"Materiality and Writing Studies: Aligning Labor, Scholarship, and Teaching" takes an expansive look at the discipline of writing studies, arguing for the centering of the field's research and service on first-year writing, particularly the "new majority" of college students (who are more diverse than ever before) and those who…

The profile of students entering higher education is ever-changing, deeming it critical to understand the impact on institutions and teaching methods that foster student learning across perspectives. This article will highlight the need for advancing first-year student curriculum through teaching socially just seminars. Specifically, the article…

Good practice notes offer practical advice and examples of good practice to guide operations in regard to specific, higher education issues. The good practice notes are intended to support and promote the quality assurance approaches of providers. This Good Practice Note identifies examples of good practice in Australian higher education providers…

Each fall, thousands of eager freshmen descend on college and university campuses expecting the best education imaginable: inspiring classes taught by top-ranked professors, academic advisors who will guide them to a prestigious job or graduate school, and an environment where learning flourishes outside the classroom as much as it does in lecture…

This "toolkit" provides a process by which institutions can identify and use information resources to enhance the experiences and outcomes of first-year students. The toolkit contains a "Technical Manual" designed for use by the technical personnel who will be conducting the data audit and associated analyses. Administrators who want more…

Describes the Freshman Interdisciplinary Studies Program at Temple University, in which a group of freshmen join four to six faculty members in an interdisciplinary study of a broad topic. (DD)

Identifies 10 predictable stages that most students go through when facing the experience of a freshman year at college. Stages include midsummer anxiety, late summer panic, honeymoon upon arrival at college, end of the honeymoon a few weeks into the semester, belief that transferring will solve all/most problems, primitive coping behavior,…

The "NCAA Guide to International Academic Standards for Athletics Eligibility" provides specific criteria to be used as a guide in reviewing the initial eligibility (graduation, core curriculum, grade-point average and ACT/SAT test scores) of students who have completed any portion of their secondary education in a non-United States…

Intramural sports activities are used as an integral part of the freshman orientation program at Belmont Abbey College. The program organization and success are briefly described. (JMF)

Notes that new teaching assistants (TAs) and first year composition students similarly grapple with ambiguity, multiplicity, and open-endedness. Contends that new TAs' queries and early classroom experiences can provide a valuable occasion to re-balance the emphasis in a pro-seminar between teaching and learning. Presents strategies for addressing…

Explores the phenomenon of transition from secondary to postsecondary education for students with disabilities in order to enhance the understanding of this complex issue. Identifies several mechanisms that may contribute to the amelioration of some of the more detrimental effects of a quandary that could be the result of several competing…

States that freshman composition should make freshmen more able to communicate in academic discourse and that each professor teaches the students with emphasis on personal beliefs. Examines the dilemma of freshman composition as a service course. Calls for more and better use of the personal narrative as an alternative way of approaching the so…

Despite variation in structure and activities of campus retention programs, successful programs are similar in the way they approach retention, emphasis given to retention efforts, and objectives. Focus should be less on what types of programs retain students and more on how and why programs have been successful. (Author/MSE)

Claims developmental education has been the central medium of upward social mobility for the American lower and middle classes. Outlines the accomplishments of developmental educators as well as the national trends that bear directly upon the work of developmental educators. (NH)

Erika Lindemann asserts that the purpose of freshman composition courses is primary and must precede any debate on whether or not literature may be taught in composition classrooms. A series of "I believe" statements about what a freshman composition course ought to do was developed. The primary purpose of a first-year writing course is…