Photograph by Harvard Magazine/JC
Among other findings, Harvard’s 2019 “pulse survey,” the foundation for much of the University’s current work on diversity and inclusion, revealed pronounced gaps between first-generation students and almost every other cohort in their degree of comfort within the community. In response to the baseline prompt, “I feel like I belong at Harvard,” just 59 percent of students whose parents had a middle-school education or less agreed; the figure was just 68 percent among those whose parents had high-school degrees. In contrast, among students, faculty, and staff members as a whole, 77 percent agreed—including 74 percent of students (see https://pulse.harvard.edu/results).