By Andrea Grant
Lisa Rivera, Suffolk’s new director of first-generation student initiatives, knows what it’s like to worry about finding your place on campus. Rivera vividly remembers crying to her mother at bedtime, fearing that she would never be accepted to college.
She was in kindergarten at the time.
Her mother, a preschool teacher, and father, who was always there to ferry Rivera to school, activities, and her part-time job, have always been her biggest supporters. “My father has always told me to go as far as I can,” Rivera says. But when the time came for her to finally apply to college, she knew that navigating the admission process—and then succeeding in her academic and professional careers—would be more difficult as a first-generation student forging a new path.
Luckily, she had help. Participating in her high school’s Advancement via Individual Determination program gave her practical skills like how to fill out college applications and create a résumé. It also connected Rivera with advisors who pushed her to broaden her horizons beyond her native Florida.
Now she’s dedicated to ensuring every first-gen student at Suffolk feels that same sense of connection that helped her succeed. “The student population at Suffolk is so dynamic,” she says. “There are many part-time students, commuter students, international students, and there's a significant veteran population that we serve. I love the fact that there are so many converging identities.”
Return to Table of Contents
Photograph by Michael J. Clarke
mission driven
First-gen students made up 41% of this year’s incoming class, and they make up about a third of the institution’s overall student population.
Abraham Peña, executive director of Suffolk’s Center for Academic Access & Opportunity (CAAO)—which manages the University’s federal TRIO programs Upward Bound, Veterans Upward Bound, and the McNair Scholars—is proud of the work his office and dedicated individuals and groups at the University have done to create programming and opportunities for first-gen students.
To push that work even further, Peña proposed creating a leadership position focused solely on improving the first-gen experience—among the first of its kind in the region. As the director of first-generation student initiatives, Rivera offers support to offices throughout campus to ensure that programs are evidence-based and grounded in theory. She is also creating a hub for first-gen students within the CAAO, to better coordinate resources and foster community.
A culture of support
During Rivera’s own time at college, she loved the community she found on a small campus in rural Pennsylvania. Still, she knew her experiences as a first-gen student with Puerto Rican roots set her apart from many of her classmates.
“Coming from a working-class family and always having to work through the summers to pay for necessities throughout the year, but also being a Latina, and at times the only person of color in my sorority” could sometimes be isolating, she says. Navigating her financial identity, cultural identity, and mental health and wellness were challenges Rivera said could have easily derailed her if she didn’t seek out mentors to help her through it.
“I might have gone home, I might have transferred to a local school, and I never would have explored other possibilities outside of my hometown had I not had those advocates,” she says. Instead, she persisted, earning a graduate degree in higher education administration and advancing through roles in admission, career resources, and student affairs.
Before officially starting in her new role at Suffolk, she attended the University’s sixth annual First-Generation Celebration. It gave her a chance to meet some of the students and the faculty and staff who shape their experiences.
“I see an important part of my role as helping to guide students and keep track of them so no one falls between the cracks,” Rivera says. “Each department has specific expertise, and I’m excited to collaborate with everyone doing this work, while serving as a navigator for students who aren’t sure where to go.”
She is already hard at work planning activities to add for next year’s celebration, and establishing new initiatives like “First-Gen Fridays” for current students and collaborating with colleague Samienta Pierre-Vil to create more events for students in the Boston Public Schools who are preparing for college. For Rivera, it’s a full-circle experience.
“This work is personal, and that’s why I’m so dedicated to these students and excited to find creative solutions to the challenges they face. Like so many of them, I recognize that my own parents, and my grandparents, sacrificed so much for me to be in this position. Doing good work for others in honor of that is so important to me.”
Advocates and mentors