Bechard & Gragg / Taboo: The Journal of Culture and Education / October 2020
In very recent years, as institutions of higher education have been focusing substantial efforts and resources on empowering first-generation students, first-generation faculty are increasingly called upon to mentor and support these students. Given their own developmental experiences and struggles, such faculty often enthusiastically embrace this labor. Yet such faculty have received little to no professional training or institutional mentoring as first-generation undergraduate or graduate students or, most importantly for our purposes here, as first-generation faculty. Indeed, little has been written about first-generation students who have become faculty members in the often-elitist academy. This article explores the authors’ experiences of marginalization as first-generation faculty, using personal narratives marked by microaggressions that highlight implicit bias related to professional assimilation and competency development. Contextual considerations are discussed as is the pressing need for future research on and mentoring programs for first-generation faculty.
