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…

High-impact practices (HIPs) have been shown to be effective in helping first-year students successfully transition into college. However, since most of the research on HIPs has been done in small liberal arts settings, little is known about the efficacy and implementation practices of HIPs in large, public, primarily nonresidential institutions,…

The University of Connecticut (UConn) is a public Carnegie Foundation Research institution with 14 schools and colleges that enrolls more than 18,000 undergraduate students at the main campus in Storrs, CT. Beginning in 1999, First-Year Experience (FYE) seminars were offered to entering freshman students. Since that time, the size of the program…

How do you teach the humanities to working class students living in the shadow of a BP oil refinery? Calumet College uses freshman learning communities that link humanities, social justice, and English composition classes to provide a foundation for college success to predominantly first-generation students who are often underprepared for…

Undecided undergraduate students are often considered to be "at risk" for lower academic performance and lower retention rates than students with declared majors. First-year seminars and learning communities are two interventions the retention literature suggests can enhance the success of at-risk students. This paper summarizes the…

Do learning communities with pedagogies of active learning, collaborative learning, and integration of course material affect the learning, achievement, and persistence of first-year Latino university students? The data for this project was obtained from a survey of 1,330 first-year students in the First-Year Learning Community Program at Texas…

The Crimson Connections Learning Community was designed as a means of providing support to a select population of students as they became members of the Indiana University of Pennsylvania (IUP) community. The program provided students who were exploring majors with a shared experience, strived to blend the academic and residential experience, and…