Ep. 6 - Elevating Art by and for First-Generation Students with M.C. Damm of Boston University

Art by and for first-generation students provides a creative outlet and a powerful way to connect with student experiences. Art work in first-generation spaces is important, and art made by first-generation students is even better. M.C. Damm, assistant director of Boston University's Newbury Center talks about their first-gen art initiative, how art tells the story of the first-gen student experience navigating a large research institution, and how displaying the art in the center serves as inspiration and talking points for students and staff. M.C. shares their story of getting into this role, and they end the conversation with some actionable steps to take to start a program celebrating the first-generation experience in high school and college. 

M.C. Damm is a community-oriented professional striving to make higher education accessible, hospitable, and inclusive. Originally from Minneapolis, Minnesota, M.C. received a bachelor’s degree in Psychology and Spanish from Hope College before moving to Boston, where they completed a master’s in global and community engagement at BU’s School of Theology. During their time at Boston University's School of Theology, M.C. worked in the Admissions Office first as a Graduate Assistant and then as Senior Admissions Coordinator upon graduation. M.C. now serves as the Assistant Director of the Newbury Center at Boston University, where they foster the holistic growth of first-generation students. 

Discover more about the Newbury Center at BU and check out their signature events, including Elevate magazine, at BU.edu/Newbury-Center. 

Please help others find this podcast by rating and reviewing wherever you listen!

You can find me at https://www.firstgenfm.com/ and on LinkedIn. My email is jen@firstgenfm.com.

Transcript

 Hi, and welcome to First Gen FM, a podcast for educators who want to learn more about serving, working with, celebrating first generation college bound and college students. I'm Jennifer Schoen, your host. Please call me Jen, and I'm so excited to have you here today to listen to this. Sixth episode of the First Gen FM podcast.

When you get a chance, please rate and review this podcast so that other educators can find it. I would greatly appreciate that. Today, I'm talking with MC Dam from Boston University. Now, she's the assistant director of the BU Newberry Center, which is the center for first gen students. And they call it Terrier First, and they serve all first gen students on their campus.

Both undergraduate and graduate and professional students. Now, MC has her degree in Psych and Spanish from Hope College in Michigan. She has her Master of Divinity from BU in Global and Community Engagement and Religion and Conflict Transformation. I am so excited for you to hear this conversation that we had talking about an arts initiative with first gen students.

And I hope you get some great insight as to how you may do some of these things with your students, whether in high school or college. So join me as I talk to MC about. Art and first gen students. Welcome Em. 

Hello. Thank you so much, Jen, for having me. I know. And 

we're, we're recording in person, which is like so unusual.

So thanks for coming over and sitting and chatting. I know we've got a lot to talk about and I'm just so excited to get started, but we wanted to talk about what you Centric BU. Absolutely. Which stands for Boston University, just in case 

there's another BU, Baylor. Yes, of course. I know. We're like, You know, there's lots of BU's, but we're the only Boston University.

So, keep that in mind. Alright, you're very good. 

So, let's talk about the cool things you're doing at the Newbery Center. Why don't we just start off with, like, how did you get to work with first gen students? What was the spark that set that off? That's where I want to be. 

Absolutely. So, you know, I, as you know, some folks do have a little bit of an untraditional pathway into higher ed.

I actually did my master's at Boston University, their school of theology in global and community engagement and religion and conflict transformation. But while I was there, like so many other students, I needed a student job. And so I worked in the admissions office. And I really enjoyed that time as a student, like talking to prospective students.

We had opportunities to take them out to lunch, which was also... So, you know, an important part of my experience as a graduate student, graduate theology students aren't necessarily raking it in. So I've, I very much enjoyed those lunches for keeping me fed, but also for the conversations that I would have with students about their, their interest and their hopes for graduate education.

And I felt like in those spaces, a lot of prospective students felt like they were able to talk to me as a student and were like, kind of level with me, you know, like how are students. How are students accessing, like, textbooks? How are students affording graduate education in a place like Boston? Are people finding community?

How are students, you know, like, doing this? Particularly first gen students, particularly students of color who are navigating this kind of very elite university space I mean, themselves for the first time, but then for a lot of folks to be the first in their family or the first in their community to be at grad school in general or at a school like BU, which is, you know.

A Northeastern school is someone from Minnesota. There was quite a cultural adjustment not only to Boston but to the academic culture of schools out here. And so being able to have those conversations with incoming students as a student, and then as a full time professional in the admissions office.

I was the senior admissions coordinator. And so I would also have incoming students, new students, who would stop by and be like, Who would, you know, sit in my office chair and be like, I'm really struggling with this. Or, I am trying to figure this out. Or, I wasn't expecting this part of, you know, like grad school.

What do I do? And so many of the students who gravitated to me in particular were low income students, were students of color, were first gen students. And so that was one of my favorite parts of my admissions job. But, you know, admissions is so cyclical. So like, we'd, like... Lay out all this groundwork. We build these really amazing relationships.

We get students into the community. We'd be like, we're so glad you're here. And then we kind of turn them over to, you know, faculty and, you know, students who are already there who are ready to receive them. But then we're like, all right, well, we're working on the next batch for recruitment. So the It started, it was dedicated in October of 2020.

And then it was, It opened its doors in January of 2021. And so the Newberry Center had posted that they were looking for an assistant director. And I was like, wow, what an amazing opportunity to do, like, the favorite parts of my job in admissions right now in a fuller capacity. To spend like, longer time in terms of relationship building and supporting our first gen students.

Yeah, and seeing that development 

that you just don't 

get to see when you graduate. Absolutely. Well, and I was so excited. So in my work at the school of theology, I was working with graduate students and to be able to work with both undergraduate and grad students was something I was really excited about as well to see the differences for first gen students as they're approaching and, you know, embarking on their undergraduate career as well as their graduate or professional student career.

Cause we also have first generation PhDs that are involved with the center. Yeah. 

So the Newbery Center. Let you do the best parts of what you were doing in admissions. And you're getting to see this development piece. And you still get to work with undergrad, graduates, and professional students. Because the Newberry Center serves all of them.

So you didn't have to pick and choose. Right. Like what group of students you wanted to work with. So that was fantastic. 

Yeah, I have so much enjoyed being able to work with multiple student populations and to work. So the Newberry Center is a university wide center. Which is great, because we also build relationships with students from all different aspects of BU's campus.

But then we get to see those students also build community with each other. With, you know, friends that they might not have known otherwise. They're like, well, we don't always see people from, like, the medical campus, like, be able to come over to the Charles River campus. Which is kind of thought of as BU's, like, quote unquote, main campus.

Let's see, I... Big quotations there. Right, right, there are air quotes 

there. For those of you who didn't 

see that, there were air quotes there. Or from students, like graduate students who are able then to like mentor and like answer questions for our like undergraduate students as they're navigating things for the first time.

Or particularly as someone who went through a graduate program at BU and then worked in a graduate program, that real kind of Insular quality that like certain schools within a discipline can have. And so, being able to see graduate students reach outside of their, like, home school communities and build bonds across the university is something that's also been incredibly exciting for me to see the full reach of Boston University and everyone who's there who makes it such a vibrant community.

So apparently you got the job. I did. So you walked in and you're like, here's me, you're looking for me. Well. 

And they said yes we are. I, you know, I was so fortunate, I'm so fortunate to get to work with my director, Maria Erb, who I know. You know, you say her name in the first gen space and everyone's like, of course, of course.

Which I feel like having gotten to work with her day in and day out, I can very much understand like how that representation, how that.

How that reputation is a hundred percent well deserved and possibly more like I'm like, I could never overstate the capacity of Maria. And so to be able to work with her in that space and to see her vision and the space that we've been able to cultivate together as we've grown the center, as I mentioned before, the center is pretty new.

And so, you know, we had our kind of full. academic year from like the 2021 to 2022 year. And now we've just kind of wrapped up 2022 to 2023 and the launch of programs that we've been able to add and to do both in terms of like these kind of like really exciting formal internship programs. So we support housing stipends for a number of first gen undergraduate researchers.

We support housing for a number of first gen students to embark on both paid and unpaid internships over the summer. We know that living in Boston, particularly in the summer, can be prohibitively expensive and it's, it's huge. It makes such a big difference for first gen students in particular, who are like, I'm really excited about having this.

internship experience but I wouldn't otherwise be able to take it because I just can't afford rent in Boston, not without financial aid that students generally don't receive in the summer. 

And especially if it's not, if it's unpaid and or 

underpaid. Right, exactly. And so those are some of our, you know, like big programs and then we're also, we've also been able to launch Over the last couple of years a lot of different kind of arts initiatives.

So I was just yes 

Which is what we're going to talk about today is the arts initiative because I just think that's amazing because as I said, I think I think arts are underappreciated and we just don't talk about it enough And so I'm really excited for you to share like what what are you doing with your arts initiative?

Like how does it work who's involved all the details? 

Absolutely. So we, so there's, I guess I should back up a little bit. So we have the Big BU Arts Initiative, which is a campus wide program, which seeks to make art more accessible to Boston University students, faculty, staff, and to engage the university arts community with the city of Boston and beyond.

And so they're doing really incredible work just within their own space. We are all part of the same kind of, overarching unit, and so I feel so fortunate to be able to call them my colleagues and friends, of course. But then we also will partner with them on some of our specific first gen initiatives.

And so, something that we have been able to do that's made a huge difference in our physical space is that we have an art competition every fall. We advertise it in our newsletter, so we have both an undergraduate newsletter and a graduate and professional student newsletter that goes out. And we just ask students to submit any piece that they feel like speaks to their experience of being first gen or highlights aspects of their experience navigating Boston University.

And we've gotten such incredible pieces over the years. We've gotten pieces of photography. We've gotten drawings. We've gotten paintings. This past year someone submitted like a first gen. At BU Monopoly board, which is like a, it's a beautiful piece of art and it's very specific to Boston University, but it's also like a playable game.

Like we could take it off the wall. We won't, but we could and you could play. And I was like, wow, the creativity of our students and their expressions of their identity and how they're navigating the space and what it means to them and like what it means to have a, you know, a drawing that you. Like a doodle of something that you did in class and to talk about how that is engaging and that's something that you really utilize as a tool to help you focus in your time in like these academic spaces versus like a monopoly board and talking about the kind of like the game of life aspect of it or the, the, like the peaks and pits and like how you can see it all play out kind of on this like miniature physical space.

To me, they're just So incredible, but I, that's a little bit of a tangent about the art itself, but I just get so excited. Yeah. But students will submit these pieces and then we will print them, have them matted and we work with the BU Arts Initiative. So we actually display all of these pieces within the BU Arts Initiative space.

During our National First Gen College Celebration. So, folks will come and they'll participate in like the big ceremony. So we have, our celebration is open to everyone on campus. So we'll have first gen students, but also allies, faculty, staff, who just want to come kind of revel and celebrate what it means to be first gen.

And so students will come to that space and be able to see the pieces and be able to, to vote on their favorites as well. And so we'll... So, we have a couple of winners, so, you know, we're not judges or anything, we're like, we leave it up to the public on what they feel moved by, or I guess I should say the BU public.

Right. And then winners get like a small kind of we have, we call them convenience points at BU, but kind of our version of like campus cash. But then all of those pieces are displayed in the Newberry Center as well. And then they're also included as submissions in our first generation magazine, which is called Elevate.

And I'm happy to get into Elevate a little bit more because it's another one of our... Arts initiatives, but I just want to note that the the inclusion of all of this first gen art in our space has Totally transformed it like no more white walls like you can see These physical expressions of what it means to be first gen everywhere and you can see like the vastness and the richness and the differences in experience and the just how what it means to come together as a first generation community and to note that there's so many different layers of experience and identity and difficulty but also joy and to see that play out like to surround you as a first gen community or as folks working in a first gen space I think is amazing yeah I 

was gonna ask you so when you're Sitting in your office and you're looking at all this first gen experience.

Do you get inspiration in terms of like, Oh, maybe I should look at this a little differently or let's, we need to talk about this more based on kind of what's represented around you. Like, even if it's just like osmosis, just like sitting with all of this, the student representations of the first gen experience.

I, I, I, yeah, I'm just curious as how you get 

inspiration. I think one of the things, well, I would say that there's kind of two ways that I find this space to be really inspiring, or the inclusion of art to be really inspiring. I think, number one, it helps students in this space to feel empowered to talk about their own experiences of things that they maybe not, they might not always feel comfortable sharing, or they might feel like, oh, it's only me that's navigating this.

So we have our, our art pieces, but then we also have... Like little write ups that were submitted by the authors as well like this is why I created this piece This is what this piece means to me And I say, you know Not every visitor to the space will take the time and like read through all of them But a lot will and a lot will be like, oh like that is something that you know I also experience or you know, I had never thought about it that way or what a cool way to represent that We have a piece as well.

That's someone on a ship that's kind of like heading into the The distance, which is one of those things that's like, this could be like seen in a really exciting positive light and this could also be seen in a scary light and I think that students will sometimes like, that's something I hear from students is them talking about that that tension and how they, how they feel that and how you're like, you know, you can feel the nervousness of that but you can also so much feel the excitement.

And the kind of hopeful horizon in front of you. And so, that I think is incredible. And then I think kind of as you mentioned, it, I think, helps all of us within the space to remember that we are, you know, working in such a full community. There's so many aspects that we can touch on within a First Gen experience.

And I think that's something that, you know, when we are working with faculty or staff or campus collaborators, we're like, it's very important that everyone know that there's not a single first gen story. There's not first gen students are not a monolith. And so I think that that's something that, you know, kind of people are confronted with as soon as they walk into the new Mary center.

And I also think it's something that, you know, keeps our eye kind of on the vision of like what. What other opportunities can we offer? What other ways can we represent student experience? How else can we make students feel included in this space to know that there are so many stories represented and there are stories that we are continuing to add and perspectives that we are continuing to see, I think is an important kind of function of the art beyond just being, you know, aesthetically really incredible.

Right, 

right. Yeah. It's a. It's, it's a constant daily reminder of the diversity of the First Gen experience. Absolutely. Just, just by walking into your space. Love that. Did it take a while to get up and going? Did you have to, like, what was it like when, when you said like, let's do this for the First Gen Center?

Was there any pushback? Was it just like, go? Who did you have to get on 

board? Certainly. So I will say that the first year of the art competition happened before I arrived on the scene. Thank you. So it wasn't as good as it is now. Oh, well. I wouldn't say that, but what I will say, what I can see from since I have arrived, is that there has been, I would say that the art competition has just continued to grow every year and I think part of that is word of mouth, and also people coming to the center and also a sense that by coming to the center and seeing the art that we already have displayed and the care.

that we take with the things that people submit, that artists submit. I think that there's been a cultivation of trust over the last few years and I think that that's been really important. I would say in terms of practical partners, so because it is our like kind of physical space we do have more say so over, you know, what goes up on our walls.

We have an operating budget and so I think that's also, you know, an important caveat to note that we do have money to, you know, offer, like, small prizes and to be able to print pieces. But we also work closely with the BU Arts Initiative so, like, we utilize their space. They help us to actually mount everything.

We're like we are not, you know, gallery. gallery administrators, we're not artists ourselves necessarily. And so that's been a really important partnership to make sure that we are, you know, handling everything with as much care as we want to when people are trusting us with something so important.

And so I would say that that's been a really important partnership and that really like getting the students on board, I would say is kind of the main partnership that's super important is just letting students know that the art competition is something that we do every year and that it is an opportunity for students to see themselves really reflected in the physical space where they spend time.

I think. Something that we've really been able to do as well. As I mentioned earlier, we have Elevate, which is our first generation magazine. It's actually done by first generation students for first generation students. And so all of the pieces that we receive are submitted by you know, students within the community.

And it is actually edited by two of our current student staff in the Newberry Center. And so all of those submissions are also included. In the magazine. And so I think students are excited to have an opportunity, like a multiplicity of ways to see their work live on beyond themselves. And I think that that's also been like a big confidence building piece as well.

Like for students to see themselves, their art on the walls, for students to see their name in print. 

Yes. Yep. Yeah. And well that and so, so how long do you have their artwork? at the center and do they 

get it back? Yes. So we currently have two cycles of art competition art on the walls. And so generally the plan is that we'll be able to exhibit pieces for about a year or two years.

And then those pieces are returned to students and they're matted and they're framed. So this is kind of. In addition to the time that it's been exhibited, it is also like a keepsake that they can add into their own physical space, whether that's their home or their office or whether they want to gift it to someone or exhibit it somewhere else.

It's like ready to go for whatever they would like to see with that piece. And so I think that's something that we really enjoy to be able to give to students. It's like, this is your, this is your art that you have. Lent to us, and we are so appreciative of it, and we don't, we want to return it to you in the best condition possible.

Right. 

And, and something that, it's not just, here's your artwork, it's framed, it's, you can put it up anywhere. Right. Well, It's not like, now go get it framed, 

or. Of course. It's, it's done. It's, it's ready to go. I, I think that sometimes students are like, oh, it's like I'm a real artist. It's like, well, you are a real artist.

Yes, yes, 

and not only has your art been displayed, but you've all, you know, whether you won or not, the competition. Right. Your art has been displayed, it's inspired other people, and it's also kept forever because there's a photo of it in the magazine, which is the best of both worlds, right? Absolutely. So people get to look at the actual art, but there's also just this magazine that's going to live in the archives that has all this student art in it.

One thing that I want to say about the magazine, because Elevate, to me, I know our co editors are so tired of hearing me talk about how excited I am about it, and how proud I am of them, but I am, and one of the things about the magazine is I think it's a work of art made of other works of art, and so the art of composition that the, that our co editors put into creating this piece and really showcasing Cause we have, you know, written submissions.

We have visual art submissions. We also have an online version of the magazine. And so we have, we haven't yet had like video submissions, but we're like, people can't submit it if they like, if they want to. Because we know that like video multimedia submissions are dance. You know, absolutely. So we want to provide as many opportunities for students to contribute their artistic vision and their experience to the magazine as possible.

But one way that we kind of encourage and allow for the creation and submission of pieces is we have these magazine mentoring sessions that happen all throughout the fall semester. So we kind of like gather all of our submissions and actually put the magazine together and, you know, send it for print and have our big launch party every spring.

But then all throughout the fall semester we have These weekly sessions where faculty and staff volunteer their time. So, folks who are involved in like the College of Communication. And we have one staff member who is kind of the lead editor for the BRINC. Which is our BU kind of like research publication.

To talk to students about, you know, the publication process and the development of pieces. But also just as a community of people who are like interested in our first gen students. And want to... find their voice as they're navigating these spaces. So a lot of times students will come to these magazine mentoring sessions and be like, Oh, I didn't really have an idea for a piece this week, or I didn't really work on my submission because this like one thing came up or because I've really been thinking about this or like, you know, I went home recently and I had kind of this conversation with my family and I'm like, I've just been thinking about it a lot.

And so it's this, It's a space of creation and nurturing, but it is also a space of support amongst our BU faculty and staff for our freshman students. So it's I'm like, you know, at the end, you know, it's always lovely if people submit a piece and everyone really tends to, but they get more out of the magazine mentoring session.

And then, like, just advising. Mm hmm. 

Mm hmm. Which is perfect. I love that you called it magazine mentoring because it gives a focus to the students when they want to come in, but then once they get there, like you talked about previously, that trust is established, then it becomes much more than just about the magazine and submissions.

It's about who they are and what they want to share, which then filters back to their 

creativity. Absolutely. I love that. And the So many, so like the magazine mentors will come to our launch party. So we have a big launch party every spring. We reveal the cover so we don't tell students ahead of time which submission or art has been selected for the cover.

And so that's a surprise for the contributors as well. And it's such a, it's a space of so much excitement and so much joy. And we, so the magazine mentors are there, the contributors are there. Folks from our first gen community, but then we always have, you know, like BU folks who are just excited, right?

About the creation that's going on with it. So we call our first gen community at BU the Terrier first because BU for the Terriers And so they're like, oh, I want to check out what's going on, you know with the the Terrier first community And so I think that is also Really exciting for folks to see kind of this project Come to fruition and emerge in a space that is so excited to see everything that they have brought forth.

And I think that the, one of the other things that's really nice about the magazine is that it is like a real kind of cross section of things that students are wrestling with. And so, you know, we've had pieces that are dealing with really complicated or nuanced. Topics. And I think that it is such a point of pride or joy for me to have students who are like, I like thought about this or I struggled with this or I wrestled with this.

It was personal. It was hard. And then for them to feel like, and I feel like that is learning that I can contribute to, to my space. I want people to know about it. I think that that is such a, it's It's something that we don't see necessarily with a lot of these kind of like hard experiences or hard learning that students go 

through.

It just hit me that the level of trust you must have built with the students to submit their art and their works and then their willingness to be vulnerable in submitting that, that's, it's more than just an art initiative. It's... It's, it's building a community and building a community that's based on trust and sharing and, and that respect of all those diversity of perspectives.

I just did the mind blown symbol, but yeah, I mean, if that's, as you talk about it, it's, it's clearer and clearer that it's, it's art in and of itself is an amazing end, but then art that builds trust and community. Huge I would 

say that this is one of the things that I am most excited about and most of our work in the Newberry Center and not just amongst our professional staff, but with our student staff as well, with the students who volunteer on panels with us to talk to faculty and staff about what it's like to be a first gen student and who answer questions and who proudly display their first gen status through their tear your first mugs or their tear your first t shirt.

I think is this. This community of trust and vulnerability and care that we are, that we are building together, that we all get to be involved in which I think takes such incredible buy in, not just from the professional staff, because there's no way that we could do that by ourselves but by students continuing to see themselves represented in this community.

And so to... Show more of their authentic selves, which then, you know, encourages other students to do the same. The, the word that we are able to, to spread about the Newberry Center beyond just, you know, kind of our formal like tabling or like doing meetings on campus and having events. But students are like, I found my space here.

I found the space where I can just kind of like, let it. Let everything that I'm carrying kind of drop and live in the, I don't want to get too, too corny. Like the, the fullness of myself, I think is something that I am in awe of all the time. Yeah. Yeah. 

Which is why every place should have a first gen 

center.

Yes. And build that community to allow our students to stay. Nice. It's like. You know, takeaway from the episode. Right, 

yes, definitely. That's a big takeaway. If somebody's listening, whether they're like in high school or or a college setting, what are some first steps that they could take if they wanted to do something like this, like a first gen arts initiative?

I think it would be great for folks, you know. I think so many times people are, they're creative. Like, minds are stirred by confronting other pieces of art, or by seeing something and being like, Oh, maybe that's something that I could do, or I had never thought about doing that and so something that I think That we've been able to do that is something that I do think that, you know, other colleges could do, high schools could do.

We have a first gen film series that we ran last year. And so we picked, I think it was eight different films. And we matched them up to different, like, history and heritage months. And we looked at documentary and we looked at animated movies. You know, we watched Monster University. In addition to, you know, some of these other movies that we watched.

And that I think was like a really good starting point for folks who are like, I want to start incorporating art more, you know, film tends to be pretty accessible. We had some like kind of big blockbusters. So we also watched like Black Panther and we thought a little bit about the different experiences of, you know, Killmonger and T'Challa and the, the ways that education Expands our, our perspectives and understanding.

And so I think seeing these stories and being like, Oh, that's a first gen story. I'm like, what does that mean? I think is one of those things that is both great in terms of representation, but then also has students starting to think about their own experiences and their own framing of what it means to be first gen.

We screened this documentary called No Look Past. As part of the film series, which is actually about a first generation student athlete at Harvard who goes on to play pro ball in Germany and all of her different multi layered identities and we have a student who had been very involved with the series, he's really interested in film and filmmaking and so he's like, yeah, I want to get paid to like, like show other first gen students movies about being first gen.

And once he saw that movie, he was like, Oh, I didn't know that you could like make documentaries about things like this or I hadn't thought about like, you know, making a, like the first gen student, like a subject of, of film. He's like, I think that maybe I want to do a documentary about like myself or about being first gen at BU.

And so I think creating this kind of opportunities and it definitely doesn't have to be like a whole film series. You could show one movie. Right. So we have a lecture hall that's right across from our center that we utilize, but anywhere you've got a big screen, right? You can show a movie. Something else that we do is we do different kind of art exposure opportunities.

So like we will take trips to the MFA, I'll be you students. Sorry. Yes. For, for the

non Boston folks, the museum of fine arts which is one of those things that. that Boston University students have access to for free. But for a lot of people, like, if you're like, I didn't really grow up going to museums, like, that can be really intimidating. And so this past spring, we took a group of about 15 students.

And definitely, I would say, more than half of the students that we took are like, Oh, this is my first time going to the museum. And going to the museum together and investigating what it means to look at all these Huge pieces of art. Think about what you like about it, what you don't like about it.

Like, why is this here? Why is this art? Why is this art? I think was something that was really fun to see students kind of begin to form their, or not necessarily form, but to become aware of their, like, art, their opinions about art, and their hopes about art, and the possibilities of art. In a, in a supportive community of other people who are being like, Hey, there's no such thing as like, bad questions.

It's like, we're all just learning together, which I think is, you know, probably just a good mantra for life. Yes, I would agree to that, yeah. And so, those kind of things of like, I know not everyone gets free tickets to a museum, but just creating opportunities that could be, you know, looking at a piece of art.

together, virtually, like starting a class like that, or like looking into a, like a first generation artist, or I think all of these different aspects, it's like, we live in an age where art is more accessible than ever and so being able to think about how could I include you know, artistic expression in whatever work that I'm doing and how do I What impact do I hope that this artistic expression is going to have on the students that I'm working with?

And just as, as a way to think about this, is the magazine, is the Elevate magazine online? It is online, yes. 

People 

could just go and see what the students created. They can see the art, they can see the poetry, they can see the prose. And, and. Maybe hand certain things out to students like I'm thinking, especially if they're in high school.

Yeah. And say, you know, this is what some students who are first gen say about the college experience. Or when you look at this, knowing that a first gen student put it together right. About navigating a college, what do you see? And can use that as a 

starting point too. Absolutely. I encourage anyone who's interested.

So we have our Newberry Center website. Please feel free to check it out. We have Elevate, so we have our first edition, our second edition, so we have. Volume 1 and Volume 2 which are featured very prominently, and the entire magazines are posted online. So you can have a virtual flip through if you like, you can see you know, what pieces are particularly moving to you, or maybe inspire new thoughts or make you think about things in a new way.

And I think particularly for folks who are working with students, whether that's a high school level, a college level but that's a great thing to talk about, you know, like these are students either who are in kind of like the same space that you are in right now, or were in the same space that you were in just a couple years ago.

The one thing that I do want to mention is, as I mentioned earlier, some of these pieces are dealing with heavier topics so just to make sure that you're keeping an eye 

on that. Right, like you screen things before you point to everybody in the direction. I was thinking that. For folks in high school, like we've been talking about, here's a college art program.

But this could also be done in high school. Absolutely. About navigating the high school experience. Like, how would you do it? How would you draw that? How would you paint that? How would you, what's a photograph that would represent that? And just as a way to get people thinking, whether they're first gen or not, but at the high school level about.

You know, their 

experiences. Well, absolutely. I think that, you know, this could happen in any, any class in high school, and then you could, you know, you'd have to talk to a couple people, but you could do an exhibition about that as well. Like, you know, we took students, like, we took an afternoon to like have students draw out their experience in high school or to do like a collage of what their life has been like or whatever prompt that you want to use.

And then I think to To display those pieces as art, because they are, and to give, you know, attention and credit and consideration as quote unquote real art pieces. I mean, I think all pieces that we generate, they are art. But I think that it is especially meaningful for students when you really acknowledge that that creative process and that expertise on And that treatment of people's creative processes as you know, inspiring.

And, insert better word than valid here. 

Yes, yeah, but I know exactly what you're talking about. That's great. So where can they find the Elevate magazine? If, you know, if you want to look at it, 

how, tell us how to find it. So you can go to bu. edu slash newberry, which is It's N E W B U R Y dash center, so that'll take you to our general homepage, and then we have our signature events tab, which will include the Elevate magazine.

You can also see what other stuff that we're up to at the Newberry Center as well, so I encourage people to take a peruse of the website. We don't, I mean, we couldn't cover everything that we've got going on there but I think that it's It's, you know, a space where we've been able to do some really, some really interesting stuff and some really cool stuff that is, you know, centered on the, the students that we, that we serve and on their creative vision and on their needs and hopes and desires.

And so to see that play out in all of our programming, I think is, is exciting. It's always exciting to 

me. Oh, it's very exciting. So if they want to talk to you, look. If, if you're listening and you're like, I wanna reach out, how would they find 

you? Absolutely. So, you know, both myself and Maria, all of our contact information is on the website.

And I would say if you're reaching out, please feel free to email our, you know, our General Newberry Center email, which is Newberry center@bu.edu. Great. And then also my email is mda@bu.edu. Any of those avenues are great ways to find us. That's M 

as in MC, M, M as in, I'm just gonna say Mary, D A M M, Mary Mary, at BU.

edu. And I'll put that in the show notes too, along with how to connect to the Newberry Center and their website address, the name of the email and some other things. So thank you so much for chatting with me today. This has been, this has been wonderful and really exciting. And certainly doable, I think, for a lot of programs to take what you've done here and adapt it.

Or just as a way to get more art into our lives and art from our students as well. 

Absolutely. Well, Jen, thank you so much for having me. It's been a joy to be over on this side of town on Northeastern's campus. That's right. And the force field didn't go up. It said, you know, Yes, they let me in. 

That's right.

Because we're here. We're here recording at Northeastern University today, also in Boston. So this has been an episode of FirstGenFM. If you want to find me, you can also email me at gen, but that's j e n at firstgen, g e n fm. com. So thank you so much for joining us today and let's keep doing what we're doing, celebrating those first generation college bound and in college students and just...

It's helping guide them to success. Thanks for joining me and I'll see you next week.