Developing and Sustaining Successful First -Year Programs First-year programs and interventions have become critical launching pads for student success and retention in higher education. However, these programs often flounder not because of what they are trying to do, but because of the ways in which they are implemented. Developing and Sustaining Successful First-Year Programs offers faculty, academic administrators, and student affairs professionals a comprehensive and practical resource that includes step-by-step guidance for developing new first-year programs and enhancing existing programs. The book explores the key elements that contribute to sustained student success and the programs that have the capacity to continue to meet student needs while making the most of scarce resources. The authors show how to create and sustain critical partnerships, put in place the needed organizational structures, and include strategies for developing effective assessments and evaluations. Developing and Sustaining Successful First-Year Programs is filled with illustrative examples and profiles of successful programs from a range of institutions that vary in size, type, selectivity, and culture. Examples of common programs and interventions include summer bridge programs, student orientation, first-year seminars, learning communities, residential programs, developmental education, and many more. Based in scholarly literature, theory, and practice, the book highlights the initiatives that facilitate the transition, learning, development, and success of new college students.

An authoritative, comprehensive guide to the first year of college, Challenging and Supporting the First Year Student includes the most current information about the policies, strategies, programs, and services designed to help first-year students make a successful transition to college and fulfill their educational and personal goals.

Learning communities are small groups of students who come together with faculty and student affairs professionals to engage in common learning experiences. In Building and Sustaining Learning Communities, the authors, along with many of their colleagues, describe the rationale for learning communities, particularly in a large university; the process for setting them up; and reflections on these unique environments. After reading this book, administrators and faculty members will know precisely why they are worth considering and how to successfully create them. Part I of the book demonstrates the theoretical benefits of learning communities and then discusses various issues involved in the planning and implementation of the communities, including: Building learning community relationships within the university and among participants Strategies for collaboration Developing a learning community curriculum Course structure within learning communities Assessing learning communities Institutional challenges Part II details the experiences of faculty and students involved in Syracuse University's learning communities, including arts, citizenship, education, interprofessional, leadership, management, multicultural, online learning, and wellness. This book is a fascinating and practical guide for all readers interested in building and sustaining learning communities.

"This compendium of successful curricular and institutional practices to develop critical research skills emphasized the importance of the collective efforts of the undergraduate community to integrate research and education. By collecting and disseminating a variety of mechanisms that are effective means of creating a research-supportive undergraduate curriculum, the Council on Undergraduate Research aims to encourage faculty and institutions to continue to seek creative, useful, and significant ways to promote "learning through research"."--Publisher's description.

The perfect gift for high school graduates! College is a time when new and exciting horizons stretch out before us. We meet new friends and form relationships that last a lifetime. We discern what’s most important and what our ultimate direction in life will be. For those of us whose college days are in the rearview mirror, we long for recent graduates to love college and to make the most it. Often, we’re at a loss as to what advice to give our friends and family who are heading off to college—even though those years may well be the most consequential years of their lives. From Biola president Barry Corey comes the perfect guide to making the college years count. It touches on everything from college romances to making friends, from getting sleep to embracing boredom, from your inner life to your social life. In this slender volume, Barry Corey gives you wisdom that rings true but is rarely passed on. He serves up tips for survival, virtues to embrace, ideas to think about, and habits to cultivate for an enjoyable and flourishing journey through college. After all, you will remember your college experience for the rest of your life. Make the most of it.

This publication¿the latest report from AAC&U¿s Liberal Education and America¿s Promise (LEAP) initiative¿defines a set of educational practices that research has demonstrated have a significant impact on student success. Author George Kuh presents data from the National Survey of Student Engagement about these practices and explains why they benefit all students, but also seem to benefit underserved students even more than their more advantaged peers. The report also presents data that show definitively that underserved students are the least likely students, on average, to have access to these practices.

Strengthen programs of family and community engagement to promote equity and increase student success! When schools, families, and communities collaborate and share responsibility for students′ education, more students succeed in school. Based on 30 years of research and fieldwork, the fourth edition of the bestseller School, Family, and Community Partnerships: Your Handbook for Action, presents tools and guidelines to help develop more effective and more equitable programs of family and community engagement. Written by a team of well-known experts, it provides a theory and framework of six types of involvement for action; up-to-date research on school, family, and community collaboration; and new materials for professional development and on-going technical assistance. Readers also will find: Examples of best practices on the six types of involvement from preschools, and elementary, middle, and high schools Checklists, templates, and evaluations to plan goal-linked partnership programs and assess progress CD-ROM with slides and notes for two presentations: A new awareness session to orient colleagues on the major components of a research-based partnership program, and a full One-Day Team Training Workshop to prepare school teams to develop their partnership programs. As a foundational text, this handbook demonstrates a proven approach to implement and sustain inclusive, goal-linked programs of partnership. It shows how a good partnership program is an essential component of good school organization and school improvement for student success. This book will help every district and all schools strengthen and continually improve their programs of family and community engagement.

Helping Sophomores Succeed offers an in-depth, comprehensive understanding of the common challenges that arise in a student's second year of college. Sponsored by the University of South Carolina's National Resource Center for The First-Year Experience® and Students in Transition, this groundbreaking book offers an examination of second-year student success and satisfaction using both quantitative and qualitative measures from national research findings. Helping Sophomores Succeed serves as a foundation for designing programs and services for the second-year student population that will help to promote retention, academic and career development, and personal transition and growth. Praise for Helping Sophomores Succeed "Lost, lonely, stressed, pressured, unsupported, frequently indecisive, and invisible, many sophomores fall off the radar of campus educators at a time when they may most be seeking purpose, meaning, direction, intellectual challenge, and intellectual capacity building. The fine scholars who focused educators on the first-year and senior transitions have done it again?a magnificent book to focus on the sophomore year!" ?Susan R. Komives, College Student Personnel Program, University of Maryland "For years, student-centered institutions have front-loaded resources to promote student success in the first college year. This volume is rich with instructive ideas for how to sustain this important work in the second year of college." ?George D. Kuh, Chancellor's Professor and director, Indiana University Center for Postsecondary Research "A pioneering work, this brilliant text explores in practical and meaningful ways the all but neglected sophomore-year experience, when students face critical choices about their major, their profession, their life purpose." ?Betty L. Siegel, president emeritus, Kennesaw State University? "All members of the campus community?faculty, student affairs educators, staff, and students?will benefit from learning about the unique challenges of the second college year. The book provides research and best practices to help educators and students craft an integrated, comprehensive approach to helping second-year students succeed." ?Marcia Baxter Magolda, distinguished professor, Educational Leadership, Miami University The National Resource Center for The First-Year Experience® and Students in Transition supports and advances efforts to improve student learning and transitions into and through higher education by providing opportunities for the exchange of practical, theory-based information and ideas.