Fostering Student Learning and Success through First-Year Programs

Educators with graying hair may recall their first college years as a more Darwinian time. Many tell stories of being asked during their opening collegiate convocation to "look to the left and look to the right" and tiien recall being told by the imposing dean that "one of tiiese two classmates will not be here this time next year," as if tiiat would indicate a job well done by faculty. Thankfully, these stories are largely the stuff of history. Today, faculty and staff at most institutions take seriously their mandate to help first-year students succeed, delivering on an implied moral obligation to both challenge and support those to whom they grant admission. But helping students to succeed can be difficult. What do we know about learning that can help students overcome tiiese difficulties? The Transition to Postsecondary Learning Attention to the first year of college has increased significantly since the early 1980s. The release of Involvement in learning: Realizing the Potential of American Undergraduate Education, a report from the Study Group on the Conditions of Excellence in American I Iigher Education sponsored by the National Institute of Education in 1984, focused attention, perhaps for the first time on a national level, on the first-year experience. It called for increasing student involvement in higher education and it asserted that "college administrators should reallocate faculty and other institutional resources toward increased service to first and second year students. " Many educators interested in the first year applauded this recognition of the importance of the beginning college experience. Since then, countless students have benefited from this increased attention. The first college year is not "grade 13. " Incoming students, whether they come to college from high school or from the world of work, enter a new culture. Consider the college culture through an anthropologists lens. For new students, college presents a foreign set of norms, traditions, and rituals, and a new language and environment. The high school and the college educational cultures are quite different. It is no surprise that student transition is difficult as well. Making the transition from being a high school student to being a successful college student does not happen instantaneously, and it certainly does not occur by simple osmosis. As college educators, we must keep in mind that we chose higher education for our life's work at least in part because we were comfortable in an academic environment. Many of our students today are not. They will not become successful college students simply by "being here. " Student success requires intentional efforts by those of us responsible for the academy. Higher education is not unlike many other large and complex organizational systems. Fortune 500 companies invest significant time and resources into management training for their new employees. All branches of the armed forces have extensive basic training programs to produce competent soldiers. Why should higher education be any different? We also need to effectively assimilate new members into our complex organization. Should we not also provide intentional programs to leach new students how to be effective students and not leave this important transition to serendipity? From Retention to Student Learning and Success Institutions in all sectors of higher education are attempting to increase student success by focusing on student retention. External demands and growing competition among institutions are fueling the retention fire. Institutions know that retention rates are affected by the congruence of institutional mission and student goals, so admissions officers are becoming intentional about communicating with prospective students in their decision-making process. Student involvement and connections to the campus community are factors positively correlated with retention, so institutional initiatives are being created to increase student involvement and enhance feelings of community on campus. …