Hamilton College on Re-Centering Success and Opening Doors for First-Gen Students

Aaron Ray, Director of Opportunity Programs at Hamilton College and President of the Higher Education Opportunity Program Professional Organization (HEOPPO), shared his perspectives on navigating Gen Z’s shifting expectations during an exclusive panel webinar with Kaplan. Key takeaways focus on the importance of transparency, the value in articulating how your experiences shape your narrative, and equipping students with resources to open doors to their career. The following excerpts are taken from the interview.

Share with us a high-level overview of Hamilton College along with a quick take on what most excites you right now in the higher education field.

Aaron Ray: I am the Director of Opportunity Programs at Hamilton College, which is located in Clinton, New York. We’re a small liberal arts school, just under 2,000 students. We’re known for our open curriculum and as a school that really prepares students to be strong written and oral communicators.

Something I’m really excited for is that we have a relatively new president who is engaging the entire campus in our strategic planning through the strategy of aspirational design. It has brought people from all different parts of campus, from academic affairs and facilities, to advancement and student life, to look at what are the challenges that our institution’s facing moving forward. What is this next batch of students, Gen Z and Gen Alpha, looking for? It’s been really cool to get to work on that with people that I don’t get to work with very often in my day job.

How is Gen Z behavior different from millennials and Gen X?

Aaron Ray: Gen Z students seek authenticity and transparency. They don’t want someone to tell them what they want to hear. They want someone who’s going to give it to them real, and they want to know why things are the way they are. Why do things work this way at our institution? At the end of the day, they want to make sure that anything they’re committing time and energy to is worth it for them and they want to make sure that those things are aligned.

For example, when we see that perhaps student attendance at a campus program isn’t what we saw in previous years, maybe that program doesn’t align with what is important to students. They are more focused on making sure something is worth their time before they give their energy.

Mental health and well-being is hopefully a focus for every generation right now, but it’s definitely something that Gen Z is focused on. But it’s more than thinking “I need therapy.” They’re seeking mental health well-being across the spectrum. I see it most often when they refuse to do certain things, and they are looking at protecting their mental health and not exerting themselves on things that aren’t mission-aligned for them.

I’m also seeing that they’re willing to engage in new pathways, they’re willing to try things that they haven’t tried before, and they’re also willing to leverage digital spaces.

How can universities adapt to Gen Z’s need for practical career-focused education?

Aaron Ray: At Hamilton, we have an open curriculum, so when students come in, they have a blank canvas. They can paint it any way they want, but that oftentimes leaves them with little structure on how to get to where they want to be. So at Hamilton, we have the ALEX Initiative, which stands for Advise, Learn, and Experience, and is a take on our founding trustee, Alexander Hamilton. Advising is set up early in their college experience, and it’s about helping students take all their different courses, different programs, the clubs they take leadership roles in, the study abroad opportunities, and help them figure out their narrative. That way, as they’re growing and utilizing the Career Center, networking with alumni, and doing internships, they understand their narrative and use that as they’re applying for jobs or fellowships. We’re very big about the narrative at Hamilton and helping students to reflect, to help them learn more about themselves.

A core focus of Gen Z is prioritizing mental health. How is Hamilton College addressing this need whether through programming or changing the way that administration and faculty think about supporting students in general?

Aaron Ray: I appreciate that Gen Z has challenged us to reimagine how we define wellness and success. Beyond the counseling center, we had to come up with other systems to make sure that we were meeting needs. We are partnering with services like BetterMynd and Mantra. We have therapy dogs on campus every other week. And we’re focused on finding other ways to really create a community of care, so it’s not just on the counseling center to support all 2,000 students.

At Hamilton this year, we have a focus on “fail better.” It is destigmatizing when things go wrong and helps students to understand that everyone who’s at this institution didn’t get here from being perfect. We had a panel earlier this semester with our campus president and faculty members, and it was an authentic conversation showing students that it’s actually OK to mess up. Different people have access to failure in different ways but helping students to understand that during your four years at Hamilton College, you can make mistakes, you can try difficult courses, even if it’s not going to allow you to have the perfect GPA. We’re trying to help students re-center what success actually means to them.

Hamilton College offers eligible students free test prep through Kaplan’s All Access License®. What are students saying about the impact this has on their lives?

For context, Kaplan’s All Access License is an umbrella program where institutions have the opportunity to offer students free access to industry-leading test preparation for graduate admissions exams, licensure, credentials as well as workforce development courses all for one flat fee. With zero out-of-pocket costs to students, this solution removes cost barriers and unlocks new opportunities as they take high-stakes exams such as for the MCAT®, LSAT®, or GMAT™ or career readiness programs such as Critical Thinking or Confident New Hire, among others. Hamilton College offers this program to their CSTEP and HEOP students.

Aaron Ray: I work primarily with first-generation students and students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds. Even for my students who are just coming in and are years away from taking the LSAT or the MCAT, just knowing that they have access to this prep is a game changer.

The program is opening doors for them that they didn’t necessarily think about for themselves because they haven’t had access in the past. For students from nontraditional backgrounds or who aren’t used to having access to things, it changes their whole demeanor when they think about their future. For example, they now have the opportunity to say “I want to become a lawyer” because now they know they can be prepared to go on to law school. It also helps having seniors who have taken the LSAT prep and the MCAT prep who are hyping it up to our younger students. I’m excited to see the impact over the next couple of years as well.

Open doors to your students’ success with the comprehensive test prep and career-readiness tools in Kaplan’s All Access License.