JOSH DIPAOLO
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First-Gen

​First-Generation CSUF Philosophy Student Workshop

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I have founded, and continue to develop, a monthly workshop for first-generation CSUF philosophy students. 

Aims
  • Build community around shared, first-gen identity
  • Connect students to campus resources
  • Guide students through the often confusing, arbitrary, and capricious college landscape
  • Reflect philosophically on first-gen identity and experience
  • Shape future first-gen CSUF philosophy student experience
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Students: If you're first-gen, come to these meetings! They're laid back, supportive, and helpful. Email me to find out when the next one is. 

Grants, Funding, & Future Projects

First-Gen Workshop
I have secured some funding for this workshop. I will always be on the lookout for more. Please share opportunities if you come across any. To date, this work has all been conducted on top of my standard teaching, research, and service duties. However, CSUF has just launched a program that grants successful applicants a course release for exceptional service to students. Fingers crossed!

Get 'em Where they Live
I have a bigger project in the works. Inspired by Jennifer Morton's work on "strivers," as well as Gina Schouten's critical commentary on Morton's work, I am hoping to collaborate with faculty across the CSUF campus to develop pedagogical strategies aimed at giving first-gen and low-income students the help they need where they are most likely to actually encounter it: in the classroom. Extra-curricular activities (like the first-gen workshop) and extra-classroom support only go so far in helping these busy, often commuter students. Where do students reliably come into contact with agents of the university? In the classroom. We need to rethink how we can use our classrooms, in line with our other pedagogical and learning goals, to provide these students the support they need and deserve. If this project gets funded, that is exactly what I hope to do with interested faculty. 

Resources

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Here are some works I have found helpful. Faculty and students can both benefit from them. 

Moving Up Without Losing Your Way: The Ethical Costs of Upward Mobility, Jennifer Morton
  • Success Story: One of my deans very kindly agreed to read and discuss this with me. (She is not a philosopher, but she agreed to read a philosophy book with me...How awesome is she!) She found it eye-opening, and later shared that she was able to put into practice in very concrete ways some of the lessons she learned from it. 
Upward Mobility and What Strivers Get Right, Gina Schouten
33 Simple Strategies for Faculty: A Week-by-Week Resource for Teaching First-Year and First-Generation Students, Lisa Nunn
At The Intersection: Understanding and Supporting First-Generation Students, Robert Longwell-Grice & Hope Longwell-Grice
50 Things I Wish Someone Would Have Told Me About College, Angel Flores
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