As a first-generation student, I have always been passionate about supporting first-generation students! After joining Mizzou as a Student Success Librarian, I started supporting first-generation student initiatives. Eventually, I became a member of the First-Generation Student Success Advisory Board, which meets regularly to ensure we continue supporting our first-generation students best, promoting services, starting initiatives, and creating goals for the First-Generation Student Initiatives coordinator.
When students in Tri-Alpha, the first-generation honor society, answered a question about which campus resource impacted them the most, they all answered the library. One student wrote, “The library and the helpfulness of the faculty! The library has been an amazing resource as someone who needs to study and lives in a place with multiple roommates. The faculty has helped guide me throughout my years here and point me in the direction I needed.”
In the past year, I have built tools and initiatives at the library that support our first-generation students both directly and indirectly. I’ve presented at student events, to student parents, and at tabling events to share library tools with first-generation students, and I am so excited that they have found our resources helpful! Here are a few resources that might be helpful for first-generation students or faculty and staff who are interested in discussing how to support first-generation students better:
• A new library webpage for first-generation students sharing resources and tools that are curated specifically for first-generation students. Find it here: https://libraryguides.missouri.edu/firstgen
• The NEW Wellbeing Collection on the first floor of Ellis Library includes resources for first-generation students and other campus groups, as well as books for leisure reading.
• A Faculty and Staff First-Generation Initiative, where any faculty and staff can join our reading group. We meet to discuss articles on first-generation topics monthly, and one book per semester.
For more information, contact me: Jill Kline, jill.kline@missouri.edu.