The University of California defines a first-generation college student as “a student where neither parent nor guardian have earned a four-year college degree.” At UC Irvine, Institutional Research, Assessment, and Planning updated its student head count data on Oct. 24 to include fall of 2025, and according to the enrollment dashboard, 11,104 out of 30,260 (36.7 percent) undergraduates have first-generation status. The latest four-year graduation rate for first-gen students at UC Irvine is 72.8 percent, and the six-year graduation rate is 83.8 percent.
We’re shining the spotlight on first-gen students in this episode of The UC Irvine Podcast. Our guest is Scott Lerner, a lecturer in the School of Humanities’ composition program. Once a first-gen student himself, he commits extensive time and energy to that population on campus, teaching classes with their experiences as the primary theme and helping lead initiatives to increase first-gen visibility. These efforts include a freshman seminar exploring the hidden curriculum and a website of resources and contacts. Lerner shares stories of tribulation and triumph from his first-gen journey, explains how he structures courses to help students tell their own tales, and muses about changes that could further enhance everyone’s capabilities to succeed.
“Brave,” the music for this episode, was provided by Mark Karan, Scott Guberman, Angeline Saris and Jeremy Hoenig, via the audio library in YouTube Studio.
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The University of California defines a first-generation college student as “a student where neither parent nor guardian have earned a four-year college degree.” At UC Irvine, Institutional Research, Assessment, and Planning updated its student head count data on Oct. 24 to include fall of 2025, and according to the enrollment dashboard, 11,104 out of 30,260 (36.7 percent) undergraduates have first-generation status. The latest four-year graduation rate for first-gen students at UC Irvine is 72.8 percent, and the six-year graduation rate is 83.8 percent.
We’re shining the spotlight on first-gen students in this episode of The UC Irvine Podcast. Our guest is Scott Lerner, a lecturer in the School of Humanities’ composition program. Once a first-gen student himself, he commits extensive time and energy to that population on campus, teaching classes with their experiences as the primary theme and helping lead initiatives to increase first-gen visibility. These efforts include a freshman seminar exploring the hidden curriculum and a website of resources and contacts. Lerner shares stories of tribulation and triumph from his first-gen journey, explains how he structures courses to help students tell their own tales, and muses about changes that could further enhance everyone’s capabilities to succeed.
“Brave,” the music for this episode, was provided by Mark Karan, Scott Guberman, Angeline Saris and Jeremy Hoenig, via the audio library in YouTube Studio.
Every June, the United States celebrates Pride Month, commemorating the 1969 uprising at the Stonewall Inn that inspired a global movement toward LGBTQ+ equality. The rich history of gay bars leading up to and since the Stonewall Riots is thoroughly explored in "The Bars Are Ours: Histories and Cultures of Gay Bars in America, 1960 and After," written by Lucas Hilderbrand, UC Irvine professor and chair of film and media studies.
The combination of a dearth of books investigating the history of gay bars and the closure of many gay bars around the nation catalyzed Hilderbrand’s motivation to tackle what he calls an “ambitious project” to “look at the role of gay bars in shaping community politics, subcultures and the ways in which we imagine what queer public life could be in the United States.”
In this episode of The UCI Podcast, Hilderbrand shares how bars are powerful community cornerstones; what he learned on his extensive research journey examining archival accounts in all corners of the U.S.; and why he chose to inform this unique history with anecdotes, stories and even musical references. Playlists to accompany the book can be found on both YouTube and Spotify.
The music for this episode, titled “The Gentlemen,” was provided by DivKid via the audio library in YouTube Studio.
The UC Irvine Podcast
The University of California defines a first-generation college student as “a student where neither parent nor guardian have earned a four-year college degree.” At UC Irvine, Institutional Research, Assessment, and Planning updated its student head count data on Oct. 24 to include fall of 2025, and according to the enrollment dashboard, 11,104 out of 30,260 (36.7 percent) undergraduates have first-generation status. The latest four-year graduation rate for first-gen students at UC Irvine is 72.8 percent, and the six-year graduation rate is 83.8 percent.
We’re shining the spotlight on first-gen students in this episode of The UC Irvine Podcast. Our guest is Scott Lerner, a lecturer in the School of Humanities’ composition program. Once a first-gen student himself, he commits extensive time and energy to that population on campus, teaching classes with their experiences as the primary theme and helping lead initiatives to increase first-gen visibility. These efforts include a freshman seminar exploring the hidden curriculum and a website of resources and contacts. Lerner shares stories of tribulation and triumph from his first-gen journey, explains how he structures courses to help students tell their own tales, and muses about changes that could further enhance everyone’s capabilities to succeed.
“Brave,” the music for this episode, was provided by Mark Karan, Scott Guberman, Angeline Saris and Jeremy Hoenig, via the audio library in YouTube Studio.
