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Betting on Student Success First-Year Experience Eases Transition to College Life and Promotes Academic and Life Success
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ince fall 2009, the First-Year Experience has helped incoming students transition successfully to all aspects of college life, a factor that often determines a student’s willingness and ability to persist with higher education through graduation. During the year, students participate in a series of activities in addition to their academic courses designed to engage them in and connect them to life at Pfeiffer. A recent grant from The Charles A. Cannon Charitable Trusts (see adjacent story) will support this program by providing related and ongoing training for mentors and advisors from Pfeiffer’s faculty and staff so they are prepared to support students through the experience. “Because a successful transition to college life is a major contributor to overall college success, it’s vital to integrate these activities from the start of a student’s college experience,” said Deborah Burris, chair of
Pfeiffer’s Communications Department and director of the First-Year Experience program. “Support from The Charles A. Cannon Charitable Trusts allows us to enhance our ability to meet the needs of young people as we create a ‘culture of coaching’ through these services.” Early support for the notion of student-centered mentoring at Pfeiffer can be found in Trustee Rob Knapp’s 2009 Convocation speech. He challenged the audience to imagine a culture of servant leadership, an environment where students are assigned a professor or coach mentor who would guide them through their four years at Pfeiffer, meet with them regularly and help them develop their talents. “Everyone involved would be putting others before self,” he said. “How many schools can say that? None. The result would be higher standards and higher achievement.”
Components of the First Year-Experience include: • Pfeiffer Journey, a yearlong course, focuses in the fall on subjects
• Students and faculty participate throughout the year in a series of
such as study skills and time management that prepare students for the
assembly opportunities that support students’ personal development
expectations of college-level courses. In the spring, students participate
through themes that include, among others, developing one’s own
in career-related activities that encourage them to think about their
honor code, understanding the meaning and value of Pfeiffer traditions,
choice of major, meet with mentors and advisors, and begin the process
and discussing issues of ethics through a town hall meeting with
of mapping their course to graduation. The culminating event is a Major
Pfeiffer’s ethics bowl team.
Fair, where all of Pfeiffer’s schools and majors display information about the career options each field offers and the ways Pfeiffer prepares students for them. • Keys to Success is a weeklong summer opportunity that was offered for the first time in August to supplement the first-year experience by bringing a number of incoming students to campus for a week prior to the start of classes for a more intense introduction to Pfeiffer. This effort was supported by a grant from the North Carolina Independent Colleges and Universities (NCICU). In the first round of Keys to Success, 25 students participated on a first-come, first-served basis; plans for future sessions include the ability to accommodate more students.
• During 2011-2012, all freshmen will read the novel Blood Done Sign My Name by Timothy B. Tyson and participate in a series of discussions and cultural activities that spark critical thinking and in-depth discussion about the book and the human condition. • Plans are underway to extend the First-Year Experience into the sophomore year with opportunities geared for second-year students. For more information about the program, email deborah.burris@fsmail.pfeiffer.edu.