Freshmen beginning their undergraduate education enter college with various backgrounds and expectations. Institutions seek to properly acclimate first-year students into this new transition. One way to help a first-year student transition into college is with a first-year program. First-year programs provide a unique space for students to adjust…

Understanding the effects of a service-learning component on the classroom culture, socially and academically, brings a novel perspective to designing, executing, and assessing these types of active-learning projects. This paper evaluates the success of a service-learning project from a perspective of social networks by investigating the question:…

The transition into college remains one of the most formative and complex phases in an individual's life. Institutions of higher learning have responded to the challenges facing first-year students in myriad ways, most often by offering summer orientation programs, dynamic living-learning environments, tailored academic and psychological support…

The Biology Intensive Orientation for Students (BIOS) Program at Louisiana State University was designed to increase the success of incoming freshman biology majors in the first course in their major. The program combined content lectures and examinations for BIOL 1201-Introductory Biology for Science Majors, the first course in their major, as…

The term "assessment" sends shivers down academic spines. For faculty, it signals marching orders from external parties who may or may not appreciate the subtle and not always quantifiable value of faculty efforts. For administrators, it means the dual challenge of recalibrating internal measures to meet external mandates but also…

To assist integration of incoming freshman into the academic environment, improve social acclimation, and increase student retention, Northern Michigan University created a first-year experience program with community as its central focus. Its key to success is the use of block scheduling, combining a freshman seminar with other classes. Pilot…

These proceedings contain 68 author-prepared abstracts of presentations given at the Seventh International Conference on the First-Year Experience, a 5-day conference that focused on the foundations for improving the undergraduate experience. The majority of the one- to two-page abstracts report on specific programs undertaken by colleges or…

This document is a compendium of information from 34 colleges and universities on freshman seminar/student success courses and their outcomes and how institutions are evaluating and reporting on these programs. Freshman seminars or success courses are courses for entering students that aim to ease the student's transition to the college…

Describes the success of the Freshman Seminar Program at the University of South Carolina, designed to retain African-American students. Discusses the personal and social development needs of African-American students and how the Freshman Seminar contributes to their development. Presents data showing retention results. (MAB)

These proceedings report on a 1994 conference on the planning, implementing, and refining of programs designed to enhance the first-year experience of college students in urban settings. Early sections detail conference aims, background and policies. One section describes workshops on various topics, provides a profile on the keynote speaker, and…

In fall 1987, a Freshman Strategy Seminar (FSS) was pilot tested and evaluated at Erie Community College's (ECC's) South Campus to assist students lacking basic English and mathematics skills. Developmental class sections in writing, reading and math were reserved for the FSS students, in the hope that a cluster course approach would reduce…

The effectiveness of a California State University, Long Beach, program to prepare incoming students for university-level work and educational processes was assessed in 2 surveys of new students (n=1,100, n=1,613) and 1 of 80 who had taken the course previously. Key elements in program success were identified: course content; teaching techniques;…

This volume contains abstracts of the presentations on the freshman and entering student programs at over 100 colleges, community colleges, and universities in the United States and Canada. Each abstract describes institutional programs and provides a name, address, and telephone number of the person to contact for additional information. Among…