Next Bearcat Lives Here: A University of Cincinnati First-Year Seminar

Annie Kelly, EdD, Assistant Professor, University of Cincinnati

Photo by Jessica Tan on Unsplash

As student needs, expectations, and educational goals change, institutional programs and services must evolve, too. First-year seminars have the unique capacity to adapt, remain relevant, and respond to a changing landscape. However, when a seminar is not meeting student needs or institutional outcomes, how do higher education administrators respond? This article highlights a first-year seminar’s program review process at the University of Cincinnati and examines how a steering committee restructured and redesigned a course.

Author Positionality Statement

I believe our professional and personal experiences, scholarship and assessment engagement, and access to professional development opportunities and mentors directly shape and impact our institutional programs and services. As the new editor of Insights for College Transitions, formerly e-Source, this informs my commitment to providing high-quality, practical, and open-access scholarship for practitioners. Insights is also an example of the importance of embracing a new era and adapting to meet the needs of constituents.

Coordinating a first-year seminar course is a professional milestone. Serving as an undergraduate first-year seminar peer leader influenced my career decision to pursue my Master’s in Higher Education at the University of South Carolina (USC). Learning from and working alongside leaders in the field informed my later professional experiences in new student and family programs, academic advising, academic support, and faculty development at various institutions across the country. For the past two years, I have served as the Course Director of a First-Year Seminar within University of Cincinnati’s (UC) College of Cooperative Education and Professional Studies (CCPS). Throughout my professional experiences, I use scholarship and assessment to collaborate with my colleagues as we create and deliver responsive and relevant student programs.

Steering Committee Charge

University of Cincinnati is a large, public university located in Cincinnati, Ohio. University of Cincinnati (UC) is known for its nationally recognized cooperative education (co-op) program. Students often state co-op is one of their primary reasons for attending UC.

UC’s first-year seminar model is decentralized where the colleges coordinate their own courses. The seminar I lead is an extended-orientation model in partnership between UC’s largest college, the College of Arts and Sciences, and the College of Cooperative Education and Professional Studies (CCPS). During the first year of coordinating the course, I reviewed course assessments, collected instructor feedback, organized a first-year student advisory board, and of course, taught the course myself! Upon assessing the course, including several semesters of course evaluations, it was clear changes needed to be made to course structure, purpose, and learning outcomes. For instance, student feedback indicated they wanted access to career development and more relevant, purposeful topics related to their major and career. Instructors shared the class size of 46 was too large to build community, challenge of seeing students only once per week, and greater need for academic advising integration. While the course provided positive outcomes at one time, evolving student needs and expectations change. Therefore, in response, it is critical our courses, programs, and services adapt, too.

Throughout summer 2023, a Steering Committee comprised of College of Arts and Sciences leadership, academic advisors, and a representative from Student Affairs met with a clear charge, explicit outcomes, and strategic timeline. The Steering Committee strategic priorities were the following:

1. Inform the creation of a pilot high-impact first-year seminar course that addresses timely first year student transitionary topics and aligns with the provost’s success efforts (access, attention, retention, graduation, post-graduation)

2. Co-create new course goals and learning outcomes focused on first-year student success and career discernment 

3. Develop a guiding course philosophy for instructors

4. Make recommendations on any common assignments/ assessments related to course learning outcomes

5. Develop initial guidelines for learning activities to inform learning outcomes

Committee strategic priorities, as well as all four meeting goals and readings, were provided at the first meeting to create purposeful structure and ensure timeline was met (see Figure 1). Relevant and current research and literature were integrated into the meetings, including Friedman et al. (2022) From Educational Experiment to Standard Bearer and Strayhorn (2019) College Students’ Sense of Belonging: A Key to Educational Success for All Students (Second Edition), which served several purposes. First, it allowed the group to develop a common framework and language. Secondly, literature provides an opportunity to benchmark across the national landscape. Finally, it sparks ideas and vibrant discussion in the development of responsive programs. For example, the first-year seminar’s program review process, agenda (see Figure 1), and common course requirements document were informed by best practices and strategies from Friedman et al.’s (2022) text.

Figure 1. Steering Committee Agenda.

Outcome and Impact

First-year seminars are responsive to the unique needs of the institution’s students and culture (Friedman et al., 2022). As the steering committee met, it was clear the course needed to further reflect UC’s culture and student expectations, which are aligned with career education and experiential learning. While the course needed to reflect the institutional commitment to career education, it is just as important to ensure sense of belonging, connection, and community, which are fundamental to student success and retention, were key course components. In response, the committee created a course philosophy on sense of belonging, course principles reflective of engaging pedagogies, and new learning outcomes aligned with career and academic discernment. These were then articulated within a common course requirements document, which ensures consistency across sections, while empowering instructors with tools and skills to design curriculum and address purposeful topics unique to their first-year seminar’s student populations. The course name was also changed to PD 1015: Next Bearcat Lives Here, which is a key tagline of UC’s institutional strategic plan, Next Lives Here.

Twenty-seven sections of the pilot course were implemented fall 2023. Assessment data indicates course outcomes were met, and the course ranked higher than the average of all UC’s first-year seminar courses! While we celebrate an initial positive impact on student outcomes, more work needs to be done. Upon reviewing fall 2023 data, key changes were made to the faculty development and assessment model (see Figure 2), including the creation of a symposium for instructors to share their high impact pedagogical practices, curriculum planning sessions, strategic campus resource workshops, and fall communities of practice led by returning instructors. These key changes reflect an investment in our most important resource, our instructors, who are committed to the individual and collective success of their students.

Figure 2. PD 1015 Faculty Development and Assessment Model.

Conclusion

It takes assessment and feedback to identify when a program is no longer meeting intended outcomes, but it takes courage, scholarship, and a motivated team to make a change. It is more important than ever to evaluate programs and immediately act when they are no longer meeting desired results. As editor of Insights, I hope our readers find tangible examples to apply to their work as they create and (re)evaluate high impact programs to support student success.

Gratitude

Thank you to the Steering Committee for your tireless efforts in creating the course, including Dr. Allison Logan, A&S Assistant Dean, Erin Alanson, CCPS Associate Professor, Emily Cloud, A&S Assistant Director, Corinne Cook, Assistant Director of System Engagement & Data Analytics, Raven Flanigan, Director of A&S Advising, Arin Gentry, Senior Academic Advisor, Colin Heineke, Academic Advisor, Loren Papin, A&S Assistant Director, and Dr. Trent Pinto, Director, Residence Life.

Thank you to the First-Year Advisory Board student group, including Lauren Ann Barnes, Maxine Botchway, Clay Medecke, NayNay Smith, Louis Weiss, and Kate Wainscott, who provided direct and invaluable student feedback in the course’s creation.

References

Friedman, D. B., Skipper, T.L., and Greene, C.S. (2022) From educational experiment to standard bearer. University of South Carolina Press.

Strayhorn, T.L. (2019) College students’ sense of belonging: A key to educational success for all students (Second Edition). Routledge.