Hi everyone! It looks like EVERY college in Maine that hosts a TRIO program will be participating in some way tomorrow, which blows us away! (And despite my earlier challenge, it is totally okay to join with your camera off. 😉 It’s been a long couple weeks--just spreading the word and being there is deeply appreciated)!

We wanted to share a few important updates about tomorrow’s panel:

• We have discovered that the abbreviated bit.ly link that is on the invitations works sometimes but not all the time. Here is the full zoom link for your calendars:
• Zoom Link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81506687288?pwd=aThJSnVKSEJJWm5rSFgxanRCbkZIdz09
  Meeting ID: 815 0668 7288
  Passcode: 267697
• We will be running the zoom as a meeting and not a webinar so that we can all see each other and foster a sense of community. We are planning to keep everyone but the hosts/panelists on mute for the duration of the event to minimize distractions and make good use of the chat feature. There will be time at the end for questions, which you can submit through the chat.
• 6 or 7 schools will be hosting a watch party (yay!). If this is you, we recommend that you have IT support on hand juuuust in case and test connectivity early (we’ll start the call at 11:30am).
• We will not be recording the event to protect people’s privacy but we do hope to use the close-caption feature to transcribe responses.

I think that’s all for now! Please feel free to email me with any questions and I’ll do my best to respond promptly. Thank you SO much to Ashlee, Tony, and Casey for all their hard work to make this happen!

--Lisa

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]" originalsrc="https:[log in to unmask]" shash="QkA6rfDi7fJ/XQbwNxl+9ffbYEDMs5SpbbWsg/e8DVcrNu+WZFTEBGr7BI1ElEQmy679L9Kz3iCZWwVEIjOi5VxCAY6uzielRv/ozzXUmXpm/fiavuArVZHP6EtcPGPQFsZxI9zVkdh108i4SmLMaT51kfUnoBZW0j7n5C1+Em4=">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