About the Institute

Join us for the third offering of the Institute for First-Year Seminar Leadership. The Institute is designed to provide those charged with the task of delivering a successful first-year seminar with valuable information, fresh ideas, and some much-needed inspiration. Institute faculty will build a framework where participants can engage in discussions with colleagues, examine trends and practices connected to first-year seminars, and identify new strategies to ensure the success of first-year students.

Individual sessions have been designed to build on one another so that participants leave with a personalized action plan for use on their home campuses. Modeling the active pedagogies advocated for classrooms, the Institute faculty employ group work, problem solving, case studies, and other strategies to engage participants in learning.

You will find this Institute to be a rich and rewarding experience, whether your program is in its first or thirtieth year.

Highlighted Topics

• Exploring the history and status of first-year seminars
• Institutionalizing and sustaining first-year seminars
• Assessing first-year seminars
• Implementing change as a result of assessment
• Establishing valuable partnerships across campus
• Examining practices to recruit, train, and retain faculty
• Analyzing focused teaching strategies

About the Sponsor

Building upon its history of excellence as the founder and leader of the first-year experience movement, the National Resource Center for The First-Year Experience and Students in Transition serves education professionals by supporting and advancing efforts to improve student learning and transitions into and through higher education. The Center achieves this mission by providing opportunities for the exchange of practical and scholarly information as well as the discussion of trends and issues in our field through the convening of conferences, institutes, workshops, and online learning opportunities; publishing books, research reports, a peer-reviewed journal, electronic newsletters, and guides; generating, supporting, and disseminating research and scholarship; hosting visiting scholars; and administering a website and listservs.

Setting

The University of South Carolina, home of the National Resource Center for The First-Year Experience and Students in Transition, serves the state from its flagship Columbia campus, three senior campuses, and four regional campuses. The University is committed to serving the citizens of South Carolina through its academic excellence and outreach. It has forged a variety of cooperative relationships with other academic and health care institutions throughout the state, and a number of international connections for academic exchange and collaborative research. The University's efforts in the international arena, particularly important to the state's development of foreign trade and investment, continue to expand. Academic exchange programs and research linkages have been established with European, African, South American, Japanese, and Chinese universities.

In keeping with both its 19th- and 20th-century heritage, the University continues to promote academic excellence while offering progressive responses to its educational responsibilities and the citizens of South Carolina. This includes the University's historical commitment to enhancing not only students' knowledge, understanding, and economic viability, but also their sense of character, empathy, and mutual respect. This ideal was a cornerstone of the original college and remains fundamental to the University's purpose in South Carolina and in society.