The Enrollment Brief welcomes its first guest, Echo Delta senior account executive Dani Chaney, for a conversation about what the first-generation label means to the students who carry it. Dani, Jeff Kallay, and Scott Rhodes share their own first-gen stories and note how well many campuses already support these students, especially in admissions. Then they look at what comes next: clear communication, career readiness that starts in the first year, and visible cues and mentors that keep students feeling they belong.
Key Takeaways
- A Navigation Challenge: First-gen students bring strong test scores and GPAs, and admissions teams have learned to guide them to enrollment. The next opportunity is helping them navigate everything that happens post enrollment.
- Pointed Communication Works: Where Dani worked, a dedicated first-gen flow that congratulated students and spelled out next steps worked well. Clear, jargon-free explanations help every student, especially around FAFSA.
- Career Readiness Starts in Year One: Career services often gets tucked away or cut first. Embedding it in the curriculum, keeping it visible, and possibly renaming it can reach students earlier.
- Visible Cues Build Belonging: First-gen stickers, name tags, and mentors who share the experience tell students an ally is nearby. Students should be free to define the label for themselves.
Episode Highlights
- [01:35] Learning the label on campus: How Dani discovered what first-gen meant once she started working in higher ed.
- [02:28] First-gen in the mid-80s: Jeff’s story of finding his people in a community residence hall.
- [05:39] Recruiting with a first-gen lens: Why a dedicated communication flow and plain language made a difference.
- [10:16] Where the challenge lies: Why first-gen support comes down to navigating a complex system.
- [11:30] Keeping support going after year one: Internships, office hours, and the complexity that continues past FAFSA.
- [17:33] What’s in a name?: Whether “career services” still fits and why “life design” is gaining ground.
- [18:19] Support for all or for first-gen?: Why Dani says both, with clear and pointed communication.
- [21:02] Practices worth copying: Visual cues, first-gen mirrors, and faculty and staff mentoring programs.
Resources Mentioned in This Episode
- Temple University One Stop Student Services Center: Temple’s announcement of a centralized hub for financial aid, registrar, billing, and student success support.
- NACE: The Value of Career Services: Research on how career center use connects to student outcomes and where engagement falls short.
- Duquesne University First-Generation Student Success: An overview of Duquesne’s first-gen programs, including faculty and staff mentoring.
Transcript
Jarrett Smith (00:03):
Hey everybody. Welcome to the Enrollment Brief Podcast. As always, I am joined by Jeff Kallay and Scott Rhodes. And y’all, we have our very first guest, Dani Channey, senior account executive at Echo Delta, recent recipient of the MBA. So it should be Dani Chaney, MBA, I believe. Also the best dressed among us right now.
Dani Chaney (00:28):
Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. I recently, after 15 years, completed my MBA. So yeah, I’ve been out working in the real world and wanted to get a further higher education. So yeah, just graduated last weekend.
Jarrett Smith (00:42):
Well, congratulations. That’s super big accomplishment. So today we are talking about first gen and kind of exploring the label, what first gen means and the impact on students and what we think collectively that might mean for institutions looking to serve first gen students better. So now out of our group, Jeff, Dani, you both are first generation students. And so I would just like to start off with the question, was that label first generation meaningful to you in any way at the start of your college journey? And how has your relationship to that term maybe changed over time? And Dani, you are our guest, so I’ll tee it up to you first. Why don’t you –
Dani Chaney (01:35):
Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. So I didn’t really know what that term meant at all until I actually worked on a college campus. So I knew that I was the first person in my family to be taking steps toward college. I think it became more memorable as I approached graduation. It became clear like, oh, I’m really doing this. This is something no one in my family had done before. I think fast forwarding in my time on campus, we did specific first generation communications flows, had stickers outside of our doors. There were a lot of things that really the institution I worked at did to celebrate that. And I think that’s when I really took a lot of pride in it too as a person who was working on campus.
Jarrett Smith (02:21):
Good deal. And so now Jeff, you were in college in the mid ’80s. So tell me about your experience. Was first gen a thing?
Jeff Kallay (02:28):
I’m where my alma mater, Lee University back then Lee College and the mug they gave us for Echo Delta client. So now Lee University, shout out to Jeff Sayer and Phil Cook. Yeah, so I’m old, first gen. My parents just said, go to college, go to college. And I didn’t know why. That’s part of that American dream. And I mean, there was no first gen moniker. For me ending up at Lee a church affiliated school, I think not being raised in the church was more of a distinction than being first gen. So I mean, orientation back then was two hours in the Conn Center, the main meeting area. And the academic team, how about that Scott? Two hours. Y had
Scott Rhodes (03:12):
Chapel too?
Jeff Kallay (03:15):
Well, we had chapel four days, four times a week back then.
Scott Rhodes (03:18):
So no need for chapel then?
Jeff Kallay (03:20):
No. Lord and I were solid. But the actual orientation was two hours. And the academic dean, Dean Vaught, literally came out and said, “Look to your left, look to your right. One of you won’t be sitting here in four years for commencement.” So it was that kind of attitude. But I think what I realized was joining and getting involved, faculty and staff were super supportive because it was more of a ministry being at a church affiliated school. But then I think when I reflect on it, two things is my joining and finding people supported me in that first gen effort. I’ll tell you real quick, I had two major events happen my sophomore year, so it would’ve been like fall of 84. One was my grandmother died and I was in the dining hall. Guys from my floor came because I lived on community floor, payphone, “Hey, you got to call.” And back then with total numbers, if you got a call, there was something wrong.
(04:16):
And immediately went and made a call and I was on the phone, probably 10 guys from my floor all left their lunch and came up to support me. And that was right around finals. But a month before that, I just had a major crisis and my roommate and I were studying and I didn’t know why I was in college. And he said something to me and the next thing I know, we’re literally in a fist fight beating the crap out of each other. And again, all those guys came to support us and help us. And I had an existential crisis and Bob Rogers is one of my best friends now who I had the fight with. So I think for me it was that joining and finding my people and living in a communal hall that gave me support as a first gen. And then I think like Dani, it wasn’t until I was in the industry when that term came up and I proudly own it.
(05:04):
And when I introduce myself, if I’m speaking on campus to faculty staff or as I just did this past weekend at Georgia Southern Ambassadors, and I’m first gen, shout out. And I get a lot of woo-hoos and yays and support. So that’s my first gen story.
Jarrett Smith (05:20):
Yeah. Interesting. We spent a lot of time on this podcast talking about student recruitment. And Dani, I’m really curious about your experiences in recruitment and how you think being a first gen student influenced that or changed that experience for you.
Dani Chaney (05:39):
Yeah. I would say working on a campus and then working at organizations much like Echo Delta who consult their clients on how to best communicate with students, what I found is we had 25% of the students where I worked, they were first generation, so one in four students. And what we found is having a specific communication funnel for those students worked really well. So first identifying like, “Hey, you’re the first person to do this. Congratulations. These are your next steps.” And just being really clear, if anything, over explaining and talking a little bit about, “Hey, these are the next steps you need to do.” I think where it really resonated with me was I was able to look at that from a different lens like, “Oh, do I understand this? And would someone who was in my position understand what that meant? Are we too jargon heavy?
(06:31):
There’s a lot of jargon in the industry. There are a lot of titles that don’t make sense.” And so being very clear about, “Hey, you’re going to see this in your mailbox or you have a responsibility to do this.” I was able to almost pull out and proofread and talk to the team about, “Hey, what does access to college mean for these students and how can we best explain things so that they don’t get confused and they’re able to take action rather than just stay still or feel confused about the next step?”
Jarrett Smith (07:01):
I’m kind of curious, Dani, how did that compare to your own firsthand experience being recruited into a college and what was that like for you?
Dani Chaney (07:11):
Yeah. So I did not get any recruitment emails that at that time there really wasn’t a lot of recruitment emails, but I do vividly remember the direct mail that I received. And I remember thinking like, “Ooh, they personalized my name on this direct mail piece.” Or, “Oh, they really went all out with sending me a booklet.” And I did look at those. And going into journalism, I had an affinity for print media. And so those materials or those marketing things stood out to me. I think going to a private institution wasn’t something I intended to do, but I wanted to look within a specific radius and I did that. And so I think getting mail and learning more about institutions, and I actually took a college prep class in high school. So I would say that was my biggest source of information was taking a class that had how do you stand out in your college admissions essay?
(08:09):
How do you do your college application? How do you apply for financial aid? Those were big key points that I was able to get from high school and then better understand some of that. That being said, the nuances I know with private and public institutions and all of that too is something I think we could maybe do a better job of as an industry and explaining what those are and what that means to students.
Jarrett Smith (08:36):
Yeah. I mean, one of the things that I think is sort of an interesting point is that we think of first gen and there are these sort of general characteristics. We can say as a population, first gen tends to have these sort of hallmarks. They are more likely to go to your school, more likely to go to a for-profit school. Their graduation rate as a group tends to be lower than continuing students. But at the same time, first gen, we can say all those general things, but first gen is not a monolith and there’s a wide range of backgrounds and experiences and it doesn’t necessarily mean low income for some students, but it might for others. First gen as a category is more likely to be holding down a significant job. Jeff, one thing I know that you’ve talked about is this notion of not treating first gen, the label, as if it means deficit, but that it can mean it should have a positive connotation.
(09:46):
There’s a reason people are cheering for you when you bring this up and other people who are first gen sort of identify with that and they’re like, “Right on, me too.”
Jeff Kallay (09:55):
It’s American dream still, right? Aspiration, education, lifts. And I think that’s why it’s celebratory and I think we need to make it celebratory, but I think we have to allow first gen students to define themselves that way and not just impart that upon them.
Scott Rhodes (10:16):
Colleges, where they get it wrong is with first gen. They often label it as an intellectual problem when it’s not. It’s understanding how to navigate the complex system of college that we’ve all created is where the challenge is. These students have just as good SAT scores and have taken AP courses and have high GPAs. It’s the navigation of the complex system is the biggest challenge.
Jeff Kallay (10:47):
Their parents have moved to better school districts to help them. You’re that navigating the monolith that is higher ed, Jarrett and Scott and Dani. What the heck’s a bursar? I still don’t. Or a provost. Still don’t know what a provost does. So
Jarrett Smith (11:09):
What would you say you do here? Scott, you have a lot of student affairs work in your background and you’ve been on campus at a ton of different places. I’m curious from that seat, what have you observed about what sometimes is and isn’t working with regard to first gen?
Scott Rhodes (11:30):
Yeah. Overseeing admissions and student affairs over the years and having a lot of clients now and being involved, not only recruiting students, but retaining students. I honestly feel like admissions has kind of figured this out on the recruiting students and not only identifying those students, but getting them to the point of registering for their first course, even helping them get through the FAFSA, giving them that extra attention. I mean, it’s been ground in admissions for decades now about first generations and they understand it’s not an intellectual problem, it’s a navigation problem. I still think where the challenges lie today is after that first year or even in that first year, some colleges do it better in first year experience and then they have first gen particular content that they’re pushing out that first year. Some schools get it really good that first year, some still working on that.
(12:29):
It’s after that fact because that’s going back to my point, how complex the system is, because it just doesn’t stop with filling out the FAFSA and registering for your first course. I mean, it’s your internships, it’s office hours. What does that mean? Office hours for what? When can you meet with faculty? All these little complex things that happen throughout those four years, your internships, paid internships, not paid internships.
(12:57):
Colleges should be thinking about career readiness first year. They should be getting them ready for their internship first year. So I think it’s a much bigger problem once they’re there, especially after the first year.
Jarrett Smith (13:11):
Scott, that’s such an interesting point about the career readiness. I was looking at some statistics from NACE yesterday and they were about on national average, on average students, about 50% of students will go into their career office at least once. And some of them are going to be in there a lot, but you’ve got this other group that maybe will go one time and then you’ve got maybe 30% that don’t ever darken the door. It seems as if schools tend to create these career services offerings and they become a little bit more of an optional extra rather than something that is really deliberately baked into the experience so that everybody is going to… I think whether you’re first gen or not, a lot of students, they may be like are not sure that they understand. They don’t necessarily understand the value of it. They just don’t.
(14:25):
And so they get busy and they’re maybe not thinking about it until their senior year that they even think about going in the career office. But to your point, it’s going to be better for them if this is more of a continuing experience starting in that very first year.
Scott Rhodes (14:42):
Absolutely. It needs to be embedded in the curriculum and it needs to be embedded all four years. And it’s not only for the first gen, but for all students. Sorry, Jeff, go ahead.
Jeff Kallay (14:50):
No, that is why, Scott, we write in our reports, the campus visit, the campus tour needs to go into that space. That space needs to be in a public space. It needs to be retailed. It needs to look accessible.
Scott Rhodes (15:04):
Yeah. And for those exact reasons –
Jeff Kallay (15:06):
And not intimidating.
Scott Rhodes (15:07):
Yeah. And for those exact reasons, it’s the first thing that gets cut, the data that you just talked about, Jarret. If you look at across where these colleges are cutting right now, they’re cutting career services. And I think that is –
Jeff Kallay (15:20):
Ridiculous.
Scott Rhodes (15:21):
Bad. It’s just really bad because they were short staffed to begin with. I was at an institution that had a whole beautiful suite and it had a staff of four or five. And next time I came back, they had moved career services out of that suite, had laid off three people and there was one person, the director left and he was in a corner office really hard to find. And that to me was just a tragic, tragic mistake and it’s going to come back and bite them.
Jarrett Smith (15:53):
Oh, especially at a time when students are more concerned than ever of how is college going to pay off? How is this going to lead to success after college? I mean, yeah, I’m shocked to hear that. But then how much more significant, Jeff, you shared an article recently about Temple pulling in all of their services under one roof and so that whether you were there for basic needs or academic advising or tutoring, financial aid, it’s all there and you don’t have to trek across campus to get this and kind of reducing that stigma or the resistance of accessing services that can make a big difference.
Dani Chaney (16:38):
Yeah. I agree with that. And I agree initially too with what you said, Jarrett, is incorporating it into the curriculum, having those opportunities throughout rather than yes, it’s just something you think about when you make a decision for college or when you’re about to graduate. And I think making them accessible too, I love that. It’s not tucked away in a corner. That’s kind of where ours was, tucked away in a corner, use it when you need it. And I think for me it was, I learned a lot of that from the on the job or the internship experiences. What could this look like? Could I imagine myself working in this type of environment? Yes, no. Okay, let’s try this environment. And so that was a big opportunity for me was forcing myself to get involved to say, “I think I want to do this. Let’s take some internships.
(17:25):
Let’s ask students around campus. Let’s get involved in groups on campus to figure out and test the reality of what my career could be.”
Jeff Kallay (17:33):
I’d recommend changing the name.
Dani Chaney (17:36):
Yeah.
Jeff Kallay (17:37):
I mean, career services. Okay, what the heck’s a career? And futurists say college kids today are going to have seven careers. Careers, not jobs, but is it a career work and internship? I think that word career is part of the barrier because they do help you find work as a student. They do help you find internships. So I rethink that
Jarrett Smith (18:01):
Name. Increasingly, Jeff, I’ve seen the label life design show up.
Jeff Kallay (18:05):
Something different than career.
Jarrett Smith (18:07):
I think that’s cool and it’s intriguing and it also has a broader, it feels like a much bigger umbrella.
Jeff Kallay (18:16):
Again, this comes back to the nomenclature.
Jarrett Smith (18:19):
Okay. All right. So this kind of tees up a question as we kind of wrap up this episode. How much of this is about making higher ed more accessible and understandable for everybody versus first gen specific interventions or support services? And just, I’d be curious, Dani, how do you think about that? Because it seems like you’re kind of of a mind to do both, but where’s your head at when you
Dani Chaney (18:48):
Think about that? Yeah. I mean, I say both. I think you can’t over… Obviously, young people are getting a lot of information from a lot of different directions, and I think really being pointed in that communication is what helps specific institutions stand out. I mean, even with some of our partners, like Jarrett, we work with one who’s incorporating career services or that idea into the curriculum rather than it just being something you tackle at the beginning or end of your experience. And so I think for me, it is that experience, kind of what we’ve been talking about. How is your experience designed for students regardless of if they’re first generation or not? How are those questions being asked throughout your curriculum? What can you be involved in? I think in my perspective of being on campus, our first generation comms flow did help a lot in engaging those students and helping them understand the nuances of what steps to take or how to do the FAFSA or things like that.
(19:48):
That being said, all students should be informed on that. FAFSA’s had a lot of changes. It’s very different than it was when your parents did that or the processes or steps to do that are very different. And so I don’t think you can over-explain, but I think you can be very pointed in your communication. I think that’s what sometimes loses students is financial aid is really hard to understand. Let’s just make it easier for students to understand. I know we talk about that a lot with our partners is how can you best explain this to students and what resources can you give them so they can ask more questions should they need to? So I’m really big on just explaining things the way they’re intended to be absorbed and cutting out the fluff in between. So it’s very promising to see our partners taking advantage of opportunities to get in front of students in very succinct but memorable ways.
Jarrett Smith (20:44):
So I’m curious to kind of wrap how, and we’ll kind of go around the room and Jeff, maybe we’ll start with you. Are there any practices that you’ve seen that you think are really noteworthy and things that you think more institutions ought to consider?
Jeff Kallay (21:02):
I think in your campus visit practices and your information sessions, bringing in first generation data, helping first gen figure out how to join and find their posse. But I will say when I go to campuses and I see first gen stickers, labels on walls, some people put it on their name tag. When students perspective and current begin to see faculty and staff educated, successful career people that were first gen, and I’m shocked at the number of schools that do it, and I’m shocked at the percentage of faculty and staff that are themselves first gen, that when we say brands or mirrors, that I think it really helps a student know that there’s an ally and that, oh, they did it, I can do it. So I think putting those visual cues out that… Because I champion and celebrate my first gen, and I’m pretty proud of what I’ve accomplished with it.
(22:01):
And that’s why I share it happily when I introduce myself. So I think it’s brands and mirrors we purchase based upon conforming self-image, so put that first gen image out there.
Jarrett Smith (22:13):
Good deal. Scott, what about you?
Scott Rhodes (22:15):
I think the best one that I was involved in was at Duquesne University. They had a mentoring program that we would basically assign mentors that were faculty and staff that very first semester, and we were very strategic on how we created those groups. For example, obviously first gen was one of them. Sometimes we did out-of-state groups, and a lot of times that mentor was a first generation student, or if it was a faculty member, it was a faculty member that was an out-of-state student. And so that worked really well. Duquesne has excellent retention. I imagine they’re still in the high 80s, maybe the 90s where we were when I was there, even at their very steep price point. So to me, that was a huge success.
Jarrett Smith (23:05):
Good deal. All right, Dani, you kicked us off and you’re going to wrap us up. What would you like to see more of?
Dani Chaney (23:12):
I echo what Jeff and Scott said. I think I feel very proud of my first generation status, and I think that’s what has encouraged me to stay in the industry, just really wanting to help students and families better understand this industry that we work in and all the nuances there. I think coming out and celebrating graduating my MBA, I feel more invigorated than ever. I was able to do the experience again and learn from it differently as an adult. I say, yeah, wear the badge with pride. I think students see that and they’ll come to your office and, “Hey, I don’t understand this. I had an advisor that I was able to ask questions to.” And I think too, Scott, yeah, having a mentor on campus is really important. I know a lot of institutions are setting up campus groups or when those experiences are happening, partnering them with someone, whether that’s a student or a faculty member or a staff member, students can really go to those people to ask questions as they’re on campus and continuing that experience.
Jarrett Smith (24:20):
Good deal. Great advice y’all. Thank you for your time. Always a pleasure catching up and chatting. Dani, thanks for joining the pod today.
Dani Chaney (24:27):
Yeah, thanks for having me.
