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First-generation college students are photographed outside the bookstore on the campus of Utah Valley University in Orem on Friday, Nov. 8, 2019.

Courtesy Erik Flores, UVU Marketing

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First-generation students are encouraged to leave their mark on sticky notes for the First Gen bulletin board at Utah Valley University.

Courtesy UVU Marketing

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Wednesday was the National First-Generation College Celebration, also known as First-Gen Day, a time to give kudos and pats on the back to students who are the first in their families to seek higher education.

Utah Valley University marked the day by announcing a fundraising milestone and acknowledging the thousands of Utahns who have been the first in their families to attend college.

According to university records, nearly one-third of UVU students (9,933 this year) are first-generation. Over the past five years, UVU has awarded diplomas or certificates to 17,303 first-generation students.

When President Astrid S. Tuminez arrived at UVU five years ago, she launched a campaign to raise $15 million by 2023 to support scholarships and programs for first-generation students, including UVU’s First-generation Completion Initiative. On Wednesday, the university announced that it had completed that goal.

“At UVU, we believe in human potential, and we have a legacy of welcoming and embracing first-gen students,” Tuminez, a first-generation student herself, said in a news release. “We know that a college education will benefit these students economically but also make them healthier, happier, more engaged members of our community.”

According to Kyle Reyes, vice president of Institutional Advancement and CEO of the UVU Foundation, the first-generation campaign received a big lift by four donors who each contributed $1 million — Blake and Sandy Modersitzki, Brian and Louise Murphy, Dan and Peggy Campbell, and a fourth donor who requested anonymity. While the monetary target has been met, Reyes said UVU will continue raising funds for first-generation students.

“I want to thank all of our donors and the first-generation board members who have worked tirelessly on this campaign,” Reyes said in the release.

“We felt it could have tremendous impact on the lives of these deserving students,” Brian and Louise Murphy told UVU, explaining why their family chose to support the first-generation campaign. “Building a family tradition of education transforms the lives of not only these individuals but their families and generations to come.”

Highlighting what Tuminez called first-gen students’ “stories of pure grit, determination and courage” is Holli Saperstein, who 30 years ago was a single mother of four young children in American Fork, a GED representing the extent of her education to that point.

According to the release, Saperstein one day drove past Utah Valley State College, now UVU, and realized she wanted a different future for her family — one that didn’t include subsisting on government assistance programs. “I have to figure out how to get back to school,” she recalls telling herself.

After meeting with an advisor, she enrolled at the college, paying for the first semester’s tuition by selling her living room furniture. “It was tough,” Saperstein said, but she stuck with it and later was awarded a Presidential Scholarship and completed her associate degree in less than three years.

“(College) really changed my life,” Saperstein said. She later earned a bachelor’s degree and a Master of Business Administration at other universities. Her career has included stints at three Fortune 500 companies and a role at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. She is now the executive director of a nonprofit in Wilmington, North Carolina, and is a working actress whose credits include the TV show “Stranger Things.”

Her decision to attend college has resulted in a “big change in our trajectory as a family,” she told the university, with three of her children graduating from college and the fourth finishing a degree. Additionally, her two oldest grandsons are enrolled in college, and all of her younger siblings, inspired by her example, went to college, according to the release.

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