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The Future is FirstGen

8th Annual First-Generation Graduate Student Symposium
February 7, 2025

Join the Boston University Newbury Center, Duke University First-Generation Graduate Student Network, and The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Carolina Grad Student F1RSTS, along with our Cooperating Sponsor, FirstGen Forward, for our 8th annual symposium for graduate and professional students on February 7, 2025 via Zoom. This national symposium is open to any student who identifies as a current first-generation graduate or professional student and is studying any discipline. We define a first-generation graduate/professional student as someone whose parents, guardians, or caregivers have not completed an advanced degree, e.g. master’s, doctoral, or professional degree (like a JD or MD).

Mission

This virtual symposium is exclusively for current first-generation graduate and professional students. While we greatly value the support of administrators, faculty, and staff, we kindly ask that registration be reserved for students due to the limited capacity of this event. Thank you for your understanding and cooperation.

Registration

 Registration for this symposium is free for all graduate and professional students. If you have a NASPA account, please use your login credentials to complete the registration form. If you do not have a NASPA account, follow the guide below to set up your free account. Once your account is set up, use those login credentials to complete the registration form.

NASPA Account Instructions
Register Here

Keynote Speaker

We are excited to welcome our keynote speaker, Anthony Abraham Jack. Anthony Abraham Jack is the Inaugural Faculty Director of the Boston University Newbury Center and Associate Professor of Higher Education Leadership at Boston University Wheelock College of Education and Human Development. His scholarship appears in the Common Reader, Du Bois Review, Social Problems, Sociological Forum, and Sociology of Education and has earned awards from the American Educational Studies Association, American Sociological Association, Association for the Study of Higher Education, Eastern Sociological Society, and the Society for the Study of Social Problems. In 2020, Muhlenberg College awarded him an honorary doctorate and the National Head Start Association named him a BOLD Alumni Leader for his work in transforming higher education.

The New York Times, The Boston Globe, The Atlantic, The New Yorker, The Chronicle of Higher Education, The Nation, American Conservative Magazine, The National Review, The Washington Post, Vice, Vox, and NPR have featured his research and writing as well as biographical profiles of his experiences as a first-generation college student. His first book, The Privileged Poor: How Elite Colleges Are Failing Disadvantaged Students, was awarded the 2020 Mirra Komarovsky Book Award, the 2019 CEP Mildred Garcia Award for Exemplary Scholarship, and the Thomas J. Wilson Memorial Prize and was also named a finalist for the 2019 C. Wright Mills Award and a NPR Book’s Best Book of 2019. His second book project, Class Dismissed: When Colleges Ignore Inequality and Students Pay the Price, is due out in August 2024

He received his BA in Women’s and Gender Studies and Religion cum laude from Amherst College and an AM and Ph.D. in Sociology from Harvard University.

Anthony Abraham Jack, Ph.D.

Inaugural Faculty Director , Boston University Newbury Center

Schedule at a Glance

12:30-12:40 pm Welcome
12:40-1:20 pm Icebreaker/Networking
1:20-1:30 pm Break
1:30-2:30 pm Keynote: Dr. Anthony Abraham Jack
2:30-2:40 pm Break
2:40-3:40 pm Session 1
3:40-3:50 pm Break
3:50-4:50 pm Session 2
4:50-5:00 pm Closing Remarks

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