Conference Session

Administering First-Year Programs

Collection

2010 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Russell Korte, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign; David Goldberg, University of Illinois, Urbana

Tagged Divisions

First-Year Programs

from the freshmen year forward.More work needs to be done, but early results appear to have been successful because wecarefully managed the timing, content, and structure of the coursework, project work, andcommunity work. This combination appears to have made the difference between a traditionallearning community that would largely have helped students form relationships with their peersand faculty, and the iCommunity, in which socialization and connectedness appeared to occurtogether with an additional burst of initiative, confidence, and engineering identity—the Olineffect—witnessed in students at XX. We can hardly wait to track this energized group of youngpeople as they continue through their education. We are working now to provide new

Conference Session

Research on the First Year I

Collection

2010 Annual Conference & Exposition

Authors

Richard Cassady, University of Arkansas; Gigi Secuban, University of Arkansas

Tagged Divisions

First-Year Programs

importantly, the FEP staff works closely with theCollege of Arts and Sciences to implement block scheduling for the Fall Semester. In the blockscheduling system, each FEP student is assigned to a block consisting of approximately 22students. All students in a given block have identical class schedules (except for electives).The Freshman Engineering Student Services ProgramThe FESSP provides proactive support to FEP students through summer orientation, academicskills and personal wellness workshops, academic advising, peer mentoring, supplementalinstruction and tutoring, an academic living-learning community, and extracurricular activities. Page