What It Really Means to Serve First-Gen Students at Scale with Rhonda Longworth at EMU

What if higher education stopped obsessing over where students start and focused instead on where they’re actually supposed to finish?

In this episode of The VineDown, Emily sits down with Rhonda Longworth, Provost and Executive Vice President at Eastern Michigan University, for one of the most grounded, human, and quietly radical conversations we’ve had this season.

Rhonda has spent nearly 30 years at EMU: first as faculty, now as the academic leader responsible for both Academic and Student Affairs. She brings a rare combination of institutional memory, lived first-generation experience, and clear-eyed leadership to a moment when higher ed feels pulled in a hundred directions at once.

In this conversation, we explore:

• Why outputs matter more than inputs when it comes to equity and student success
• How to design academic programs around future outcomes
• What makes a truly effective academic advisory board and who needs to be in the room
• Why elite performers increase support as they advance, instead of removing it
• How being a first-gen student shaped Rhonda’s leadership and what people miss when they say “just wait for the check”
• What it means to represent an entire institution (not just yourself) as a provost
• Why public universities still matter deeply and how disagreement can remain healthy
• How to “make the implicit explicit” for students navigating spaces they’ve never been taught to enter

This episode is for anyone working in higher education who feels the tension between access and rigor… innovation and mission… speed and care.

It’s honest. It’s practical. And it might change how you think about student success altogether.

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