Family First

Amethyst Hurt squeezes Biscuit, a droopy-eared dachshund, against her chest, then scoops up Pugzey, the family shih tzu.

She’s near tears again.

Outside, her purple pickup truck waits on the front lawn, packed to the brim with college supplies.

Dad videotapes Amethyst as she lingers on the front porch, not quite ready to leave.

Then, a caravan of cars revs up in the driveway, ready to make the 25-minute drive from Rustburg to Lynchburg College, where Amethyst will be a freshman. An entourage of family members — Mom, Dad, brother, aunt, uncle and cousins — will help her move into the dorm.

“Who’s going first, ’cause I don’t know how to get there,” Amethyst asks her mother, Deborah, as she climbs into her truck.

“To where?” Mom says.

“College!” Amethyst says.

---

Amethyst, 17, joins a class of 580 freshmen who moved into dormitories at Lynchburg College last weekend, a scene that played out at college campuses across the country.

The moment was especially poignant for the Hurts.

Amethyst is the first in her family to go to college.

Amethyst joins approximately 600 other “first-generation college students” at Lynchburg College that together comprise about 25 to 30 percent of the student body, said Mari Normyle, LC’s assistant dean of academic and career services.

This year, Lynchburg College is expanding its support network for firstgeneration students with the help of a $100,000 award from the Walmart Foundation.

In the spring, LC will launch “Expand Your Horizons,” a two-year program for 120 first-generation college students that includes a retreat at the Claytor Nature Study Center, peer mentoring and special courses to help the students develop a four-year plan.

Participating students will qualify for a $750 grant for travel, research, internships, study abroad or other types of experiential learning activities.

Randolph College and Sweet Briar College draw a significant number of first-generation students, too — about 15 and 25 percent of their undergraduate enrollment, respectively. Each also offers support services for the students, although they do not have programs similar to what Lynchburg College has started.

Lynchburg College began reaching out to first-generation students in 2008, when the school invited them to join an early orientation program that was originally developed for ethnic minorities. One reason, Normyle said, is a growing awareness of what is at stake for these students.

“If a person in their family is the first to go to college and they earn a college degree, it changes the family future forever,” Normyle said. “New opportunities are created for that person and subsequent generations.”

---

Homer Davis is working two jobs to put his son Austin, and two other children, through college. This month, Austin headed off to Lynchburg College. “It’s stressful … Working 16 hours a day is what it amounts to,” said Homer, who works as a quality analyst at R.R.

Donnelley and runs a oneman lawn care service.

“That was my goal, to provide kids with education we didn’t get. So far it’s working. It’s not easy but it’s working.”

Growing up in Amherst County, Homer was one of five children. His family did not have the money for college nor did he give much thought to enrolling.

At age 17, Homer married his high school sweetheart, Donna. The couple celebrated their 30th anniversary this summer.

“I could have gone to college,” said Donna, now a personal trainer and fitness specialist at the YMCA. “I was an honors student in high school. It was just a choice I made.” Austin is considering a major in business or sports management. He’s not sure yet.

“I want to go in with an open mind,” he said the week before classes started.

Austin worked diligently at the neighborhood pool this summer, as a lifeguard and a swim coach, saving spending money for freshman year.

He was never a straight-A student at E.C.

Glass High School, but he was persistent and worked hard. The week before classes start, his feelings were mixed.

“I’m not really nervous at all. I’m confident around older people,” he said. “The classes, I’m a little worried about.” “You should be,” Homer said.

---

In the Hurt household, grades always came first.

Amethyst, an accomplished athlete at Rustburg High School, knew her parents would pull her off the cheerleading or lacrosse teams if her grades slipped. So she studied hard (most of the time).

“We’ve always stressed the grades. You’re not going to play unless you have good grades,” said her father, Tom Hurt.

Though Tom and Deborah carved out careers with their high school educations, they believe it’s much harder to do so nowadays.

“The standard has gone way up,” said Tom, a sales support assistant manager at Automated Conveyer Systems in Forest. “I remember guys who went to work and didn’t even finish high school and were successful. I think that would be pretty difficult now.”

Amethyst knows exactly what she wants to study at Lynchburg College: elementary education. She loves working with children and ruled out veterinary school years ago, when her childhood cat died.

A self-described “homebody,” Amethyst also planned on commuting from her parents’ home in Rustburg. Her parents closed the door on that option when they paid her housing deposit. They said she’d be better off experiencing college life.

“We can only talk through other people’s experiences as to why you’d want your child to be on campus,” Tom said. “All this stuff is brand new.”

---

Like any “category” of student — be it ethnic minorities, women or athletes — it’s hard to generalize about first-generation college student, Normyle said. “One of the things we’re learning is that firstgeneration students are not a homogenous group,” Normyle said. “As we’re learning more, we’re developing more nuanced responses to their needs.”

However, first-generation students tend to share a few common denominators.

For one, they cannot draw on their parents’ experiences for help navigating the college search and registration process, which can be daunting for the savviest of students.

For families that know the ropes, it’s a given that college students must purchase their textbooks, which can run upwards of $500 a semester for a full class load. But for firstgeneration students, this can come as an unpleasant surprise. “Sometimes they can’t afford all of their books,” said an LC graduate student who mentors firstgeneration students. “They try to share books with some of their friends or may try to get through class without having a book, which is pretty difficult.”

First-generation students also tend to gravitate toward pre-professional majors such as education and nursing, rather than liberal arts subjects like English or political science, which can also lead to rewarding careers, Normyle said.

“We try to help them to understand the wide range of possibilities that might be open to them so they don’t narrow their options too soon,” Normyle said.

---

Amethyst is mostly upbeat after her first week of classes at Lynchburg College. She said she loves her roommate but has not yet adjusted to the rhythm of college life. The homesickness has set in, and she made several trips to Rustburg to visit her family.

Amethyst’s dachshund, Biscuit, spent the week mourning her departure.

For years, Biscuit would curl up in Amethyst’s bed at night. Now he roams the house, whining for Amethyst, Deborah Hurt said.

Her parents miss her, too.

“I’m happy for her, but I’m anxious. I’m not used to her not at home,” Tom said.

Across campus, Austin has settled into his dorm and is excited about the semester.

“I can tell that it’s going to be fun but I can also see that it’s going to be work,” he said.

Meanwhile, his parents underestimated how hard it would be to let go, even though campus is just a few miles away.

“We were completelyblindsided,” Donna Davis said. “It just happened so fast, and we had totally underestimated all of it … When all the dust settles, you know, you’re like, ‘Whoa, what happened, he’s gone.’” While his mother resists the urge to drop off homemade brownies at his dorm, Austin finds himself wrapped up in his new life as a college student.

“I haven’t been home for more than five minutes,” he said.