Do we really know who our students are as they enter university? This was the question that the Faculty of Humanities at the University of the Witwatersrand was grappling with. In response, the Humanities' Teaching and Learning Unit compiled a registration survey for first-year students to complete that gives an overview of who our incoming…

Inherent challenges affect first-generation students' persistence from as early as the first college year. Using cultural capital as a guide, this study is unique in that it investigates the contribution of first-year policies and programs to the success of first-generation students in 57 bachelor's degree-granting institutions across five states…

Building a general education program from scratch for a population of first generation and underserved students provided both a challenge and opportunity. Faculty who had limited previous experience teaching and assessing first year students engaged in study of the best practices and research. Faculty designed a four-year general education…

This "Practices from the Field" article describes the rationale and operationalization of an interdisciplinary team-taught first-year inquiry seminar and learning community program at a large predominantly White research institution. The authors both serve as faculty members in the College of Education and Human Development and teach in…

First-Year Seminars (FYS) are among the high-impact practices described by AAC&U. We studied the long-standing First-Year Seminar Program at our public research university for the ways in which writing assignments--individualized for each seminar--help faculty and students achieve program objectives in critical and analytical thinking, the…

The transition into college remains one of the most formative and complex phases in an individual's life. Institutions of higher learning have responded to the challenges facing first-year students in myriad ways, most often by offering summer orientation programs, dynamic living-learning environments, tailored academic and psychological support…