During the season of thankfulness and generosity, the Birmingham-Southern community will renew their dedication to first-generation students.

Zion Thomas is a first-year student from Tuscaloosa.

This year’s Giving Tuesday celebration on December 1 marks a global movement of giving, and the BSC Young Alumni Council is leading the effort to fund a four-year scholarship for a first-generation student in the Class of 2025. Last year, the Council raised $32,006 for the same scholarship, which was awarded to Zion Thomas.

Thomas is one of 60 first-year BSC students who will be the first in their families to graduate college. These students join a community of more than 200 first-gen students on campus. As this number grows, the College has established more resources and support for these students.

“Being first-gen in 2014 was different than it is today in 2020. Most colleges and universities that I applied to were not investing many resources in first-gens,” says Sam Campbell ’18, a first-gen graduate. “I am grateful for BSC because it was at the forefront of thinking about how to offer a different experience.”

Admission events like Southern Exposure, our orientation weekend for first-gen students, and campus organizations like 1-G guide students during the application process and throughout their academic experience.

“I feel like the education I received at BSC has put me ahead of my classmates in law school,” says Lauren Brasher ’18, another first-gen graduate and member of the Young Alumni Council.  “I began law school with a solid foundation of how to write academic papers and had hands-on law experience.”

Lauren Brasher is completing her third year at Cumberland Law School and serves as the executive editor of the Cumberland Law Review.

Brasher spent one E-Term interning with Judge Teresa Pulliam – an experience that helped her confirm her longtime dream to become an attorney. As an intern, she was able to see law in action, do research, and sit in the courtroom during trials and motion dockets, and it’s become one of the most valuable parts of her education.

Due to increased financial uncertainty as a result of COVID-19, many first-gen students across the country are putting off college this year. That’s why the BSC community’s support on Giving Tuesday is more important now than ever.

The scholarship and day of giving will both support one future student and celebrate Campbell, Brasher, and the many other first-gen graduates and students who pursued their academic goals and found their community on the Hilltop.

“Birmingham-Southern provided me a place where I could learn, grow, explore, and succeed,” Campbell says. “It connected me with faculty members who were available, accessible, and helped me thrive in the classroom and beyond. It introduced me to friends who supported me and helped me learn more about myself and the world around me.”

Join the Giving Tuesday celebration at bsc.edu/givingtuesday.