This fall, Ball State welcomed 4,034 freshmen to our campus, surpassing the previous record of 4,006 in 1997. The record-setting population of freshmen also brought with it an influx of first-generation students — students that are the first in their families to pursue higher education. Throughout the month of September, we set out to welcome and reassure these students by reminding them that many have found themselves in their position.
We’re of course talking about our lovely #bsuenglish faculty. Many faculty members in the English department are first-generation college students and they were kind enough to share their stories, as well as some stellar photos from their college days. We’ve also included some of the several student first-gen stories we received throughout the campaign. For a more in-depth look into the project, visit our Facebook album.
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- Prof. Cathy Day was the first in her family to go to college. Her father was a railroad clerk for the C&O Railroad. Her mother was a bank clerk, a secretary, a stay-at-home mom. “My parents were only 39 or 40 when they took me to college! Everyone else’s parents were dressed fancier than mine, and they looked so old. I thought everyone’s else’s grandparents had brought them to college.” You can find Prof. Day in RB 266, and you can read more about her experiences as a working-class college student on her blog: cathyday.com/2017/09/working-class-girl-goes-college
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- Graduate student Melissa Myranda Powell also shared her first-gen sory; “This is me, my siblings, and my mom the day I graduated from a technical college at 29 years old. My parents never put any kind of importance on continuing education, I never received any real direction, and I’m the only one of my siblings to pursue higher ed. I’m now a second year Ph.D. student and I got here by making connections, asking questions, and researching as much as I could about university life and my career options. Don’t be afraid to put yourself out there and pursue your dreams!” You can find her in RB 225, and you can follow her on twitter @GothicPhD and insta @doctorgothic.
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- “Hey, I’m Dr. J. I’m a first generation college student. My mother was a single mother for a long period of time until she married my step father. My mother ran a local senior center and then stayed at home with my younger half sisters. I lived with my grandparents off and on my entire line and my grandmother was one of the only women to graduate from her high school in rural Wyoming in 1929, and she had wanted to go on to Nursing School, but the family and society pushed her to marriage. In second grade, I promised my grandmother I would not only go to college someday, but be a doctor someday. I am a doctor, not perhaps the kind I visualized then, only associating that term with medical doctors.” Read the full story on Facebook. You can talk to Professor J at RB 335, “Please come see me or talk with me if you want to talk #firstgen. I get it.”
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- Although Molly Ferguson’s mother was a nurse, she didn’t need a college degree to work as one back then. Reminiscing on her college hunt, she shared “One of my mom’s friends had to come over and help me type my college applications. I joined a friend on her college visits, to colleges I would not have chosen to visit. I had no idea how to fill out the FAFSA. I ended up applying to and going to where the previous year’s valedictorian had gone–because she went there!! It turned out to be a great fit.” Visit Prof. Ferguson in RB 389.
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- Prof. Rai Peterson shared, “My dad was a small-town barber (think population 400) until he broke his arm badly in a tractor accident. He tried to be a salesman, but . . . not so much. My parents sold our house and all of its contents (including our clothes and toys) to buy a small restaurant when I was in 7th grade. We were homeless for the first year of restaurant ownership; after that, we lived in an empty house for a year, and got furniture again when I was in high school.” “I went to college because I was in a club that took days off from high school to visit campuses, and my friends told me to join it with them. My undergraduate school personally recruited me and gave me the courage to ask my parents if I could go.I got a D+ on my first college paper because I used Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations as my only source.” You can talk to Prof. Peterson in RB 2110.
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- Nilima Hakim Mow is a #bsuenglish student shared their story with us! “Joining BSU was kind of dream to me. When I got the admission letter, I was like speechless for some moment and afterwards felt like the happiest person at that moment. Leaving my home country was not an easy decision. But I overcame all the fears. And when I first stepped in the Ball State premise, I was like-yes, this is the place where I should be. Warm welcome from Rinker Center and the English department removed all my fear & uncertainty. I’m here to fly.”
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- Prof. Adam Beach stated, “I was lucky to grow up in a house with readers and an emphasis on hard work and attaining higher education. However, my family wasn’t always thrilled to learn about the ideas I was exploring in my classes, even as they always supported me and were super proud of me as I went through school and eventually obtained my Ph.D. If you are having difficulty translating what you are learning in college to your family members who did not go to college, I think this is normal. I had to navigate and code-switch a lot, and ended up not talking a whole lot about my studies when I was at home.” Students can reach Prof. Beach at WQ 203.
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- Mary Lou Vercelloti, the TESOL and linguistics professor, shared, “I took all the books for all my courses to the first day of class. I didn’t know you don’t always need them in college classes.” Five years after graduating high school, Prof. Vercelloti received her college diploma, taking off a semester to have her baby. “Some college students may need to know that it’s possible to graduate with a baby.” Ball State students can find Prof. Vercelloti in RB 378!
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- Mike Donnelly went to college because the alternative was getting a job, and he wanted to “par-t.” “I thought I might go into journalism, but dropped that concentration after 1 year; I had no idea what I was going to do after graduation until early in my FIFTH year.” Talk to Prof. Donnelly in RB 2107 and remember: party responsibly, talk to your advisors!
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- Paul Ranieri! “My love for teaching and learning had to be born from the limitations felt by my disabled parents. My mother never went to high school, while my father completed enough business college classes to start his own accounting company and to raise seven children, all of whom have either advanced degrees or have built their own successful businesses. As I look back on 42 years of teaching from 1977 (Junior English, Columbian High School) to 2019 (Honors Humanities, BSU), I remain in awe of what I have learned from everyone with whom I have shared a classroom.” Talk to Prof. Ranieri in RB 2109!
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- Prof. Lynne Stallings is telling her story next! “Looking ahead to college, I knew I wanted to be a teacher and I wanted to play basketball, but understanding how to negotiate the application and decision-making process was completely foreign. My family believed out-of-state tuition would be too expensive, but that’s before we understood the difference between state and private schools. I ended up making the best of where I landed. I thought I would major in Spanish and Math so I could teach high school, but my first year, I discovered Linguistics and had an opportunity to be a discussion leader with visiting students from Japan. Working with speakers of other languages immediately became a passion.” Prof. Stallings is located in RB 344.
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- Professor Patrick Collier, featuring a hackysack hurtling through the air! “Meet new people; push through the awkwardness of that first conversation and make ‘making friends’ a conscious objective. I started out at a large state school where a lot of my high school friends went to school. This created a security blanket that kept me from branching out and developing my social skills. I struggled socially, and eventually academically, though the social struggle was the cause.” Students can reach Prof. Collier in RB 297!
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- Professor Pamela Hartman! “The summer before I started at a 4-year college, my parents moved out of state, so I was left to figure out things on my own. Since I was a transfer student from a junior college, there was no orientation. I knew almost nothing about how college worked. I got a parking ticket on my first day because I didn’t know that I was supposed to buy a parking tag. I felt lost. However, I had a major case of imposter syndrome that motivated me to work hard and to stay focused. I also was determined to do as well as my boyfriend (Matthew Hartman)—and I did.” Students can reach Prof. Hartman in RB 2112!
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- Mary Gilmore didn’t think college was an option because of cost. “I didn’t apply anywhere until it was almost too late. My parents “made too much” to get any financial aid and I could only get my hands on a couple of small scholarships, which didn’t cover books let alone tuition and housing. My mom and dad, long divorced at the time, came together and decided they’d like me to at least start college. I would, of course, have to work as much as possible, but amazingly they, too, both got part-time jobs in addition to their very stressful full-time jobs. Thanks to their sacrifices and foresight I did not fall through the cracks and I wasn’t strapped with debt when I left college. I am so thankful to them. No one does it alone. Ask lots of questions and establish a support system as soon as possible.” You can find her in RB 269.
We also received some stories without photos:
- Prof. Rani Crowe shared, “I didn’t realize how many resources at the university were available for students and I think I felt too embarassed to use them. Now, after working with students, I encourage you to take advantage of all the resources you can- counselors, advisors, health services, libraries, events, etc- you are paying for them with your fees, take advantage of all you can. Also, reach out and connect with your professors and classmates and Disability Services early while everything is going well. It gets so much harder to reach out once you get behind or start to feel depressed or isolated. Build your support network before you need it.”
- Prof. Mary Seig stated, “In high school, one of the classes that we could take was typing/shorthand – but my parents would not allow me to take that course because they did not want me to be a secretary – they wanted me to go to college. They did not know that they could help me move in, so I showed up with my garbage bags and boxes and wondered why everyone else had help… When I got to the university, there were more students on the floor of the dorm that I lived in than there were in my whole graduating class. I had NO idea how to study or how to manage the workload.”
- Prof. Silas Hansen recalls, “It was always EXPECTED that I would go to college, but my parents didn’t really know how to help me do it. Although my parents both had associate’s degrees (and my mom eventually finished a BA and MA), they had no idea what a ‘traditional’ 4-year college experience was like—and due to my mom’s own debt from school, they couldn’t help me at all financially. I ended up taking out a lot of student loans to pay for school—and they ended up being high interest private loans because we didn’t understand the difference. My parents didn’t really know how to help me as I picked a major that wasn’t immediately/obviously ‘practical’ and then things got even harder as I went on to graduate school and became a professor. They’re learning, but it’s sometimes hard for them to ‘get’ what I do/why I can’t live closer to them.”
- Prof. Megumi Hamada remembers having “to argue with [her] parents about college a lot even about going to grad school.”
We’d like to thank all those that shared their stories with us, including President Geoffrey S. Mearns. Keep an eye on the Ball State History and Ball State Honors College accounts – they’ll be sharing first-gen stories in the near future.
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