Making those First-gen Connections

It’s an exciting time at Walters State Community College (Walters State) in Morristown, TN. We are thrilled to be a part of the First Scholars Network, and we look forward to using all of the resources provided by the Center for First-Generation Student Success. We are grateful for this opportunity, because we are truly building a first-generation college student program from the ground up. Approximately 33% of our students are first-gen, but we have never had a program focused solely on the needs of that demographic of students. Creating a new program can be overwhelming, but we hope to create a program that will have a lasting impact on our first-gen families.

One of our biggest advantages is that we are able to collaborate with already established groups on campus like RHiTA (Recruiting Hispanics To Achieve), our Black Student Union, Phi Theta Kappa, and our athletic programs. So many of our students cross over from group to group, so it only makes sense to band together to support our first-gen students. We also want to collaborate with offices across campus to get our message out. We recently met with our recruiting staff to talk about ways to communicate with our first-gen students and their parents before they even enroll at Walters State. We will be adding a component to our online orientation that will help first-gen students to get connected with resources right away. We are also working with our Communications and Marketing team to build messaging into the overall communication plan for continuing students.

We have identified four goals for our program this year:

• Connecting our first-gen students to faculty and staff who are first-gen. They will be given a poster to put in their offices that identifies them as first-gen, which we hope will make first-gen students more comfortable coming to those faculty/staff members for assistance.

• Creating consistent messaging for our first-gen students by working with our Marketing and Communications team to highlight important dates and events each semester.

• Designing a webpage specifically for our first-gen students and their parents.

• Providing a series of workshops that address the needs of our students: major and career exploration, finances, upcoming changes in the FAFSA filing process, and more.

We love our first-gen students and are excited about building a strong program of support over the years to come. One of current first-generation students, Kelly Nguyen, a Biology Pre-Med major, has loved her experience at Walters State. In a recent conversation with one our advisors she said, “Walters State has opened new doors and possibilities for my future. I am proud to call myself a first-generation Senator!” We are so proud of her, and we want all of our first-generation students to have the same experience as Kelly.