Conference Concurrent Sessions
Monday - 11:30 A.M. | Monday - 2:00 P.M. | Monday - Igniter Talks, 3:30 P.M. | Tuesday - 10:00 A.M. | Tuesday - 11:30 A.M.
igniter talks
monday, 3:30 p.m. to 5:00 P.m.
Note on Igniter Talks: All conference participants will attend the 90-minute Igniter Talk session. The session kicks off with five brief presentations that will ignite the conversation for the discussion tables to follow. Conference participants will then be able to choose the table for the topic they wish to discuss. Table conversations will be moderated by the Igniter Talk presenters and other conference volunteers.
IGNITER TALKS
3:30 p.m. to 5:00 p.m.
Reyes Family Board Room
Conference Track(s):
Collaboration
Developing an Ombuds Program for Students
What systems are in place to support and empower students who receive unfair treatment, ranging from microaggressions to more explicit forms of bias? At Wesleyan University, students strongly shared that these systems were not known to them, and so the Wesleyan University Student Ombuds Program was born in Fall 2021.
Each Student Ombud serves as a peer resource focused on empowering students to successfully navigate the institution and advocate for themselves in moments of conflict, particularly when there are power dynamic considerations. Although separate from the University’s Ombudsperson for staff and faculty, the Student Ombuds approach their work in similar ways and share observed trends with university leadership to inform institutional change.
This presentation will review the origin of the program, the strategic partnerships developed for its implementation, and the results of the program’s first year.
April Ruiz | Wesleyan University
Dean for Academic Equity, Inclusion, & Success
April Ruiz is currently Dean for Academic Equity, Inclusion, & Success at Wesleyan University. Prior to this, she held other dean roles at Williams College and Yale University, all of which allowed her to serve and center FGLI students. As someone who attended a highly-selective university as a first-generation and low-income student herself, she finds meaning in work that allows her to help FGLI students navigate these institutions as they are, while also effecting change at these institutions to make them more inclusive from within. She holds a PhD in Psychology from the University of St Andrews and a BA in Cognitive Science from Yale University.
IGNITER TALKS
3:30 p.m. to 5:00 p.m.
Reyes Family Board Room
Conference Track(s):
Coalition
The Impact of Mentorship and Coalition Building via FGLI Communities
Join us to learn and discuss how FGLI student-serving organizations can leverage mentoring relationships (both virtual and in-person), collaborate with institutional and community stakeholders to revolutionize college access, and align on research and impact objectives.
You’ll hear from representatives from Matriculate and ScholarMatch about how the organizations connected with FGLI students through their unique program models and how their coalition building has supported their organizational needs. Participants will have an opportunity to discuss in breakout conversations promising practices and challenges.
Lisa Lopez | Scholar Match
Director of College Access
Lisa Lopez is the Director of College Access at ScholarMatch, a national college access, and persistence organization, that supports first-generation students from low-income backgrounds to earn a bachelor’s degree within five years. We provide virtual individualized advising, targeted financial support, and career mentoring all the way to graduation. Prior to joining ScholarMatch Lisa was the Director of College Counseling and a College Persistence Manager for KIPP: Northern California Public Schools. Lisa is originally from South Central Los Angeles and received their bachelor's degree in Education from the University of California, Berkeley.
Bianca Batista | University of Notre Dame
2nd Year Student, Chemical Engineering Major; Engineering Corporate Practice Minor
Bianca is a sophomore at the University of Notre Dame studying Chemical Engineering with a minor in Engineering Corporate Practice. She is originally from El Paso, Texas. On campus, she is an Undergraduate Research Assistant, an Undergraduate Writing Tutor, involved in Engineering Leadership Council, and is an Advising Fellow for Matriculate. After her time at Notre Dame, she hopes to have a career in the pharmaceutical industry and work to provide better access to healthcare and treatment.
IGNITER TALKS
3:30 p.m. to 5:00 p.m.
Reyes Family Board Room
Conference Track(s):
Coalition
IGNITER TALKS
3:30 p.m. to 5:00 p.m.
Reyes Family Board Room
Conference Track(s):
Community
IGNITER TALKS
3:30 p.m. to 5:00 p.m.
Reyes Family Board Room
Conference Track(s):
Coalition
reclaiming your power: how to influence change at any level within your organization
How do you define power? Might your own perception of power influence how you approach making change at your institution? How does cultural context impact our notions of power? This igniter talk will offer multiple definitions for understanding power, and provide opportunities for reflections on your own sense of power within your institution or organization. Participants will also consider what type of power resonates personally, and how one might leverage that power toward change.
Kourtney Cockrell | JPMorgan Chase
Regional Director and Vice President, The Fellowship Initiative (Global Philanthropy)
Kourtney Cockrell (she/her) is a change leader, strategic advisor, and social justice educator with over two decades of cross-sector experience increasing access and opportunity for marginalized students and young professionals. Kourtney is a co-founder of the FGLI Consortium, and currently serves as Vice President in Global Philanthropy at JPMorgan Chase & Co., leading the Chicago market for The Fellowship Initiative, a college access and leadership development program for young men of color. Most recently, Kourtney served as Founding Director of Student Enrichment Services at Northwestern University, where she led a cross-functional team working with students coming from first-generation, lower-income, and/or undocumented backgrounds. Kourtney earned her BA in African-American Studies at the University of Michigan and her MS in Learning and Organizational Change from the School of Education and Social Policy at Northwestern University.
Creating Awareness and Peer Support within our Dorm Communities
This Igniter Talk will be about how we created a dorm ambassador program that utilizes our FGLI students to help spread the word about our resources and opportunities for support through our office.
Robyn Centilli | University of Notre Dame
Assistant Director/Inclusion Specialist
Robyn has worked at the University of Notre Dame for 13 years. She served as a career counselor for 9 years and has spent the last 4 years working with FGLI students on campus by providing resources and programming to help uplift and support this demographic. She manages a group of 150 students through the Office of Student Enrichment's (OSE) Fighting Irish Scholars program which provides FGLI students a $2000 scholarship and requires those students to attend programming and take on a leadership role. One of those roles is the Dorm Ambassadors program which was created to provide greater visibility for the OSE and help create peer connections within the dorms.
The Future of the First-Year Transition: From Targeted Intervention to Wholesale Reinvention
Over the last decade, the student body at Princeton has undergone what our university’s president has referred to as the greatest transformation of our undergraduate population since co-education, with over 25% of our students now coming from first-generation and/or lower-income (Fli) backgrounds. In response to this demographic shift, we launched a variety of targeted intervention programs designed to support and empower Fli students in their transition to and navigation of Princeton. These programs, like our Freshman Scholars Institute (FSI) and Scholars Institute Fellows Program (SIFP) acknowledge the gap between Princeton and our scholars’ high school experience, introducing students to the academic, professional, and social climate at the University and encouraging student achievement behavior and sense of belonging.
Even before Covid-19 disrupted students’ learning and social development, we observed how our Fli educational access programs were helping shift our whole campus’s understanding of the value of learning support, abetting a more comprehensive understanding of what it takes to join – and thrive in -- a university community. The pandemic has been an epochal event in this reckoning. Students of all backgrounds, having engaged in remote or hybrid learning for much of their pre-college careers, now experience gulfs in their preparation for the academic and social expectations of the University. In this talk, Dean Gonzalez and Dean Swanson discuss the ways that they learned an borrowed from the successes of targeted intervention program to rethink and reform the first-year transition more broadly. They will share Princeton’s approach to a structural transformation of policies, programs, and curricula in response to a pandemic that has both laid bare persistent educational inequities and broadened the scope of the students affected by these inequities.
Khristina Gonzalez | Princeton University
Senior Associate Dean of the College and the Bob Peck ‘88 Director of the Emma Bloomberg Center for Access and Opportunity
Khristina Gonzalez is the Senior Associate Dean of the College and the Bob Peck '88 Director of the Emma Bloomberg Center for Access and Opportunity at Princeton University. She is responsible for programs and initiatives within the Office of the Dean of the College that support and advance Princeton’s commitment to an inclusive undergraduate student body. She plays a leading role in the creation, implementation, and management of strategic initiatives designed to enhance the experience of students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds and other historically underrepresented groups. In this role, she directs the Emma Bloomberg Center for Access and Opportunity, which brings together the University’s efforts to support and empower students to, through, and beyond their college experience.
Cecily Swanson | Princeton University
Associate Dean for Academic Advising
Dean Swanson has responsibility for designing, managing, and evaluating academic advising programs for undergraduate students. In collaboration with the Senior Associate Dean, she coordinates academic advising within the residential colleges, working closely with the Assistant Deans (formerly called Directors of Studies) to create innovative faculty and peer advising programs. She oversees all academic aspects of first-year orientation and manages advising communications for faculty and students.