The CORE+ Mentoring Model: Cultivating Community Cultural Wealth for First-Gen Graduate Students

• In Event: Thursday Roundtable Session 9:00 am
  In Roundtable Session: Engaging Students' Strengths and Assets to Foster Postsecondary Success (Table 28)

Abstract

The First-Gen CORE+ Project: Cultivating Opportunities, Resources, & Equity was designed as a mentoring community to better understand and support first-gen graduate students by partnering them with first-gen faculty members. Our team recruited eight individuals (four graduate students + four faculty members) to participate in a series of partnered, discussion-based workshops during the Spring 2023 semester. Our CORE+ cohort (consisting of four faculty-student partnerships) established a mutually supportive learning environment, built collective knowledge, and generated ideas for supporting future first-gen students. This project uses a qualitative, asset-based approach to address educational inequities by highlighting underrepresented first-gen voices as collaborators in research. By expanding mentorship networks for this population of students, participants fostered new forms of social capital and community engagement.

Authors

• Ana Guadalupe Vielma, University of Texas at Austin

• Ryan A. Mata, University of Minnesota

• Stephanie W. Cawthon, University of Texas at Austin