Thus, the senior experience is by no means solely or primarily a set of academic initiatives and experiences. The senior experience refers to the total experience of seniors inside and outside the classroom, as provided by the faculty, student affairs officers, academic administrators, and seniors themselves. The senior experience focuses on efforts to help seniors make meaning of the senior experience, bringing closure, connectedness, integration, and reflection to the diverse set of activities they have experienced as undergraduates. The senior experience also involves a last concluding effort on the part of the institution to help students graduate with the kinds of skills they will need to be successful in the work force or in graduate school in the immediate or long term future. Preface, John N. Gardner and Gretchen Van der Veer.
Seniors are a captive audience.
Seniors have high expectations. Seniors have special needs unique to them as students in transition. Seniors are our last chance 5. Seniors will soon be our alumni 6. Further response is needed to repeated calls to reform the undergraduate experience and to examine the purposes of higher education.