IV. INTELLECTUAL CLIMATE AND THE FIRST YEAR INITIATIVE
OBJECTIVES
The transition from high school to college during the first year of enrollment shapes the undergraduate's relationship to the intellectual climate at UNC-Chapel Hill. Drawing both on our own experiences and on initiatives underway at other colleges and universities, we propose a three-year pilot project, the "First Year Initiative" (FYI), to model innovations that we hope will invite first-year students into a more intense and satisfying relationship with the intellectual life of the University. Our plan is based on a cohort model and envisions an initial recruitment of 500 students per year, to be housed on designated floors of Hinton James Residence Hall. To guarantee the broadest possible cross-section of participants, entry into the program 3/4 like the current allocation of residential assignments 3/4 will be based on a random selection from among all students who check the FYI option on their residency forms. Participation in FYI will be offered as a voluntary contract between the student and the University. FYI will offer a new commitment to first-year students and expect a similar commitment from students in return.
BACKGROUND
The UNC first-year experience varies greatly from student to student. After a common orientation program, including the three-day summer C-TOPS and a four-day Fall Freshman Orientation of residence area meetings and activities, first-year students filter into diverse social and academic settings. Except for a de facto bunching in South Campus residence halls (due to the seniority principle governing room assignments) and similar concentration in General College introductory courses, first-year students enter into the larger life of the University on their own. There is no special College planning for the first-year experience.
By way of contrast, other colleges and universities in recent years have focused special attention on first-year students. These programs incorporate some or all of three components: summer reading projects tied to orientation programs (e.g., Penn Reading Project; Harvard-Radcliffe Summer Readings); first-year academic seminars (e.g., Lawrence University; Macalaster College; University of California, Berkeley; University of Michigan; University of Pennsylvania); and enrichment programs, both academic and extra-academic, aimed at connecting the classroom and the college residential experience (e.g., Duke University; University of Colorado; University of South Carolina; Emory University).
BARRIERS TO INTELLECTUAL LIFE DURING THE FIRST YEAR
The typical first-year experience at UNC-CH stops short of the introduction to intellectual life that we believe the campus can provide. There are weaknesses in the three interrelated areas: Orientation, Academic Programs, and Residential Life.
1. Orientation Has Insufficient Intellectual Content. Orientation programming (C-TOPS and Fall Orientation) is strong on getting out needed information to students and making them feel comfortable in their new setting, but it is comparatively weak in inducing a taste for academic adventure and the play of ideas.
2. The First-Year Academic Program Is Unchallenging and Impersonal. Because they are often dominated by large, introductory lecture courses, the academic programs of many first-year students are unchallenging academically, particularly with regard to development of expressive and analytical skills, and provide little contact with UNC faculty members.
3. Residential Life Is Divorced from Intellectual Life. University residence halls are a key site for the juncture of the student's intellectual and social life, a place where the character of the University is forged. The residential life of most first-year students does not realize its potential to prepare them to take advantage of the University's academic resources and to build a diverse community drawing on their own strengths and varied backgrounds.
RECOMMENDATIONS
We have incorporated each of the three components discussed above -- summer reading projects, first-year academic seminars, and residentially based enrichment programs -- into a pilot project for the Carolina campus.
A Program Coordinator will bring together the orientation, academic, and residential components of FYI (recommendations 1, 2, and 3). The Coordinator will administer FYI in collaboration with other University departments. Responsibilities include: planning; marketing and recruitment; selection, training, and supervision of graduate students; and program evaluation. The Program Coordinator will be aided by an Advisory Committee of faculty, students and staff (chaired by a faculty member); both Coordinator and Committee will be named by the Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences in consultation with the Dean of Student Affairs.
1. Improve the Orientation Program: The Summer Reading Project.
The committee strongly recommends an intellectual uplift of the freshman orientation experience. The orientation program should begin to teach students to value an active intellectual life. To this end, the Pilot Program will initiate a Summer Reading Project connected to the fall orientation experience.
Each year, the Program will designate a book for incoming students to read and be prepared to discuss. The book will be matched to an appropriate film: either a treatment of the book itself or a closely related work. A faculty member will offer brief remarks prior to the movie. Afterward, students will gather in small groups led by graduate mentors (see Recommendation 3B in this section) to discuss the themes raised by both works. This exercise will encourage active learning among first-year students and offer a common intellectual experience as a starting point for student-to-student interactions.
2. Improve the Academic Program During the First Year: the First-Year Seminar Program.
In order to foster essential critical thinking and communication skills, an intensive and challenging exposure to ideas and texts that stimulate the intellectual appetite, and lasting contacts with UNC faculty members, FYI will offer each participant access to a new First-Year Seminar Program. Limited to twenty students and taught by regular faculty (insofar as possible), the seminars will develop students' powers of analytical thinking, written and oral communication skills, and research abilities. The seminars will emphasize inquiry-based learning; the instructor's role will be more that of facilitator of student learning than classic knowledge provider. Modeled on -- and complementing -- the current Honors Program Seminar courses, the FYI Seminar Program will be open to all participating first-year students and would fulfill a General College Perspective requirement. First-year students who perform well in these FYI seminars might qualify to enroll in Honors Program seminars as sophomores and upperclassmen.
Faculty members in any school (including professional schools) of the University will be invited to submit course proposals for FYI Seminars. The Pilot Program will call for approximately thirty seminars altogether in both the fall and spring semesters. Participating schools and departments will be offered modest compensation in order to meet their staffing and curricular obligations.
In establishing a new seminar option for first-year students, we acknowledge that there will be a drain on faculty resources currently devoted to other efforts. In particular, we express our concern that this initiative not disrupt or threaten the health of the Honors Program and its ongoing seminar offerings. Such potential side effects must be carefully monitored; consideration should be given to funding the Honors Program seminars at a compensation level similar to that suggested for FYI seminars or supplementing the Honors Program budget through private endowment funds.
3. Improve the First-Year Residency: Graduate Mentors, Weekly Dialogue Groups, and Communal Involvement.
FYI's residential component will enhance the intellectual climate by closely linking academic and extra-academic activities. This change will be centered in a residence hall life for first-year students providing small group communities that receive transition support, academic and co-curricular campus options, skill assessment and development, and mentoring relationships.
Recommendations:
3A.. Designate five residential floors, housing approximately 100 students each, in Hinton James residence hall as housing for FYI students. To facilitate the program, we make two further recommendations:
I. Renovate the building. This includes upgrading all basic facilities, including study lounges, kitchens, and lobby areas; creating adequate dialogue/meeting rooms containing a seminar table, blackboard, and computer/Internet connections; and constructing an aesthetics room with a stage area, tables and chairs, piano, and other furnishings needed for various artistic activities and performances.
ii. Do not provide televisions in common areas within the program. A newspaper budget should provide a daily New York Times in every lounge.
Activities of the residential program will be structured in three ways:
3B. Graduate Mentors: Twenty-five graduate students (nominated by their academic departments) will serve as daily mentors, living in the FYI residence hall. Each will mentor twenty students and be responsible for leading weekly dialogue groups.
3C. Weekly Dialogues: The graduate mentors will be trained to lead small weekly dialogue groups focusing on academic and life skills. Specifically, such weekly dialogues will deal with:
· Team building (ropes course, art projects, community service, etc.).
· Stress and time management.
· Study skills (tests and note-taking, computer literacy, etc.).
· Critical thinking skills.
· Individual skill assessment and development.
· Sex, alcohol, and race relations awareness.
· Campus resources and student organizations.
· Scholarly topics and speakers.
· Campus issues.
3D. Communal Involvement: Involving students in the broader University community and the local community has two aspects.
i. University Citizenship: Formal and informal opportunities will be provided to connect students with the larger resources of the University. Connections will include dinner conversations with faculty and staff and peer-led activities regarding student organizations and campus leadership opportunities.
ii. Service Learning: Participants will be introduced to and participate in service learning activities designed to promote group unity as well as community service (Habitat for Humanitiy, food/clothes collections, Campus Y, Human Relations Week, etc.).
4. Evaluate the FYI Program.
Because FYI will be a pilot program, evaluation must be an integral component. We recommend four kinds of evaluation:
i. Student Questionnaires will be collected twice a year.
ii. Focus groups will obtain evalution information from all groups -- students, faculty, and staff -- participating in the program.
iii. Long-term performance comparisons will be made between FYI participants and selected non-FYI peer group members.
iv. Annual reports will be requested from academic departments and curricular centers (e.g., the Honors Program) evaluating the effect of FYI seminars on other college programming.
5. Re-Open Discussion of Greek Rush.
The close relationship between classroom and residency affects the overall intellectual climate for first-year students; it is important that the University do everything possible to encourage a variety of social and intellectual interaction among students. To this end, we urge that the Chancellor re-open discussion of the scheduling of Greek Rush, with an eye toward deferral of rush until the fall of students' sophomore year. We are aware that the Chancellor's Committee on Greek Affairs recently advised against such a postponement; but we believe that the matter warrants discussion by a more widely representative body. In recommending a deferral of rush, we note the many contributions of Greek organizations to the life of the University; but it is our hope that during their first year, Carolina students will be encouraged to create strong and intense social links on the basis of common intellectual interests and curiosity as well as tolerance among a richly diverse set of peers.
CONCLUSIONS
Students' first year experiences set the tone for their academic careers. As many other universities have come to recognize, the importance of socialization during the first year demands that special attention be given the process to ensure that the full potential of an intellectual life can be attained. The recommended Pilot Program is a first step towards bringing UNC-CH up to the standards of other leading universities.
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