The University of Toledo is putting its first-generation college students at the center of campus this week, with a First-Generation Day Celebration set for 4 to 6 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 5, in Room 2520 of Thompson Student Union, according to UToledo News, the university’s own news service. Roughly one in three UToledo students is first-generation, meaning neither parent has completed a bachelor’s degree.
The celebration builds on a group photo taken last week at Mascot Plaza, where UToledo faculty and staff who were themselves first-generation college students gathered as part of the university’s first-generation celebration, UToledo News reported. TRIO Student Support Services hosted the photo, which leads into Thursday’s event — a deliberate show of visibility from employees who arrived on a college campus, as students, without a family roadmap for how it works.
That visibility matters because first-generation students navigate systems their families cannot explain from experience: financial aid forms, degree requirements, office hours, registration deadlines and the unwritten expectations of college life. Universities across the country mark First-Generation Day each November to connect those students with mentors, support programs and each other, and to remind them that needing help decoding college is a normal part of being the first, not a shortcoming.
TRIO Student Support Services, the host of the week’s events, is the campus home for much of that work at UToledo, serving students who are first-generation, from low-income backgrounds or both. Thursday’s celebration is open to the campus community, and UToledo News listed Angelica Johnson as the contact for details at 419.530.3848.
The first-generation focus is one thread in a busy week on campus, as the university also hosts outside speakers and academic events heading into the weekend. For the students being celebrated on Thursday, though, the point is simpler: a third of the student body shares their starting line, and the faculty and staff in last week’s Mascot Plaza photo are proof of where that starting line can lead.
What happens next: the First-Generation Day Celebration runs Thursday, Nov. 5, from 4 to 6 p.m. in Room 2520 of Thompson Student Union. Students who want to connect with TRIO Student Support Services beyond the celebration can reach out through the contact listed by UToledo News.
The Nov. 5 celebration also lands in the same week as the national first-generation observance held each year around Nov. 8, the anniversary of the signing of the federal Higher Education Act of 1965, which created the TRIO programs that still support first-generation students on campuses including UToledo’s today.
Photo: MrJacon000, CC BY-SA