Our Story

A dorm-room question became a national community.

EdMobilizer began when first-generation students at Brown compared the college they had entered with the one they had been equipped to navigate. The gap was familiar. Their response would become 1vyG.

1vyG created a national convening. EdMobilizer carried its organizing model into advocacy and professional access.

Panelists laughing together at a 1vyG conference at Princeton — 1vyG at Princeton University

The idea underneath the work

Students were never the deficit. The missing infrastructure was.

Admission opened the gate; it did not supply the map. The first organizers built the room they needed—one where students could name the unwritten rules, exchange practical knowledge, and turn individual experience into collective action.

A decade, carried by students

The work changed form without losing its purpose.

New hosts adapted the convening. Cross-campus coalitions took on barriers beyond the conference room. Each chapter made the next one possible.

012014
The question takes shape at Brown
Jessica Brown, Manuel Contreras, and Stanley Stewart began comparing the unwritten rules they were navigating as first-generation students. A Brown Social Innovation Fellowship gave them the backing to turn those conversations into 1vyG.
Brown University
022015
1vyG opens a national room
Hundreds of students came to Brown for the inaugural summit. The conversation soon reached the White House, where co-founder Manuel Contreras joined First Lady Michelle Obama and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan to discuss the transition to college.
Brown University
032016
Harvard turns one summit into a national model
More than 350 students, administrators, and alumni met at Harvard, bringing first-generation identity into a wider conversation about campus life, belonging, and institutional responsibility.
The Harvard Crimson
042017
Yale turns exchange toward action
Yale welcomed 340 students from 18 institutions and more than 50 speakers, with a program designed to send participants home with ideas they could use. Later that year, 1vyG expanded into EdMobilizer and added policy work to the convening model.
Brown Daily Herald
052018
Penn connects campus life to systems change
At Penn, participants from 22 institutions paired practical questions about college life with a broader access agenda. Full Disclosure then connected student groups across 12 colleges to press for transparency in legacy admissions.
Penn Today
062019
Princeton asks what comes after belonging
More than 300 students from 34 institutions explored how first-generation and lower-income experience could inform leadership and change beyond the conference. A Southern regional summit at Duke widened the network that same year.
Princeton University
072020
Cornell strengthens the cross-campus network
Cornell brought together more than 240 students and 50 administrators from 25 institutions around a simple promise: being first should not mean navigating alone. EdMobilizer also introduced Next Frontier to extend that network into professional life.
Cornell Chronicle
082021
The coalition turns to legacy admissions
EdMobilizer and Education Reform Now launched Leave Your Legacy, giving students and alumni a coordinated way to challenge inherited advantage in college admissions.
Education Reform Now
092023
Penn reopens the national room
More than 100 students and administrators from 32 schools returned to an in-person 1vyG at Penn, with a program that examined how campuses define—and sometimes constrain—the FGLI experience.
Penn Today
102024
The idea comes home to Brown
More than 150 students and administrators from 29 colleges returned to the campus where 1vyG began, placing the founding idea in the hands of a new generation.
Brown University