Dear MEEOA membership,
Attached is an invitation for a zoom event featuring three amazing first-gen Mainers (who also happen to be Maine TRIO alum!) who are doing incredible things across the state. The event will be a paneled conversation that will take place
on Tues 11/7 at lunchtime (the day before National First Generation College Student Day) as a kick-off event for any celebrations you may be doing on your own campuses.
Our humble request(s) of you (with benefits to your program scattered throughout, so keep reading!):
- Please promote this event and encourage your participants to attend!
Representation matters so much and we have worked hard to find panelists that Maine TRIO participants can see themselves in—we just need to connect them.
Please check out the attached document with panelists’ bios and share with your participants. Do you have students interested in a career in healthcare? Law? The criminal justice system? Politics? Social work? Refugee rights? Education? Diversity, equity,
and inclusion? Students from rural backgrounds? From underrepresented populations? Who feel like square pegs in the round hole of academia? Look no further! Like Stefon from SNL would say, this panel has it all!
- Consider signing on to host a watch party! Sure, you could share out the link and hope your students join
while you eat a hastily-packed sandwich alone in your office with the camera off, but
consider the benefits that hosting a party with your participants would have! You could make it challenge and encourage attendees to wear your school colors! Maybe your Admissions office would donate some swag as an incentive if you remind them that
grad/transfer is part of TRIO’s mission and that programs from across the state will be watching? Maybe your institution would even offer to buy pizza or cupcakes if they knew what a great retention strategy this is and that
other schools had already committed to doing so? (We’ve got three colleges signed up to attend already!) And seriously, how cool will the gallery view be with TRIO programs from
across the state represented? Very, very cool. And if we can get a good screencap, also an incredible PR/marketing tool for your program
and MEEOA! Win, win, win.
- Encourage campus stakeholders to attend! While the primary intent of the panel is to inspire first-gen students
(maybe consider opening it up to non-TRIO first-gen students, too, and use it as a recruitment strategy?) TRIO’s role in the panelists’ success will certainly come up, so
having campus leadership there could benefit your program in lots of ways! The panelists’ stories will no doubt illuminate systemic barriers that could lead to some shifts in institutional policies impacting first-gen students if the right people are
in attendance. Plus, this is just an amazing group of panelists whose stories deserve to be amplified.
Program directors should have gotten a calendar invitation for the event with the zoom link (also on the attached .png file).
Please feel free to accept/forward that link along and/or let me, Ashlee Fecteau, or Tony Staffiere know if you can attend. (You can certainly just show up, but it will be helpful for planning
purposes to have a sense of how many people might be in attendance).
We will follow up with more details as the event gets closer and welcome any suggestions/questions you may have to make this event a success!
Finally, please also remember to share photos of any First Gen celebrations you may be having
with Casey Henderson ([log in to unmask]) so we can feature them on
MEEOA’s First Gen Day webpage and don’t forget to peruse/add to our First-Gen Inspo document
here.
Thanks for all you do, MEEOA!
--Lisa, Ashlee, and Tony (your MEEOA First Gen Day Committee)
Lisa Black, TRIO Student Support Services Program Director
#trioworks
She/her/hers
Schedule an appointment
[log in to unmask]">here:
Welcome to KV TRIO! - TRIO Student Support Services - LibGuides at Kennebec Valley Community College
https://www.facebook.com/kv.trio
Fairfield Campus:
Room 130F, King Hall
92 Western Ave
Fairfield, ME 04937
(207) 453-5013
Alfond Campus:
Room 224, Averill Building
23 Stanley Rd., Rt. 201
Hinckley, ME 04944
(207) 453-3595