Syllabus

 

COURSE DESCRIPTION & READINGS
...I do recall the one or two times I visited with my counselor. It was she who said, "Well, gee, you are a Mexican American. Don't you want to be a carpenter, a cement finisher, a bricklayer, roofer?" I looked at her and said, "...Why would I want to do that? I want to go to college and use my head." Mike Duran in J. Rochlin, Race & Class on Campus.

Many of us found that to succeed at the very education we had been encouraged to seek, would be most easily accomplished if we separated ourselves from the experience of black folk, the underprivileged experience of the black underclass that was our grounding reality. This ambivalent stance toward education has had a tremendous impact on my psyche. bell hooks, "Pedagogy and Political Commitment: a comment," in Talking Back.

Are you the first in your family to go to college?

Who helped you get there? Family, teachers, programs, friends?

What has been your experience as a first generation college student?

Your successes, challenges, fears and accomplishments?

How do diverse cultural resources affect success in college?

What institutional supports are critical to educational successWhat has been your experience as a first generation college student?

Your successes, challenges, fears and accomplishments?

How do diverse cultural resources affect success in college?

What institutional supports are critical to educational success?

What are the diverse experiences of 1st generation students at CSUMB? Of students in our surrounding communities who are college bound?

How can oral history and life history research:

deepen understanding of the diverse experiences of 1st generation college students on our campus and in our surrounding communities?

acknowledge and validate the diverse resources students bring to college?

help identify, continue, build, and enhance institutional supports?

help strengthen CSUMB's commitments to diversity, educational excellence, and improve life chances of students?

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