ÁùºÏ±¦µä

President Brian Sandoval: This is Sagebrushers, the podcast of the University of ÁùºÏ±¦µä, Reno. Welcome back, Wolf Pack Family. I'm your host, University President Brian Sandoval. It is estimated that at least 23% of our students are first-generation students entering a bold journey to become the first in their families to complete a bachelor's degree. Today's guest has been instrumental in helping the University become a First-Forward Advisory institution. This national honor recognizes a handful of leadership institutions that have demonstrated a commitment to improving experiences and advancing outcomes for first-gen college students. So, let's get started.

Ellen Houston has spent more than 26 years of her career dedicated to improving student outcomes and culture at the University. She has served in athletics, alumni relations and student services. She now leads the Student Services First-Gen Student Center as the executive director. Today's podcast is being recorded at the Reynolds School of Journalism on our University's campus. Ellen, welcome to Sagebrushers. I'm excited to share with our listeners some of the amazing initiatives that you're working on.

Ellen Houston: Thank you.

President Brian Sandoval: Really happy you're here. So, let's jump into learning about first-gen students. What do you find our students' main needs and concerns as they begin their academic journeys?

Ellen Houston: Well, first-generation students are trailblazers, and that comes with a little bit of trepidation sometimes. If you don't have someone in your family who has lived the college experience, they can't provide that sort of hands-on knowledge and guidance. So, very often students are worried, will I fit in on campus? Will I belong? Am I going to be able to do this? Who's going to help me? And so, that's where our programs come in. They're also very concerned often about paying for college, for many of their families that's a very heavy lift. And so, we help them maximize their financial aid offerings and scholarships. And then I think just finding a like-minded peer group, they're worried about, will people understand me? Again, that sense of belonging. So, we spend a lot of time helping them develop that sense of belonging and then also providing academic support to make sure they can maintain their financial aid and scholarships.

President Brian Sandoval: So, what typically is the big icebreaker when they come to our campus?

Ellen Houston: Well, I think for many of our students coming to new student orientation, they're nervous, they're scared, they're looking around, is anyone like me? Am I going to fit in? And obviously, our new student initiatives do a wonderful job making everyone feel welcome. And then we also, our programs participate in new student orientation. So, there are sessions that the students and their parents can go to find out about what we offer specifically for first-generation students, and I think that that really helps.

President Brian Sandoval: You were a first-generation student yourself, so can you talk about that experience here at the University, correct?

Ellen Houston: Yes. Yes. Many years ago, I always wanted to go to college, but I didn't really know how I was going to make that happen. I got very lucky and was offered a volleyball scholarship and played volleyball here for the Wolf Pack, which paid for my schooling, which was lovely. I don’t know how I would done it otherwise. But, that education really changed my life. I went and worked in the private sector for a little bit and missed campus, came back to get my master's degree here and then have just stayed working with students across, as you mentioned, so many different departments. But, my true passion is first-generation college students. Programs like ours change the entire trajectory of a family in one generation, and it's contagious. If one student gets a college degree, then suddenly brother, sister, cousin, aunt, mom, so many others go on to do it, and the entire outlook for that family is completely revolutionized

President Brian Sandoval: That one student. They probably feel a lot of pressure, don't they?

Ellen Houston: Absolutely. A lot of our students, when you talk to them, they don't want to let down their families. They feel a lot of pressure to give back to their family and to their community. They are role models and they know it, and they work really hard to live up to those expectations and many times, but they work very hard because of them.

President Brian Sandoval: I'm sure their families are really proud of them.

Ellen Houston: Yes, graduation is absolutely the very best day to see our students and their families. Lots of tears, lots of pride, lots of smiles. It's truly a wonderful experience.

President Brian Sandoval: So, I'm really interested in the programs offered at the First-Generation Student Center. Can you talk a little bit about some of those?

Ellen Houston: Absolutely. We have 10 programs serving from freshmen in high school all the way through graduate school preparation. So, we have four pre-college programs. Those are our Upward Bound programs. We have three Upward Bound Classic programs and one Upward Bound Math Science program. Collectively, they serve 246 students at eight target high schools in Washoe and Lyon Counties, and they provide free college preparatory services to all those students, and it's 246 annually, and then, for our college-level programs, we have the TRIO Classic Scholars program. It serves 182 students annually. As of 2020, we have the TRIO STEM program, which serves students majoring in science, technology, engineering and math, and that serves 120 students annually. Our McNair Scholars program prepares first-generation and income-qualified students for doctoral studies. So, they participate in undergraduate research opportunities and preparation for graduate school. That serves 27 students annually.

Our newest grant is our CCAMPIS program, which stands for Child Care Access Means Parents In School, and that program actually pays for up to 100% of the childcare fees for student parents at the campus Child and Family Research Center. So obviously, that's wonderful if you're a student parent, you're very concerned about what's going on with your child while you're in school. It's very expensive. So, that relieves a lot of the pressure for student parents. And, we have two other programs. One is our First in the Pack program, which this year is serving 462 first-generation students in their first or second year of enrollment at the institution. And then, our other program is a component of First in the Pack and it's called Fostering the Pack, and it serves students who were formally in foster care in the state of ÁùºÏ±¦µä after the age of 13, and it assists those students in getting the ÁùºÏ±¦µä former Foster Youth Fee waiver and then providing things like housing stipends and emergency funding and nurture packs. And, all of our programs provide individual tutoring, one-on-one meetings with either our professional coach from our programs or peer mentors, sometimes both. We also provide a lot of academic and co-curricular workshops and also social events so they can build that sense of community and belonging. And then, we also offer lounges where they can come in and use the computer, rest. There's a little kitchen where they can store their lunch, things like that, free printing. So those are our programs.

President Brian Sandoval: We could probably spend a whole episode on any one of those, but very quickly, the TRIO program. Can you talk about what a TRIO student looks like?

Ellen Houston: Absolutely. We're very lucky on this campus. We have two TRIO programs that have been here over 50 years successfully serving students. One is our oldest Upward Bound grant, and the other one is our TRIO Classic Scholars program. So, a TRIO student on our campus is definitely first generation. They're most likely income-qualified, meaning they're Pell eligible or receiving the Pell Grant. Many of them are from ÁùºÏ±¦µä, either from the Reno or Las Vegas area. But, we also have TRIO students that come in from California, from all 50 states in the nation. So, really the unifying factor is that first-generation student status and that they are the trailblazer and the first in their family to experience this college journey.

President Brian Sandoval: Wow. So, what is the First-Generation Coalition? What does their work look like and how are they adding to the support for students?

Ellen Houston: Well, the First-Generation Coalition is very exciting. It's a campus-wide committee or coalition of faculty and staff who've really just gotten together and said, “We want to support first-generation students.” They might've been first-generation themselves, or they recognize the unique challenges that come with being a first-generation student. And so, they meet monthly and they're really working on some exciting things. They're putting together a training for faculty and staff that they can voluntarily engage in that can help them to better understand first-generation students and all the resources that we have for them and how to serve them. They're putting together a glossary that's going to go on our website in both English and Spanish because the vernacular is very different. If you've come up through K-12, you have a principal, not a president. What is SAP or standard or satisfactory academic progress? There are so many words and so much jargon that we use that maybe they don't understand. So, this glossary will help students and parents to be able to understand sort of what's being said to them, what they're reading and how to advocate for themselves. So, I think those are some exciting things that the First-Generation Coalition is currently working on. And then, for many years, they've been putting on First-Generation Student Week in November.

President Brian Sandoval: So, you talked a little bit about your space. So, you're in the Pennington Student Achievement Center, and we're grateful to the Pennington Foundation for its support of that building, but can you talk a little bit more about the culture and comradery that your team is building there?

Ellen Houston: We are very thankful for our space. We have an absolutely beautiful space for our students. Obviously, it's in a building where all the other student services are located, so it's sort of one-stop shopping if they need to get help. We have beautiful windows overlooking campus. It's bright, it's fun. We have a full computer lab in there so our students can come in and work on homework. If they don't have their own computers, they can bring their own computer and hook up to the Wi-Fi. We have a great lounge. We have a TV in there so that we can do, if we hold events, we can Zoom people in. We had students talking to a gentleman from a consulting firm in Washington, D.C., the other day. It was great. They were in our lounge, and they were able to connect with someone on the other side of the country. We also just, sometimes we run fun things in there for half an hour. We might have a video game tournament. We had 109 socials and co-curricular events last year. Everything from how to write a better scholarship essay to jobs available at the State Department to a henna and tea event where during finals students were able to come in and paint henna on their hands and drink tea and just relax for maybe 20 minutes before they headed out to finals. So, we really try to build a sense of belonging in that space. We also run tutoring out of that space, and that's where all of our professional staff and our peer mentors work. So, we're very grateful for it. As I said, there's free printing. There's a little kitchen. Many of our students bring their lunches, put their lunch in the fridge, and then they're able to come back between classes and sort of have a home base, a home away from home where they can hang out with their first-generation family and feel very connected to campus.

President Brian Sandoval: We have some incredible resources here on campus. You have an incredible team, but is there more that we could do?

Ellen Houston: Well, we know that we're very lucky at this institution. It's incredibly supportive of first-generation students and the work that we do. That's why we've been designated by NASPA as a First-Gen Forward Advisory Institution. What that means is that nationally we've been recognized for what we're doing to support first-generation students. And in the western region, we lead monthly meetings with other institutions to help guide them to better serve their first-generation students. So again, very lucky institution-wide with the support that we receive.

But, there's always something that individually we can do, whether it's joining the First Gen Coalition, whether it's participating in the first-generation student training that's going to be coming out, whether it's speaking in our classes about our first-gen experience and sharing that so our know that they're not alone, that that's not a unique experience, that so many people have gone through that. It could be proudly wearing your first-gen T-shirt or first-gen button that we give out during First-Generation Student week. It could be also collaborating with our department.

We have some amazing collaborations. The College of Science, when they have their Discover Science Lecture series and they bring in world-renowned scientists to give lectures in the evening. That same day at lunch, they bring pizza and that scientist into our lounge so that our students can speak with that scientist in a very small setting that's a little less intimidating, a little more informal, and it draws huge crowds. So many of our students come out for that, and the scientists love it. So, there are lots of ways that departments can partner with us. They could write us into NSF grants for broader impact. There's just so many ways. So, there's always something that everyone can do, but we're very lucky because we are on a campus where people are aware of what it means to be first-generation, and our faculty and staff and the entire institution are very supportive.

President Brian Sandoval: So, how many students do we serve?

Ellen Houston: We are just under 1,100 this year.

President Brian Sandoval: Wow, and how far have we come? 1,100 this year? How many was it the past few years?

Ellen Houston: Well, we've grown a lot in the past five years because we've applied for and received several new grants, and our First in the Pack program, which isn't grant-funded, has grown tremendously. It's grown over 400% in the 10 years since its inception. It started out serving maybe 60 students. Now we're at 462. As the awareness grows of what it means to be first-generation, we've seen more and more students wanting to participate in our programs. Our TRIO programs are federally funded, so they're capped each year in the number of students that each grant can serve, and we have a waiting list of students to get in. So it's very important that we have programs like First in the Pack that can take those students that are on the waiting list and serve them in their first two years, and then hopefully, eventually they can get into our TRIO programs. But, it has just grown exponentially. I think it started, our very first Upward Bound program started well over 50 years ago, and I think they maybe had 50 students.

President Brian Sandoval: Now, if I'm a first-generation student and I arrive on campus and I don't know about any of these things, how do we find that student or how do they find us?

Ellen Houston: So, we send out emails to all Pell-eligible students, letting them know about our programs. We're very active in marketing ourselves on campus, on the different screens on campus, participating in new student orientation, participating in ÁùºÏ±¦µä Bound. Many of our instructors will invite us into their courses to speak to students. Lots of departments, when they're having orientations for their students, they will invite us. And so, we are really just out there trying to get the word out and make sure that students know about us. We also partner with our prospective student’s office. They're wonderful at telling incoming students all about our programs. So, we get lots and lots of referrals from them. We have, as I said, very supportive colleagues, and so we have great collaboration across campus. And the word gets out, we have a really long wait list at times.

President Brian Sandoval: I think it's obvious, but I want to ask you, this - our retention and graduation rates, what do these programs do with regard to our first-gen students?

Ellen Houston: So, most of our TRIO programs are running in 98 to 100% retention and graduation rate, First in the Pack is a little larger, but students who participate in First in the Pack are more than 20% likely to graduate within six years than first-generation students who enter at the same time and don't participate in the programs we have. Our students have higher GPAs, better retention rates and better graduation rates.

President Brian Sandoval: Well, thank you for that. Yes. So, we're almost out of time, but a lot of times on Sagebrushers, we have faculty that are recent to campus and to Northern ÁùºÏ±¦µä. You are somebody that's been in Northern ÁùºÏ±¦µä for a long time. What's your favorite part about Northern ÁùºÏ±¦µä?

Ellen Houston: Oh my gosh. Well, I would say probably just the outdoors, the lakes, the hiking, the beauty. I think it's a great place to live. Right, home means ÁùºÏ±¦µä.

President Brian Sandoval: That's right. And I guess I'll close with this. If there's a prospective student out there that's first-gen, what would you tell them? Why do you come to the University of ÁùºÏ±¦µä?

Ellen Houston: I think that you are going to have the opportunity for services tailored to your first-generation student experience that you might not get at other institutions, and even beyond what the First-Generation Student Center can offer you. I think that you are going to get really almost like personalized service. I think that our faculty and our staff are so genuine and giving and caring about students and really reach out to take care of the individual, and I don't think that's something that you're going to find just anywhere. I think that this is a really special and unique place,

President Brian Sandoval:  And, it's likely self-serving for me to say or ask this, but it sounds like we stack up with anybody in terms of the services we provide for first-gen students when I say anybody, any other University.

Ellen Houston: Absolutely.

President Brian Sandoval: Well, again, this has been a wonderful episode, but unfortunately that is all the time we have for this episode of Sagebrushers. So Ellen, thank you so much for joining us, and thank you for what you do for our students and our University.

Ellen Houston: Well, thank you for your supportive first-generation students.

President Brian Sandoval: Of course. So, join us next time for another episode of Sagebrushers as we continue to tell the stories that make our University special and unique. Until then, I'm University President Brian Sandoval and go Pack.