Morgan O’Neal
Last week was UM’s second annual First-Generation Student Celebration Week. On Monday, Nov. 1, the week of celebration kicked off with a breakfast in the Grove. The rest of the week consisted of virtual events, including a documentary screening, a student panelist discussion and a raffle.
Ashleen Williams, a Sally McDonnell Barksdale Honors College professor who helped organize the week of celebration, said that her hope for the week was that students from different academic programs would connect and contribute to a “culture of excellence.”
“A lot of people underestimate the significance of being the first person in your immediate family to go to university,” Williams said. “I think that the institutional recognition of that achievement is important.”
Edrei Pena, an international studies and Spanish major, is a first-generation college student. She said that the week was important because, in the past, first-generation students have been “overlooked and not represented on campus.”
“This is definitely a good step to making sure we are seen and heard on the Ole Miss campus,” Pena said.
Pena said she wanted to participate in all of the planned activities, but was most excited for the virtual keynote address by 2019 alumnus Jarvis Benson and the virtual student panel discussion.
She also said she is grateful to Williams and Ainsley Ash, a senior public policy leadership major and founder of the First-Generation Student Network, for planning this event.
“(First-generation college students) don’t really have anyone at home to ask for advice because, generally, we are the first from our home to do this,” Pena said. “I think it can be hard to go through college without that guidance.”
First-Generation Student Celebration Week was co-sponsored by the Sally McDonnell Barksdale Honors College’s First Generation Student Network and the Center for Student Success and First-Year Experience’s StudentsFIRST program, with added support from the Office of the Provost.
