Undergraduate peer mentorship has the potential to transform mentor and mentee alike. In an effort to understand the potential positive effects of a peer mentorship program on honors peer mentors, paired sample t-tests of data from a pre-test/post-test of at least 69 honors first-year seminar facilitators shows that respondents grew in their…

The Saint Mary's University first-year student success program was developed by its strategic enrollment management (SEM) group to enhance support for first-year students. As an integrated program that implements student success modules into the first-year core curriculum, this initiative has proven to be effective in enhancing student engagement…

Faculty development is a critical component to the success of any first-year seminar. This article explains the nationally recognized faculty development model of University 101 Programs at the University of South Carolina, including the philosophy behind why we do what we do, descriptions of the various initiatives, and best practices underlying…

This article explores the range and frequency of First-Year Writing students' emotional responses towards a project requiring multimodal composing and distribution of their work to an online public audience prior to and after completing the assignment. I analyzed the results using Driscoll and Powell's emotion categories (generative, disruptive,…

In seeking to close equity gaps within a first-year student seminar course, course designers leveraged emerging research on intrapersonal competency cultivation, known to significantly predict student success across diverse students (NAS, 2018). After re-designing the course to intentionally cultivate specific intrapersonal competencies,…

University educators struggle to provide effective assistance to students for the transition to college life (Center for Collegiate Mental Health, 2019). Like many other institutions, Florida State University, population 42,000, has grappled with how best to help students meet these challenges. In 2018, the university administration requested a…

First-Year Seminars (FYS) offer a unique mode of introducing college students to new topics, research practices, and approaches to learning that they may not have been exposed to in high school. In this article, we outline the successes and challenges of team teaching a combined cultural anthropology and biochemistry course on the topic of blood,…

The transition to college is a stressful time that can present many emotional challenges and demands. One way to help ease this transition is through the implementation of emotion regulation skills training in first-year experience courses. However, little is known about how students who receive such instruction implement emotion regulation, and…

This qualitative study was created to gain a better understanding of the impact of a for-credit first-year seminar course. Related existing research and theory included past studies on the first-year seminar, the hidden curriculum, and student persistence and retention. This study was intended to make an original contribution to the knowledge base…

This correlational quantitative study examined faculty mindset and factors of student success in first-year seminar courses at one public university of access in the northeast United States. Participants included 46 faculty members and 840 first-year undergraduate students. From the quantitative data collected, a Pearson correlation determined…

The relationship between online learning readiness and academic performance is inconclusive. There is consensus that online learning readiness has a relationship with academic performance, but the way the three major dimensions of online learning readiness in self-directed learning, technology self-efficacy, and communication-self-efficacy impact…

First-Year Engineering (FYE) programs are a critical part of engineering education, yet they are quite complex settings. Given the importance and complexity of FYE programs, research to better understand student learning and inform design and assessment in FYE programs is imperative. Therefore, this dissertation showcases various uses of data…

This article focuses on the role of theory and assessment in shaping student services and support through collaboration between student and academic affairs. Specifically, this paper highlights the use of a first-year student assessment tool that informs student support practices in the College of Agriculture at Louisiana State University (LSU).…

Background/purpose: Cocurricular offerings should appropriately align with academic learning goals to ensure undergraduate students' development of professional dispositions that lead to civic and career success. This study provides a framework for implementing high impact practices into cocurricular instruction, as well as steps on how to align…

This study examined retention and First-Year GPA for all FTIC students, Black students, and Black Pell-eligible students at the UOTSE as a function of participation in a First-Year Seminar Course. A statistically significant relationship was determined to exist between First-year GPA and participation in the FYS course. For retention, participants…