said, since we’re working on this exciting book proposal together, we’d love to have folks contribute. I’m always, you know, interested to in what parents and families have to say And what is it that they need and want to see particularly as we consider first generation college families, families of color, Pell eligible families. And especially coming out of the pandemic, I don’t know that we fully know yet. If if family’s needs have shifted, what that might look like how we as institutions need to be responding to that and engaging them in ways that is shifting based on how their family situations may have changed because of the pandemic. So those are some of my thoughts. I will share my email and Twitter handle, I think that’s what it’s called to sound like tech savvy I am and social media savvy, Twitter and LinkedIn. So I’ll share those after.

Heather Shea
Great. Thank you all so much. I’m, as always just grateful for your time and for the wisdom and sharing your contributions for the research and to this conversation. Also sending heartfelt appreciation to our dedicated producer, Nat Ambrosey. Thank you Nat for everything that you do. If you are listening today, not already receiving our weekly newsletter, you can visit our website, and there’ll be a pop up and ways in which you can enter your email, and then you’ll receive an email every Wednesday with our newest episode. While you’re there, you can check out our archives. I think we’re at like 127 episodes or something like this at this point, which is great. Just a little bit more about our sponsors for today. Thanks to our sponsors, how will your institution rise to reach today’s socially conscious generation. These students report commitment to safety well being and inclusion as important as academic rigor when selecting a college, and it’s time to reimagine the work of student affairs as an investment and not an expense. Dor over 20 years Vector Solutions, which now includes the campus Prevention Network, formerly EverFi has been a partner for of choice for 2000 Plus colleges, universities and national organizations. With nine efficacy studies behind their courses, you can trust and have full confidence that you’re using the standard of care for students safety, well being and inclusion transform the future of your institution, and the community you serve. And you can learn more at Vector Solutions. Our other sponsor today is Symplicity. Symplicity is the global leader in student services technology platforms a state of the art technology that empowers institutions to make data driven decision. Specific to their goals. A true partner to the institutions Symplicity supports all aspects of student life, including but not limited to Career Services and Development, Student Conduct and well being students access and accessibility services. Learn more by visiting symplicity.com or connect with them on Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn. You can take a moment to visit our website and click on the sponsors link to learn more as well about these and our other sponsors. Again, I’m Heather Shea thanks to our listeners, everybody who is watching today. Make a great week everyone.

Call for Content

Partnering with Parents and Family Members of Today’s College Students:

 Innovations in Practice 

Book Editors: Casandra Harper, University of Missouri; Judy Marquez Kiyama, University of Arizona; & Alice Lee, University of Arizona

Aims of the Book: The overarching goal of Partnering with Parents and Family Members of Today’s College Students is to highlight the innovations in practice that staff are engaging to support the needs of parents, family, and key supporters of today’s college students. Book editors and chapter authors will collaboratively examine the problems, ideas, resources, and strategies that may be helpful in addressing the challenges that arise when doing this work. 

We welcome content in the form of case studies, including discussion questions and key considerations for practice. Topics might include creative parent / family programming efforts, programmatic highlights and best practices, examples of campus partnerships and committees, and innovative practice regarding data collection, data usage, resource allocation, etc. Innovations in data may include partnering with institutional research offices, strategies for collecting and utilizing data, and/or collection of original research or assessment data. We encourage contributors to highlight parents and families and practitioners can partner to encourage students’ development of independence and illustrate the support and challenge and realities of building inclusive partnerships with parents and families and with other campus entities. 

We especially encourage content that highlights the experiences, programming, and/or needs assessment of first-generation, low-income, and BIPOC families and students. 

Audience: The primary audience for this book is current staff members and practitioners who are working directly with parent and family programs on college campuses. We seek partnership with current practitioners in the development and writing of content for the book through sole authored contributions, and/or through collaborative or co-writing with others, or through verbally sharing ideas via conversation with someone from the editorial team. Contributors of original content will be given authorship credit.

Timeline:

Interest Form Due:                              December 15, 2022

First Draft Check-In                             February 15, 2023 

            Content Due:                                       May 1, 2023

            Additional Edits as Required:             Summer 2023

Link to Google Interest Form