As the student affairs profession developed, expanded, and specialized over the last century, a disconnect occurred between student affairs professionals and academics. Despite that separation, the literature on student affairs in higher education supports the need for movement towards collaboration and integration of academic affairs and student…

Day in and day out the author invests her energy in keeping students safe by reducing alcohol consumption on campus, developing innovative alcohol and drug educational programming, collecting and analyzing data to better understand the drinking culture of the campus, and scouring the literature for best practices and evidence-based success. Day in…

Planning programs with learning outcomes that address diversity issues on campus can become fairly routine--a "plug and play" task--for a director of multicultural student affairs at a private, religious, predominantly white liberal arts university. However, connecting with African American and other minority students when they arrived on campus…

Transition plans for students with special needs provide support for social and academic success while giving students an accurate picture of what to expect in high school. The Texas Comprehensive Center recommends that schools develop a comprehensive transition plan district-wide. This district plan must include the cooperation of staff from the…

In this paper I argue that the teacher educators who deliberately create and nurture caring teacher-student relationships, despite the many challenges, benefit both themselves and their students in several ways. Although the notion that teachers should care for their students is not new, it may well be that professors too seldom "communicate"…

A university open house attracts students and parents who are interested in learning about the institution's mission and specialized offerings. The traditional approach to an open house involves a meet-and-greet session and a lecture by a faculty member who describes the program and necessary requirements for graduation, followed by a tour of the…

Universities have both social and cultural contexts, and new students need to participate effectively in both in order to succeed in this environment. With ever increasing numbers of students and the diversity of the contemporary university population, institutions have to consider innovative ways to effectively engage individuals. In terms of…

This GEM describes the "Freshman 15 Jeopardy" workshop, a 30-minute nutrition education session aimed to expose incoming college freshmen to the college food environment, to increase their awareness of factors that cause weight gain, and to instruct them on lifestyle choices they could employ to prevent weight gain. This short workshop has not…

When Jasper Place High School in Edmonton began shifting its attention away from competing for more students from its feeder junior high schools and toward better student retention, it found that the transitional process was the key to success. Jasper Place principal and counselors worked with their counterparts in the junior high schools to…

Most colleges and universities offer Freshman Orientation for new students. When students arrive, however, they often are unprepared and unsure of how to take full advantage of these orientation sessions. No matter what the orientation program looks like at a college, knowing what to expect during the first few weeks can make the difference…

To be successful in navigating the waters of American higher education, international students need to demonstrate proficiency in the English language and an understanding of the educational expectations of American academia. Unlike Americans who apply to a US university, international students must demonstrate that they understand enough English…

"Transfer Students in Higher Education" presents what individuals know about transfer students, addresses assumptions and myths about the transfer experience, and explores the changing demographics of this student group. Adopting a student-centered approach, the monograph offers strategies to begin (and continue) the work of serving students and…

In this paper I focus on sequences of interaction among youth where the participants engage in classroom related activities (such as spelling, discussion of essays, etc.). My paper is based on interactional and ethnographic data collected among youth in two different leisure contexts. I discuss how the participants by employment of various…

What exactly is an "outdoor orientation program?" First offered in the United States in the 1930s by Dartmouth College, outdoor orientation programs (OOPs) use adventure programming to help incoming students adjust to university or college. Typically, these programs are conducted in a wilderness or backcountry setting, are several days…

This article describes the early outcomes of an ongoing project at the University of South Florida in Tampa that involves using a logistics regression formula derived from pre-matriculation characteristics to predict the risk of individual student attrition. In this piece, the authors will describe the results of the prediction formula and the…