The Cornell Daily Sun (https://cornellsun.com/tag/first-generation-students/)
With the support from several campus organizations including First Generation Student Union and the Office of Academic Initiatives, Cornell organized a series of events to recognize and empower first generation Cornellians.
A group of Cornellians are committed to opening a Basic Needs Center to aid students who face challenges associated with being a first-generation, low-income student at Cornell.
Cornell’s First Generation Student Union has put together a guide to help FGLI students identify and take advantage of campus resources.
Two nights ago, we lost a trailblazing feminist and a hero. In her black cloak, she towered — not in height but in power — and meticulously paved the way for women’s liberation. And just like other revolutionaries before her, Ruth Bader Ginsburg ’54 died without seeing the world she envisioned come to life. She spent her last moments in a country that is crumbling. In a place where innocent Black and brown individuals are shot in the streets — and they’re falling.
For New, founding this organization, named the First Generation and Low Income Graduate Student Organization, was not simply recognizing first-generation and low-income students on Cornell’s campus, but providing them with a supportive community and resources to help them flourish.
A petition with nearly 400 signatories demanding Cornell and other universities to make public “all internally written admissions policies and data about legacy treatment” will be “hand-delivered” to President Martha E. Pollack next week.
Though elite colleges often boast of their affordability and socioeconomic diversity, a recent study found that Cornell enrolls approximately the same number of students from the richest one percent as it does from the bottom 40 percent. This troubling statistic points to flaws in the University’s mission to make higher education more accessible to students of all incomes. The under-representation of low-income students hinders diversity and inclusion at prestigious schools by discouraging deserving, qualified students from attending and succeeding in college. Cornell must continue relieving the cost of attending college. Many students and their families remain baffled by the complicated process of applying for financial aid because important information remains scattered across various online sources.
Sannon said that the organization “hopes to reach out to more first generation students in the Cornell community and to show that we might be ‘first but not alone’ in this experience.”