The definition and description of student success programs in the literature (e.g., orientation, first-year seminars, learning communities, etc.) suggest underlying programmatic similarities. Yet researchers to date typically depend on ambiguous labels to delimit studies, resulting in loosely related but separate research lines and few…

First-Year Seminar (FYS) is an introductory class offered to first-year students to help them acclimate to the college environment, develop effective strategies for studying, and learn techniques that will allow them to swiftly complete small assignments and sizable research projects. In 2014, approximately 80 percent of universities offered FYS,…

"The Wisconsin Experience Seminar" is an extended-orientation style first-year seminar (FYS) that is intended to support students' transitions to college. The course is held each academic semester at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and is taught by instructors in a variety professional roles at the university. The program is housed…

The paper presents findings from a study that assessed the impact of a faculty development approach designed to improve technology integration specific to a comprehensive FYE program. Partnering with the Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning and informed by data gathered annually from faculty and student mentors, FYE leaders created a…

Background: The Faculty of Education at the University of Johannesburg, like many other universities worldwide, has a strong focus on first-year experience programmes to promote student academic and social enculturation. Aim: In this article, we report on students' views of the role of an education excursion as cohesive device. We were…

The highest attrition rates occur among first-year students. Universities have designed different curricular programmes, such as the development of generic skills, to address this challenge. In the medical school at the University of the Free State in South Africa, these skills were incorporated in the MBChB curriculum as an eight credit-bearing…

This paper brings together general principles for teaching inquiry across disciplines with those generally employed in mathematics classrooms. It describes some broad principles of teaching inquiry to first-year writing students and shows how these can be employed in the context of a course on game theory in popular culture. Although undergraduate…

Engagement with the arts is a fundamental element of a liberal education, especially in the first year of college. Liberal education seeks to form critical, creative citizens who can participate actively in "the various conversations that constitute a culture." The intellectual growth sparked by the arts serves many of the essential…

Wynn, Mosholder, & Larsen (2014, 2016) studied the effect of problem-based learning (PBL) on the development of postformal thinking (PFT) skills among first-year learning community (LC) students and attributed the significant PFT gains, in part, to the metacognitive reflection component of their PBL method, recommending it as a way to…

Experiential-learning provides opportunities for students that feature a variety of highimpact practices including first-year seminars, internships, community learning, collaborative projects, and capstone seminars. To offer these high-impact practices for students, faculty from across disciplines and majors must be willing to incorporate these…

This paper uses Middle Tennessee State University's MT Scholars Academy, an extended early arrival program targeting first-year students who are classified as at-risk by a variety of measures, as a case study for demonstrating the effectiveness of AASCU's Re-Imagining the First-Year (RFY) initiative. In particular, this case study demonstrates the…

First-year seminars and learning communities (LC) have been used to help increase retention, provide continuity, and support students as they transition to the university setting. Another high impact educational practice--common intellectual experiences (CIE)--includes student activities centered on a theme to help facilitate learning, increase…

Community-engaged learning as a foundational pedagogical praxis enables new college students to develop a feminist awareness of interlocking oppressions and acquire tools to intervene productively in environmental challenges that are always experienced intersectionally. Since 2004, I have introduced students to ecofeminism in a full semester…

Literature on the support of the First Year Experience (FYE) in institutions of Higher Education provides a range of modelled approaches. However, we argue that institutions still need to selectively plan which approach/es and attendant strategies are best suited to their particular contexts and institutional policy and practice frameworks and how…

Colleges and universities are paying increasing attention to students' transition into post-secondary education, including the provision of support to freshmen through structured First-Year Experiences (FYEs). Although low- and-moderate-income students are participating in post-secondary education at increased rates, their performance remains…