Although one in every three students is considered as one of the students in this category, the university fails to meet the educational, financial, and social involvement needs of non-traditional students.
A non-traditional student is best described as an individual that delayed enrollment into postsecondary education, but can include anyone 25 years or older, married, a parent, responsible for dependents, working on a Masters or Doctoral degree, a US Armed Forces Veteran, or even a child of deceased parents.
In some college settings, even first-generation students are included. However, some students at UW do not even realize they qualify as these types of students.
“I didn’t even know that was a thing,” Alexis Eagle, a Criminal Justice major, said. “I wouldn’t consider myself non-traditional, and even if I am I didn’t know about any extra resources.”
However, Eagle does fit in the category as she is 25+ years of age, married, a mother of four, and a first-generation student. Additionally, Eagle faces another level of marginalization since she is Eastern Shoshone and often finds herself isolated due to the lack of networking for Native American students across campus.
“One time I had a really tough day, and I felt like quitting,” Eagle said. “But I was standing in front of the statue over there in Prexy’s Pasture, and the wind pushed the flowers just the right way and I saw my people, my ancestors, waving at me. That was when I knew I belonged here.”
This is reflective of the failure of the University of Wyoming to capitalize off of and market being labeled non-traditional as a positive attribute. After all, it is non-traditional and first-generation students that bridge academia back to their communities.
“I am a first-generation student. That is hard because I didn’t have a role model to show me how hard college is, especially with having a family,” Eagle said. “But it’s okay because I still am able to work around the hardships, and I feel blessed to be here.”
With first-generation students in mind, the Honors College here at UW has made great efforts to recognize the group and create networking opportunities for them. However, it pales in comparison to the FGLI program at Yale.
Not only does Yale recognize some of their students as First-Gen, but that a vast majority of them come from low-income backgrounds. Combining this dual perspective, the FGLI strives to give students who feel alone and underrepresented an organization to identify with and start to build critical relationships for the college experience.
This is something a lot of non-traditional students miss out on because of the varying circumstances in which they enter their college careers.
Outside of the Honors College, I myself as a non-traditional (first-generation and as someone financially responsible for a dependent) have not seen any outreach efforts by the university.
The university should take into consideration the establishment of a First-Generation student organization or something similar to the Rural Student Alliance at Yale to create better connections for first-generation, non-traditional, and even low-income or rural originating students.
