Economics major Brady Hummel ’17 has started a new podcast documenting the stories of first-generation college students at Dickinson.  “1st Up” is Hummel’s first podcast featuring Robert Hill ’17, one of the founders of the TrendSetters Initiative, an organization that mentors first generation students.

Hummel and Hill are both members of the Scroll and Key Society, informally known as the Grey Hats. Hummel said that after meeting Hill through the group, he became interested in Hill’s story and the realities of being a first-generation college student.

“It’s not that I never thought of first-generation college students, but it was never on my radar. It was so different from my own experience,” Hummel stated.

Hummel was especially interested in Hill, who founded the TrendSetters Initiative.

“[TrendSetters Initiative is] Dickinson’s first student-run initiative for the benefit of first-generation college students to have an inclusive space not only to build community, but also [to have] academic and social support,” said Hill. Hummel describes Hill’s work as “…seeing a need and filling a need, which is very Dickinsonian.”

The first episode covers topics such as the journey to college for first-generation students, feelings of alienation and the frustrations of dealing with administration.

“I have already been talking about the ways the institution has neglected us as a minority group and the terms they use to define us,” says Hill, during the podcast. He says he feels that first-generation students come to college feeling neglected, and that it is important to show support to these students. “I just want the administration to be aware of how necessary it is to have [TrendSetters]. We have had nothing that is continuous and gave substantial assistance to first-generation students as long as I have been here,” Hill maintained.

“[I] wanted to draw attention to a group that not that many people really think about or talk about…they approach Dickinson very differently than other students, but we expect them to approach college the same way. We should be embracing diversity,” says Hummel about his reasons for starting the project. He chose to present the stories as podcasts because, “I thought it was really important to not color the stories and narratives of the students that I was interviewing… You get a lot of power from hearing someone tell their own story in their own words.”

Multimedia Specialist Brenda Landis helped Hummel with some technological aspects of the project, but he constructed, recorded and edited the podcast on his own.

Hummel intends for the project to focus primarily on the narratives of students, but he has considered including faculty who were first generation students. He hopes these narratives will promote “hearing and accepting difference…understanding that even if someone doesn’t look like you, or come from the same place as you, or doesn’t have the same approach as you, they are equally human and deserve to be at Dickinson… It’s so easy to get wrapped up in our own reality, but there are so many hidden stories at Dickinson that really help us understand what we’re doing here.”

Hummel hopes to produce several more podcasts this semester. To listen to the first episode, visit https://soundcloud.com/1stuppodcast/episode-9252016-rob-hill-17.