Erica White, former coordinator of TRIO (Student Support Services Program) has been promoted to the role of Director this semester. She hopes to bring inclusion and higher academic knowledge to first-generation college students.
White, a Mobile native, is a first-generation student herself. She went to the University of South Alabama for her Bachelor of Arts in Sociology. During the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, she decided to receive higher education and received her Masters in Education. “My daughter inspired me to go back to school to learn to connect with young people and teach them the importance of getting higher education”, she stated. Admiring Spring Hill College’s close-knit community, she felt as though she could make a difference here on the Hill. In August of 2022, she officially joined the Spring Hill community.
Senior Colin Beddingfield, who works by White’s side as an assistant, is a senior on campus but only last year found TRIO. “As a freshman TRIO wasn’t really a program here. Around my sophomore year, it became a thing but no one really knew about TRIO or what it was and what the benefits were. But, since the new administration of TRIO with Erica being the director, she really made it a mission of hers for people to understand and get to know TRIO better as a beneficial program.” Beddingfield stated.
TRIO Programs were the first national college access and retention programs to address the social and cultural barriers to education in America. The three original TRIO programs were Upward Bound (created in 1964), Educational Talent Search (1965), and Student Support Services (1968). These three programs provided the umbrella term ‘TRIO.” There are now eight TRIO programs.
White ends with the final statement “I want to create more footprints for first-gen students at Spring Hill who haven’t had the opportunities to have higher education growing up and add more diversity plus inclusion on campus, with the new era of students joining the Hill, I want them to feel comfortable enough to feel excited to learn new information and become young leaders.”
TRIO is located on the first floor of LAC directly behind the chapel.
For information email TRIO at [email protected] or call the office at 251-380-3470
