Creating a First-Generation Study Abroad Program

The University of Missouri resides in Columbia, Missouri, located centrally about an hour and a half from St. Louis and Kansas City. As the land-grant flagship institution of the state, Mizzou prides itself on its spirit of innovation. The Office of First-Generation Initiatives was founded in the Summer of 2023, after several years of a working group (a committee tasked with supporting first-generation initiatives on campus). I, Selena Meints, was hired to launch the office.

As the founding coordinator, I began a listening tour across campus. Our university is very large, about 30,000 total students. 1 out of 5 are first-generation. I wanted the first-generation students and faculty/staff to inform and shape our office mission.

I am not a Mizzou alum or former staff member, so I had to navigate the large institution along with creating the office’s core mission and vision simultaneously. I had to ask, “What are the 5,000+ First-Gen students challenged with at Mizzou?” I had to dive deep into the research to craft our office mission.

The 2022 NSSE data was a crucial component to learn more about what first-gen students face compared to their non-first-gen peers. Specifically, at Mizzou, Black male first-generation students had the lowest sense of belonging among any other identifier on campus. The NSSE data also showed that first-generation students had less involvement in High-Impact Practices (such as internships, undergraduate research, service learning, and study abroad). I looked at this data and determined we needed to narrow our focus to increasing all first-generation students’ sense of belonging on campus and getting them more involved in High-Impact Practices.

The office mission is to celebrate, support and honor all first-gen students, faculty, staff and alumni by creating a campus culture that celebrates the first-gen identity. The vision of The Office of First-Generation Initiatives is to increase the 4-year graduation rate of first-generation students at Mizzou from 45.8% (2019) to 63% by 2027. We have already surpassed our first goal of 48%.

I was appointed to several committees, one being the Undergraduate Research Pathways working group to increase the number of first-generation students to apply for the National Science Foundation grant. We began our partnership with The International Office’s Mizzou Abroad and piloted a study abroad program for first-generation students as one of my first initiatives in the Summer of 2023.

We partnered with a service-learning study abroad program to Costa Rica that had been successfully running for several years. Two faculty and I took 15 first-gen students (the total number of students was 24) for two weeks on a short-term study abroad program in January of 2024. Students participated in service learning through conservation efforts, with an emphasis on saving the sea turtles in Montezuma. Students also went on a San Jose city tour and visited a volcano. Other excursions included snorkeling, seeing a whale, painting the volunteer house in the National Forest, visiting an animal sanctuary, and hiking to waterfalls.

Eugene Moses, the founder/president of the First-Gen Tigers student org said, “I wouldn’t have thought this was an opportunity I could have done without the office’s support. I am a senior and about to graduate, so I thought study abroad wouldn’t be an option for me! Then I saw an email from Selena and decided to go!”

From my own experience, I knew that study abroad was never something I could have done when I was an undergrad. I was a transfer, commuter, Pell-Eligible, First-Gen, Hispanic student who took online and night classes while working full-time. It’s my passion to help other students who come from similar backgrounds as myself.

All 15 students who went to Costa Rica received substantial scholarships, which covered the majority of the program’s cost. Students received 3 credit-hours for participating in the program. We held several pre-workshops explaining the trip and had a large number of students attend these sessions. Yvonne Binfield, Assistant Director of Mizzou Abroad said: “We have never seen this many first-gen students excited about a program before! Thanks to Selena and her office’s promotion, we had the largest number of first-gen students participate in a program.”

As the data suggests, we see a huge increase in graduation rates when first-generation students in particular go on a study abroad program. According to the CASSIE research study, 93.6 percent of first-generation students who studied abroad earned their undergraduate degree within six years, compared to only 58.4 percent of first-generation students who did not study abroad (Bell et al., 2020). We are now building an official first-gen-only study abroad program for 2026 called 1st to Fly.

We may have students who have never been on a plane before. Our goal is to change the narrative that study abroad programs are only for a certain demographic of students. This can be an accessible opportunity for students if we give them the right tools early on. We plan to offer a passport day and several workshops surrounding the Gilman scholarship and other scholarships designed for Pell-Eligible or first-gen students, equipping them early in the process to start thinking about study abroad at least a year in advance.

I have an inkling of where we are headed next... and students are already excited about the prospect of knowing they too, have a chance to fly.

Reference

Bhatt, R., Bell, A., Rubin, D.L. et al. Education Abroad and College Completion. Res High Educ 63, 987–1014 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11162-022-09673-z

---

For more information on University of Missouri's approach, please visit their website here.