2024 First-Gen Student Support Summit
Save the date for the 2024 First-Gen Student Support Summit on Wednesday, April 3, 2024! The Summit, which will feature both virtual and in-person components, is an opportunity for participants to share best practices, network with one another, and cultivate a community of practice across the University.
Theme & Agenda
The 2024 Summit will focus on intersectionality and the first-gen experience, and how intersecting social and political identities (race/ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, class, disability, religion, age, nationality/immigration status, mental health, and "home" geography/location) relate to systems of oppression and discrimination. All sessions will be hosted virtually through Zoom and streamed on the Whova platform. You can full the full agenda here.
Keynote Speaker
The keynote speaker for the 2024 Summit is Alejandra Campoverdi, a nationally recognized women’s health advocate, author, founder, producer and former White House aide to President Barack Obama. Her award-winning novel “First Gen: A Memoir” focuses on the emotional toll of social mobility of first-generation students, which she refers to as “first and onlys.”
Campoverdi served the Obama administration as the first White House deputy director of Hispanic media. She produced and appeared in the PBS documentary “Inheritance,” is a founder of the LATINOS & BRCA (breast cancer gene) awareness initiative in partnership with Penn Medicine’s Basser Center for BRCA. Campoverdi holds a master’s degree in public policy from Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government and graduated cum laude from the University of Southern California.
Campoverdi’s keynote, which kicks off the Summit, will be hosted during an in-person breakfast at the University Park campus and livestreamed for virtual participants, thanks to the generosity of event co-sponsors Adult Learner Programs and Services, Penn State York, and the University Libraries. For those attending in-person, breakfast will begin at 8:15 a.m. in the Founder’s Lounge, Bryce Jordan Center, with Campoverdi’s keynote starting at 8:30 a.m.