A student walked into Jaclyn Rodriguez’s office in Mitchell Hall, shivering in a short-sleeve polo, rainwater pooling at his feet. It was the kind of cold that turns even a short walk to class into a challenge. He wasn’t there for an appointment.
He was just cold.
Minutes later, he walked back into the freezing rain warmer than he arrived, a new coat zipped to his chin. The coat came from the Tigers Care Initiative, a program launched by Rodriguez — director of the Office of First-Generation Student Success at the University of Memphis — and her staff to support students in immediate need.
Housed in Mitchell Hall, 405, Tigers Care was created to meet students’ physical needs before they become academic ones. For Rodriguez, that work is equal parts instinct and administration.
“If somebody saw my son walking around without a coat, I’d want them to stop and make sure he was OK,” Rodriguez said.
Those instincts shape how she approaches her work with students.
“You always think before you have children, there’s a limit to how much you can love,” she said, “But once you have children, you realize there is no limit.”
In an increasingly harsh Memphis winter, the office views a coat as more than clothing — it’s a warm hug, a silent tell that someone is invested in student success.
Through resources like the Career Closet and emergency coat drives, Tigers Care aims to ensure students make it to class. Small inconveniences, staff members say, can quickly snowball into larger barriers when basic needs go unmet.
“They won’t go to class,” said Nicole Taylor Tartt, the First Scholars program manager and a former first-generation college student. “If it’s super cold and super rainy, are you going to go to class? No.”
The initiative demonstrates how meeting basic needs helps students stay focused in class, connected on campus and involved in their community. Tigers Care has expanded both its coat selection and its volunteer base — including students who once picked a coat from the rack themselves.
“I actually got a coat from here,” said Isabela Nolasco, a junior who smiled ear-to-ear while showing off her Calvin Klein jacket. “I never really had a coat.”
Now, she stands on the other side of the rack.
Nolasco once walked into the same office looking for warmth. Now, as a volunteer, she provides guidance and reassurance to questions she once asked. It’s gratifying when a student settles on the choice she suggested — the same feeling she remembers when she zipped up a coat of her own.
“It just feels nice to help people who are in those same types of situations as me,” she said.
While helping others, Nolasco understands the hesitation that can come with asking for help — uncertainty, embarrassment and shame. She’s been there, and that shared experience makes the interaction feel less like charity and more like someone walking alongside them.
For Rodriguez, she works to remove that barrier by openly discussing her own struggles as a University of Memphis student more than two decades ago.
“We take the shame out of it by being very vulnerable ourselves,” she said. “Come learn how to ask for help. That’s the most important lesson we can teach.”
The Office of First-Generation Student Success addresses issues that follow students year-round. For a growing number of international students, unspoken expectations and cultural norms aren’t always obvious.
According to student volunteers, many visitors to the Career Closet and coat drives don’t know what business casual means, don’t own a suit and don’t know how to tie a tie. Guidance from the office — and fashion advice from its Gen Z volunteers — prepares students to enter rooms where they may already feel out of place, extending far beyond winter relief.
“I’m everybody’s mama in my mind. Whoever needs me, I’m here,” Rodriguez said.
Upwards of a dozen students may walk into the office each day seeking a new coat — a demand supplied solely through donations. At its peak, the office received multiple carloads of coats in a day, all wheeled up to the fourth floor by student volunteers.
By the end of each workday, the coat racks in Mitchell Hall thin out as quickly as they’re refilled.
Students arrive without appointments and leave with one less worry — to class, to study, to work, to whatever comes next.
No deal is made. No names are taken. Just a coat exchanged and one more barrier removed.
Those interested in donating to the Tigers Care Initiative can contact the Office of First-Generation Student Success at jpsavell@memphis.edu.
