(Re)-Designing Higher Education: Co-Building Space With FG Students

Abstract

David Adjaya is a Ghanaian-British architect, who designed the National Museum of African American History and Culture, on the Mall in Washington, D.C. His words about context with regard to place and belonging are as salient to the structure of higher education as they are to a design of a building, a museum, or a stairway. Building this journal has been a form of architecture to create a space that invites a new way of situating the firstgeneration student experience. It has required a foundational positionality that pushes against the old designs of higher education and invites inquiry that demands that we build, co-construct, and re-shape the academy with close attention to the changing context of our students so that they can indeed become a “part of the place” rather than guests at the outskirts of the rooms. This third issue of Volume 1 is a careful curation of scholars and practitioners, whose research and perspective attend to both the problems of old design, but also counternarratives and approaches to new models that better prepare institutions for this new majority of first-generation college students, graduate students, and professionals. Situating the FG experience in the context of race, class, immigrant, and familial narratives, this third issue is a demonstration of applied scholarship. Volume 1, Issue 3, features three research articles, and two Notes From the Field. In the article “Relatable Role Models: An Online Intervention Highlighting FirstGeneration Faculty Benefits First-Generation Students,” authors Giselle Laiduc, Sarah Herrmann, and Rebecca Covarrubias highlight FG identity as a way to make faculty relatable and underscore the importance of identity cues as a means to connecting with students that open the door to office hours a little wider. This work provides evidence-based praxis for the role that faculty can play in building relationships with FG students in ways that sustain both parties. Our second research article extends this idea of relationship building in the context of identity to the mental health milieu. In “Narratives and Assets: Enhancing Counseling Center Clinicians’ Knowledge and Skills in Working With First-Generation College Students,” Tam Le Rovitto looks at systemic constraints that impact FG student access to campus mental health. Given the greater emotional and psychological stress on FG students, this research makes recommendations for specialized training to best support, advocate, and build on FGCS resilience. The third research article titled “The Association of Career Outcome Expectations and STEM Career Choice Among Hispanic First-Generation College Students: A Unique Pattern” by Anne Medina, Chen Chen, Jacqueline Doyle, Gerhard Sonnert, and Philip Sadler takes up how career expectations impact trajectories of FG Hispanic students. Their study is a reminder that diversifying the STEM workforce requires attention to a culturally JOURNAL OF FIRST-GENERATION STUDENT SUCCESS 2021, VOL. 1, NO. 3, 157–158 https://doi.org/10.1080/26906015.2021.2005413