Welcome from the Dean

Throughout my years as a professor, I have always had a special place in my heart for first generation college students.

Many times these students are unprepared for college, and many receive little financial help from their families. So most work 20 or more hours a week to make ends meet, and they struggle through their college years to balance their studies with their jobs. But they dream large; they know they are working not only to improve their own lives, but also the lives of their children.

I have been teaching long enough that I now have in my classes the children of these students who graduated in the 1970s and 1980s. And when these second-generation students stop by the front of class the first day to tell me that their parents had me as a professor when they were in school, I experience first hand one of the greatest promises of the University of Arkansas—the ability to change the trajectory of our students’ lives and the lives of their children. This has been one of the most rewarding parts of my career in Fulbright College.

Most people know the benefits of higher education: higher earnings throughout one’s lifetime, more rewarding career opportunities, an improved quality of life for families, more hobbies and leisure activities. Less tangible, but no less real, are more subtle benefits: the power that knowledge confers, a decrease in prejudice and an increase in optimism, a sharpened ability to reflect, analyze, and communicate, and, perhaps most importantly, a deepened capacity to see the world as others see it.

I first developed an affinity for first generation students when I served as an associate dean for student affairs. I got to know many students well then, as I listened to the challenges and sometimes seemingly impossible hurdles they faced on the road to graduation. The term “student-centered” then took on a much more substantial meaning to me.

The term means nothing in the abstract. What it means in our day-to-day dealings with students is that we answer their questions. We don’t pass along their problems to someone else. If we don’t know the answer, we find out who does and call that person. If they feel they have been untreated fairly, then we ensure they get a fair hearing. If a student faces a hard personal loss during a semester, then our faculty must do everything they can to help the student make up any missed classes or tests.

Every day we enter the classroom, we don’t know what problems, large or small, our students are facing. But we do know from our own experience that everyone is struggling at one time or another. A parent may be ill. A good friend may have had an accident. They may be having problems in a personal relationship. They may have a physical or mental impairment that is keeping them from performing at their best. While we can’t mend hearts or magically make difficulties disappear, we can listen with both our hearts and minds and do our best to reach out to each and every student.

All may not respond. In fact, some may not even notice. But the ones who need the attention usually do. And perhaps it is that one word of encouragement, or that help in navigating through campus computing systems or the maze that is called financial aid, that will make the difference. What I would like to see is that first generation turn into a second, a third, and eventually, a tradition. To that end, every day our staff and faculty must remind themselves of why we are here: students.

They come first.

William A. Schwab