According to ‘Bow, UH Mānoa’s AI-powered chatbot’, 50% of our student population has been identified as first-generation students. The COVID-19 pandemic brought unexpected stressors to college students and our first-gen student population. Students had to deal with existing but exacerbated financial barriers, adjust to a different classroom setting, deal with work reductions and restrictions, and social isolation. It was found that first-generation students have prevalent mental health symptoms and even lower rates of mental health service use, with 32.8% of students with symptoms receiving therapy in the past year (Lipson et al., 2023). Although COVID-19 has ended, the lingering effects, such as impostor syndrome and social isolation still remain and can play a factor in a student's mental health.
In an effort to foster resilience, the First Generation Program at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa (UH Mānoa) focused on increasing social media engagement in hopes of strengthening community connections by using Moʻolelo. Hawaiʻis high level of family cohesion, positive friendships, and belonging to a community that enhances connection and care has been an uplifting factor in one’s mental health (Dulda et al., 2024). Moʻolelo [stories] connect Kanaka [Native Hawaiians] and their community. Using this knowledge, we tried to bring a sense of community and connection to our First Generation -Student Instagram by utilizing Moʻolelo (Quirk 2021).
In order to do this, the first-generation program at UH Mānoa highlighted the stories of faculty and students showing resilience as well as personal and familial connections of first-generation students. These stories contributed to community building and the representation of first-generation students (Quirk 2021). Since then, our first-generation program has continued to share other first-generation stories and voices.
The First Generation Program at UH Mānoa has begun posting 'First-Generation Friday Stories (FGFS)' where a story from a current or former first-generation student will be shared. Stories were gathered from faculty, staff, and students through Google Forms that had prompts such as “What led you to go to college?”, “What makes you proud to be a first-generation student?”, and “What is one piece of advice you would like to share with other first-generation students?”. A total of 32 responses sharing favorite resources, words of encouragement, and hardships that first-gen students overcame were found, through our Instagram insights feature, to be shared and saved by other users. To continue the sharing of other students’ stories, the Google form will be posted to our website, which we plan to launch this year.
Since the start of our “First Generation Friday Stories” in April, we have seen a slight growth in our Instagram engagement. From February 18, 2024, to April 18, 2024, the number of Instagram reach was 300, Instagram profile visits were 134, and the number of followers gained within that period was 17. Since our First Generation, Friday Stories from April 18, 2024, to June 28, 2024, our Instagram reach is at 616, the number of profile visits at 199, and the number of Instagram followers during this period was 23. In addition, our engagement has increased by 35% to 525 users from the last 90 days compared to 90 days prior. As for the individual posts themselves, reach ranges from 64 to 195 users per Instagram post, as well as being ranked the highest liked and commented on post in the last 90 days.
We hope that in this small way, we can continue to use Moʻolelo to help other first-generation students find connection and community. Connection, community, and representation of our diverse first-generation community will hopefully help uplift our students who may face mental health barriers such as feelings of impostor syndrome and social isolation.
References
Dudla, S., Tanji, T. T., Sugimoto-Matsuda, J., Chung-Do, J. J., Agluba, E., Khun, T., Trivedi, S., & Goebert, D. (2024). A Mixed-Methods Evaluation to Inform the Hawai'i Suicide Prevention Strategic Plan. International journal of environmental research and public health, 21(5), 565. Reference Link.
Lipson, S. K., Diaz, Y., Davis, J., & Eisenberg, D. (2023). Mental health among first-generation college students: Findings from the national Healthy Minds Study, 2018-2021. Cogent mental health, 2(1), 2220358. Reference Link.
News, U. (2023, November 2). Celebrating uh Mānoa’s first-generation college students. University of Hawaiʻi System News. Reference Link.
Quirk, J. M. (2024, March 11). Claiming our Mo’olelo: First-generation Narratives from UH Mānoa. About the Center for First-generation Students. Reference Link.
For more information on the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa's approach, please visit their website here.
