Sixteen students make up this year’s class of inductees into the College of Saint Benedict and Saint John’s University chapter of Tri-Alpha, the national honor society for first-generation college students.
The chapter held its third-annual induction ceremony April 6 in Quad 264 on the SJU campus.
Inductees must be a first-generation student (under CSB and SJU definition, any student who whose parents or guardians have not completed a four-year degree in the U.S.) and have earned at least 30 credits/semester hours. They also must maintain a GPA of at least 3.2 on a 4.0 scale.
This year’s group of inductees was as follows:
- Jennell Rodriguez, sophomore
- Emely Arias, first year
- Da’sha Gray, junior
- Emely Lazaro, first year
- Xiani Gizelle, first year
- Canaan Cooper, senior
- Madeline Vargas, junior
- Alexa DeLeon, junior
- Yasmin Valero, senior
- Christopher Nguyễn, senior
- Diana Rodriguez, sophomore
- Kennae Mortimer, senior
- Ava Brown, junior
- Roselyn Meza, senior
- Jackeine Chavez, senior
- Ava Rech, sophomore
“When you’re the first member of your family to attend college, there are little pieces of that journey that are unique and require a little bit more resilience,” said Malik Stewart, director of the multicultural center at CSB and SJU.
“But that can be invisible to many people, and this is a way of spotlighting those students’ achievements.”
The featured speaker at this year’s ceremony was Briana Garcia-Saldana ’21, a CSB alum who majored in psychology before going on to graduate from the Master of Social Work program at St. Mary’s University.
She is now a dedicated school social worker providing mental health support in St. Paul.
“One of the biggest things I took away from her speech was a message of resilience and perseverance,” said Rodriguez, a sophomore at CSB who is majoring in political science with minors in Hispanic studies and psychology.
“She brought up hardship and turbulence you may experience in your life and about how that makes you grow and provides you with perspective. She really got me when she talked about thinking back to your six-year-old self and what he or she would think about you now. That resonated because if you had told me when I was six that I’d be at college being inducted into an honor society, and that one day I’ll walk across the stage at graduation with a cord, I’d have laughed. It just didn’t seem possible.”
Rodriguez said becoming part of Tri-Alpha makes her feel like the hard work she has put in to succeed academically has been noticed.
“I wasn’t born with a silver spoon in my mouth, but a ceremony like this shows it doesn’t matter where you come from,” she said. “It’s what you do with the opportunities you’re given.”