Webinar: Navigating Publishing and Academia as a FirstGen Scholar
University of California Press launched our FirstGen Scholars Program to support first-generation scholars — those who are the first in their family to receive a college degree— through the book publishing process. Yet book publishing is just one of many important benchmarks in an academic’s career. For first-generation scholars who have not inherited the knowledge of higher ed’s roadmaps and resources, the pathway to landing a job, getting tenure, or securing a promotion can be mystifying and daunting.
Please join us for a UC Press-sponsored webinar that brings together authors from our FirstGen Program with publishing professionals to discuss common challenges facing first-gen scholars, practical advice for beginning the book publication process, insights from lived experience and strategies for navigating academia and your larger career goals.
Navigating Publishing and Academia as a FirstGen Scholar
March 18, 2026, 11am-12:30pm PST
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Topics will include: finding allies and building community; creating a writing practice; balancing the personal and professional; the role of the book in tenure and promotion; strategies for moving from dissertation to book; building an author platform; working with a publisher; embracing your unique perspectives.
Panelists
- Michelle Lipinski, Senior Editor, University of California Press
- Teresa Iafolla, Marketing Manager, University of California Press
- Nic John Ramos, Assistant Professor of American Studies at University of Texas at Austin and author of Health as Property: Racial Capitalism and Sexual Liberalism in Los Angeles (2025)
- Michaela Soyer, Associate Professor of Sociology at Hunter College and author of The Price of Freedom: Criminalization and the Management of Outsiders in Germany and the United States (2023), Lost Childhoods: Poverty, Trauma, and Violent Crime in the Post-Welfare Era (2018) and A Dream Denied: Incarceration, Recidivism, and Young Minority Men in America (2016).
Moderator
Raina Polivka, Senior Editor and FirstGen Program Lead Coordinator
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The FirstGen Program is supported by the UC Press Foundation.