A “First in 2009” Initiative for Enhancing Miami University’s
First-Year Experience

Hoyt Brown
Jeannie Brown Leonard
Jennie Dautermann
David Doyle
Jackie Elcik
Carolyn Haynes (cochair)
Mike Mills
Denny Roberts (co-chair)
Lee Sanders
Kate Schaab

Mary Jane Berman
Hoyt Brown (coordinator)
Mike Curme
Gail Della Piana
Steve DeLue
Yildirim Dilek
Dan Early
Jackie Elcik
Carolyn Haynes (co-chair)
Howard Kleiman
Kathleen Knight-Abowitz
Enid LaGesse
Cindy Lewiecki-Wilson
Gabriel Lofton
Peter Magolda (coordinator)
Kristen McCartney
Denny Roberts (co-chair)
Judith Sessions
Elizabeth Stanley
Ben Vodila

President Garland set goal for MU to be premier university in its class by 2009.
MU is losing high-ability and multicultural students to other institutions.
Students are not perceived to be challenged intellectually and academically.
Students are perceived to spend too much time on cocurricular, extra-curricular and social endeavors.

Faculty perceive MU to have history of “top-down” initiatives.
MU faculty are disheartened about prospects for institutional change, recent budget cuts and bulging class sizes.
Miami Plan Foundation courses are large—containing many students with varying abilities and interest levels.
Faculty increasingly are asked to do more and more
(e.g., research, service, grant writing, recruiting, advising, teaching).

Soaring tuition costs; greater need to work to pay off debts.
Increasing concern for a “return” on their investment.
Stiffer competition for top-level jobs and placement in graduate and professional schools.
Higher emotional stress.
Perception that many majors and leadership activities lead to greater post-graduation success.

To improve the holistic experience of Miami’s first-year students, connecting existing programs and strengthening the interaction between
Student and Academic Affairs.
To place special emphasis on enhancing First in
2009 goals.

A unifying theme and vision that advances intellectual challenge by helping students, faculty and staff make explicit and purposeful connections among parts of the curriculum and between the curriculum and other aspects of the collegiate experience.
It endorses the idea that everyone should make purposeful decisions about their lives and reflect carefully on the relationships among those decisions.

Learning “builds cumulatively and emerges through intensive engagements during a student’s entire education, so links are important
. . . throughout the college years, among courses, between general education and the major, between traditional in-class and experiential learning, between formal and informal settings” (AAC&U “Greater
Expectations”).

Cognitive learning is enhanced when students are also provided purposeful opportunities to develop interpersonally and emotionally.
Faculty, staff, administrators, and students must all communicate and work together to improve the entire first-year experience.
A strong first year will provide strong foundation for the next four years at college.

Not meant to be a “Pollyanna” slogan
Not intended to be a marketing scheme
An easy-to-remember way of encapsulating the complex and broad-based goals of an intellectually challenging and enriching first-year experience.

Set high expectations about learning for yourself and others
Make purposeful decisions and focused use of time and resources
Take risks to promote learning in a diverse and complicated world
Work with others to deepen your understanding of self
Integrate and reflect critically on knowledge gained from diverse experiences

(already underway)
Promotional materials and information during
Summer Orientation
“Learning Goals” worksheet incorporated into
Summer Reading Program discussions, corridor meetings and first-year advising sessions
Mega Fair
Developmental advising emphasis in residence halls

(already underway)
Student organization intervention
Public endorsements by President and Provost
Pamphlet sent to all faculty
Appointment of Co-Coordinators for First-Year
Experience (Pete Magolda and Hoyt Brown)
Presentations to all Student Affairs Directors and
Department Chairs

(already underway)
Departmental/divisional discussions about grading criteria, enrollment management and
“right-size” classrooms (COAD)
Plan and institute University-wide, First-Year
Seminars that are challenging, enhance diversity, and involve active learning. Pilot 8-10 in 2003-04 and gradually increase as resources allow.

Purposes of First Year Seminars
Seminar Parameters
Pedagogical Assumptions and Objectives
Implementation Strategies

Create a FYE Website.
Revise campus tours, Red Carpet Days, and
Open Houses to emphasize academic learning.
Audit and revise publications and other marketing campaigns to stress intellectual learning.

Involve more faculty in Summer Orientation and FYI planning and implementation to enhance the emphasis on academics.
Enhance programming for Harrison and Oxford
Scholars.
Develop more divisional and departmental honors programs.
Expand opportunities for faculty development (teaching
MPF courses in challenging way, working with first-year students).

Plan Summer Reading book three years in advance.
Increase faculty participation in the Theme
Learning Communities courses and programming, especially the “Courses in
Common” TLC.
Offer awards and incentives for participating in the FYE.

A more intellectually engaged, challenged student body
A faculty that is engaged actively in undergraduate teaching, especially in first-year seminars and MPF courses
A university climate that supports and rewards intellectual and academic challenge and that sets high expectations of students, faculty, staff and administrators
Increasing communication and collaboration between
Academic and Student Affairs faculty and staff

What aspects of the Choice Matters vision are most relevant to ORL?
How can we further involve ORL in the first-year experience?
What can the Choice Matters initiative do to support ORL and its agenda?