First-Generation College Student Experience to be Transformed by Kessler Scholars Program National Expansion

ANN ARBOR, Mich., May 12, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- As the growing wealth gap between families nationwide impacts student experiences across the country, a new model of scholarship support for first-generation college students pioneered at the College of Literature, Science, and the Arts at the University of Michigan (LSA) is expanding to schools nationally.

The Kessler Scholars Program—a comprehensive, proven program for first-generation students that uses research and real-time student feedback to transform the first-generation experience with both scholarship and wrap-around community support beyond funding—is formally expanding to Johns Hopkins University, Queens College, St. Francis College and Syracuse University. These schools join Cornell University, which launched a Kessler Scholars Program in fall of 2019, and U-M to form the Kessler Scholars Collaborative, a first-of-its-kind collaboration for sharing best practices and key findings to ensure first-generation students have the resources necessary to thrive on campus and beyond.

"It is vital that all students feel a sense of belonging and a sense of their worth on campus," said Fred Wilpon, a New York-based business executive and principal owner of the New York Mets, who founded the Kessler Scholars Program with his wife, Judy Kessler Wilpon. "By building community and connecting students with one another and with staff dedicated to their success, students in the Kessler Scholars Program are empowered to be leaders and, in turn, give back to their communities and the students who follow behind them."

Fred and Judy Wilpon are both alumni of LSA and U-M, and Fred Wilpon was the first in his family to pursue a four-year degree. From that experience, he understands firsthand the importance of students having a strong support system on the ground if a parent or guardian cannot easily share guidance about college life. The Kessler Scholars Program meets that need by providing one-on-one guidance from professional staff, peer mentoring and access to innovative programming designed to help students navigate social, cultural, academic and professional aspects of higher education.

Recognizing this same need exists at institutions across the country, the Wilpon family--in collaboration with Bloomberg Philanthropies at Johns Hopkins University--has expanded the reach of this cohort-based scholarship program. Michael Bloomberg's historic $1.8 billion gift to Johns Hopkins in 2018 made clear the critical need for supportive programming specific to first-generation students, and that need will further be fulfilled by the new Kessler Scholars program at Hopkins.

According to the Department of Education's National Center for Education Statistics, first-generation students are more than twice as likely to leave school within three years compared to students whose parents have a bachelor's degree. While there is a common perception that first-generation college students do not exist in large numbers, they make up one third of the student population enrolled in postsecondary education.

Positive outcomes in Michigan, where the Kessler Scholars Program supports 150 students across all four years of undergraduate study, paved the way for the expansion of the program. The four- and six-year graduation rates for Kessler Scholars are 81% and 95% respectively, higher than the overall student completion rate at U-M and at comparable institutions across the United States.

Now in its 12th year at LSA, the Kessler Scholars Program underwent a significant redesign in 2017, developing a stronger path for first generation scholarship support at LSA. Part of the revamp included campus partnerships for tutoring and other academic support; a seminar for first-year students to connect with university leaders, key campus resources and strategies for success; career workshops for upper-level students; and the Peer Mentor Program, connecting first-year scholars with upper-level scholars to help foster their academic, social and professional progression.

"The experience of students in the Kessler Scholars Program at U-M has shown us the importance of wrap-around support, when we pair full financial aid with community building, peer mentoring and individualized academic, social and career guidance. This ongoing support and the cohort model set up first-generation students to thrive on campus and in their careers," said Anne Curzan, dean of the University of Michigan's College of Literature, Science, and the Arts. "Working with other world-class institutions not only expands opportunity, but also enables us to evaluate how we can best support first-generation students on different types of campuses in different parts of the country."

Much of the power of this expansion effort lies in the collective work and knowledge building that will emerge across the colleges and universities involved, and a mechanism for sharing information, resources and outcomes is paramount to the success of the expansion. With support from the Wilpon Family Foundation, the Center for Education Design, Evaluation, and Research, based in the U-M School of Education, will study the collective work of the schools, exploring why the model works, the institutional landscape, each school's implementation of the model and how community building changes outcomes for students.

"The Kessler Scholars Collaborative is driven by academic research which shows that community building and support is as critical to student success as funding," said Gail Gibson, director of the Kessler Presidential Scholars Program. "This program and the work being done to study the results of the program at the School of Education will chart the course for meeting the needs of first-generation students nationwide."

To learn more about the Kessler Scholars Program, visit lsa.umich.edu.

SOURCE University of Michigan College of Literature, Science, and the Arts

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