I started the Transitions Research Project as a way to understand the experiences of first generation, low-income students at Vassar. It was my hope that I would be able to find ways to share this type of qualitative data with the college in order to shape the direction it takes as it works to find increasingly effective ways to help historically underrepresented students adjust and thrive during their time at Vassar.

Since spring 2017, I have been training teams of first gen, low income students to conduct interviews by exposing them to existing scholarship on college access, qualitative research methodologies, and ethical research practices. It has been my hope that this endeavor provides a mutually enriching experience for all of us, given the unique opportunity to weave together three of the most important elements of a faculty member’s experience at a small liberal arts college: teaching, mentoring, and research. It has also been my hope that by becoming involved with a research project that is directly relevant to their lives, and whose explicit aim is to help inform the college about the experiences of historically underrepresented students, members of the research team feel empowered in a space that students like themselves often find disempowering. I feel strongly that the perspectives that these students have brought to the research process have strengthened the projects we’ve pursued, through their input into how we should conduct the research (What do we want to know? What should we ask and how? What issues might be salient?), their ability to elicit compelling narratives from their peers (some of which I would find difficult to elicit on my own, given the faculty-student power dynamic inherent in all of the interviews I conduct), and their insights as we engage in analysis of our data.