One of my interests is in what poor and working-class students learn about themselves via messages that they get from their campuses to and about them. Overwhelmingly, poor and working-class students are first-generation college students, so I listen closely to what students hear in those support programs.
Since 2017, First Gen Forward (formerly the Center for First-Generation Student Success) has sponsored a First-Generation College Celebration on campuses across the country on November 8. The day is now celebrated on hundreds of campuses every year.
The organizers explain that the annual event is intended to "raise awareness of the first-generation college student identity by advancing an asset-based, national narrative of these students’ experiences and outcomes".
This year, they also recommend that campuses "leverage Celebration Day to deepen your community’s understanding of the systemic barriers plaguing higher education and the supports necessary for this resilient population to continue thriving across education, career, and life".
Even after following this event for years, I'm unclear about what the organizers mean by either of these, but National organizers do provide planning resources including 101 Ways to Celebrate on November 8. Months before the event, planners recommend this list of a full range of social activities (photo booths with special swag, intramural sports tournaments, a 5k race, dinners) information sessions (panels of alums, newsletters for students and families, visits from high school students, career fairs) and broader suggestions for possibly announcing some campus changes (training orientation leaders how to welcome first-generation students). There's no suggestion in the 101 items on the list about what these panels might prioritize in messaging or what orientation leaders need to know.
This list has been posted annually for five years and this year as I reread it this year looking for "what will poor and working-class students learn about themselves?", I asked myself what would be different if the planning list was instead about recognizing some other students who, for example, choose the finance major in the business school, or who enrolled from out of state, or whose parents had attended the same college, or who participate in the Greek system or a community-based learning program. Other than a suggestion that campuses reach out about housing assistance and food banks and another about starting a professional clothing bank, I'm not sure I see what is distinctly being celebrated about first-generation students who are likely to be from poor and working-class communities.
Does a list of 101 activities in in which students themselves are rarely speaking on their own behalf – especially about "systemic barriers" – convey "assets" to the broader community – or to the students? When it is recommended that they do speak, it's rarely about the fullness of their lives (or their assets). One item on the list, for example, suggests that students be invited to build a special display on which they answer a prompt about about why they love being first-gen. There are suggestions for displays featuring successful 1st gen grads like Michelle Obama. Campuses are encouraged to highlight uniquely accomplished students in campus PR materials. Graduating students are imagined giving advice to first year students about finding campus resources (but not about how to advocate for better campus resources, or how to respond to the classism that so many poor and working-class students report experiencing).
In any day of campus recognition of any student groups, students might eat well and enjoy silly fun and and be offered advice from alums. But what would a day like this teach first-generation students about how they're so unique that though they may also be finance majors or do community-based learning, they should be "celebrated" as unique within those other groups?
What's not on the list
A day declared to be a "celebration" opens some conversations but obviously also precludes others. What's not part of the conversation in the planning materials is exactly what does make first-generation students unique: the high likelihood of being from low-income and working class families who have struggled within growing economic inequality and were likely educated within schools that are ill-prepared to prepare students for college. What's not part of the conversation is how these things are a matter of public policy, as is the limited financial aid available to these students, as are the campus norms and policies that assume economic stability, or the overwhelming number of faculty from privileged backgrounds who know little about students from them.
It seems possible that on days like this, campuses can make students visible and also teach others about public policy that necessitates that poor and working-class students develop so many strengths as children just to get to college. It seems entirely possible to organize at least some panels that nudge the entire campus via scholarship, performances, or guest speakers to work on and beyond the campus to equalize schooling and broader economic opportunities. Campuses know how to do this equity advocacy work. But there is no mention of any of these things on this list or in other planning materials.
Why November 8?
November 8 was chosen for these celebrations because that is the date on which the Higher Education Access act was signed in 1965. The act created support programs and loans and grants to increase college access and retention in recognition of the specific barriers so that many students faced then in aspiring to college.
What if the annual commemoration of that day included at least some focus on which goals of the act have been achieved and what is yet undone, given that three generations later, we're still seeing so many students' first attempt at college when their parents and grandparents couldn't or didn't get there. What have we learned about college access and barriers over those 59 years?
What if poor and working-class students demonstrated their "assets" by presenting their undergraduate research projects on what's transpired over those three generations? Or they screened the films they made about the "systemic barriers" to becoming educated their parents and grandparents faced? Or they performed short plays they'd written about the routine classism they face on campus? What if talking about the remaining "systemic barriers" acknowledged the 75% of first-generation students who haven't completed a degree six years after beginning as we also celebrate those who seem to be on track?
On annual commemorative days like this, I think organizers might at least make clear what they mean by "systemic barriers" and who shares responsibility for dismantling those barriers. Every year, students seem to be having fun with those photo booths in those social media posts. And I still wonder whether these days could become more about who these students are when they're not holding the fun swag that campuses give them for those photos. Then, they and their campuses might learn a great deal about who they are.
