I grew up in a town of 2,000 people in rural central Pennsylvania — a state the political consultant James Carville once described as having Pittsburgh on one side, Philadelphia on the other, and Alabama in the middle. Everyone in my high school looked and acted like one another and worked in factories in the summer. Few of us considered college.
When I was a kid, my dad would ask me and my brother to watch him repair broken appliances so that we would know how to fix things. I told him that I didn’t want to know how to fix things, I wanted to have a job where I could hire someone to fix things. (Now, every time I call a technician, I rue the days when I thought I would actually have a job where I didn’t mind paying for repairs.)
My siblings are all still there in those same factories, and that makes me something of an outlier. We don’t fully understand one another’s worlds. The one thing we have in common is a strong work ethic.
At college I gravitated to other kids like me. My best friends were similarly the first in their families to go to college. I think we bonded because we felt different — we were different — from students whose parents had been to college or who had more money.
My background played a role in my feelings of isolation. I would call home to talk with my parents, but I had to do it collect and didn’t realize the expense. Finally one day, my dad said, “Don’t call anymore. We can’t afford it.”
Later — in my junior year, I think — I heard about something called graduate school, and some of my teachers suggested I get a master’s degree. I decided to do it because it meant I could defer my student loans.
After I completed my master’s, my professors encouraged me to continue for a Ph.D. I did so for the same reason: to avoid paying my student loans.
When I finished my doctoral studies, my dad had a graduation party, where he invited everyone to bring a dish to share while he and his friends played guitars and sang awful songs. At the party, one of my uncles showed me his rash and asked me how to cure it. I tried to explain that I was going to have a doctorate — a Ph.D. — in criminology, and he wondered if I would get a white coat. Eventually I told him he should just cut back on his drinking. He responded, “That’s what my other doctor said.”
It wasn’t until I was a professor that I learned I had been a “first-generation student,” a term I had never identified with. But I had matched all the characteristics as a student, and I match them now as a faculty member — because the experience continues to shape us.
I attribute my occasional bouts with impostor syndrome to my first-generation status. Feelings of isolation at academic conferences remind me of the isolation I experienced as a first-year student. One sign of a first-generation faculty member is that at conferences we are the ones who pocket the free snack food. Two other signs: You don’t know the difference between a red-wine glass and a white-wine glass, and you really don’t care what the difference is between a red-wine glass and a white-wine glass.
Those of us at Old Dominion University who drink from any old glass gravitate to one another just as my friends and I did in college. We wanted to reach out to first-generation students in order to end some of the isolation that many of them feel. We created the First Gen to Faculty mentoring program to create opportunities for them to connect with our 100 or so first-generation faculty and staff members.
Last year we held a dinner in the fall and a game night in the spring. Perhaps the most important thing about those events is that the faculty members found them just as valuable as the students did. Being in a space full of students and professors who were the first in their families to go to college creates a connection and reminds those of us who are first-generation faculty members that we have done something remarkable with our lives, and that we are not alone.
Our website identifies first-generation faculty members so that students can know where to turn with their questions or to share their own stories. This year we are developing a blog for first-generation students and faculty members, as well as hosting small events on the first Friday of every month.
I vividly remember feeling isolated during my own first year in college and wondering whether I belonged there. I skipped many classes and didn’t know how to fit in. Eventually I transferred to another institution, where, by luck, I found a faculty mentor who changed the trajectory of my life. I probably would not have transferred had I found a mentor at my first university. Our students’ futures are too important to let their destinies be determined by luck.
Recently one young woman came to student orientation alone, without her parents. They had stayed home because they figured they would not be able to afford the lunch. The lunch was actually free, I believe, but the story signals that the cultural forces at work on our students also shape the experiences of their families.
These stories need to be honored and the experiences improved. We are hopeful that our efforts to confront the “hidden curriculum” at Old Dominion will have an impact not only on the students but also on their families and their communities.
Brian Payne is vice provost for academic affairs at Old Dominion University. A version of this essay was presented at EAB’s Student Success Collaborative Summit.
