Enhance Student First-Year Programming to Build Community, Lessen Alienation, and Boost Retention

NAB can provide guidance and planning to:

• Co-create or enhance existing college first-year programming to help non-traditional students experience cohort-based supportive, personalized learning communities that build confidence and trust.
• Recruit and train recent grads, recommended by their professors, to participate in providing personalized support and/or instruction for these students.
• Offer new first-year programing components that blend in essential "soft skills" and emphasize critical inquiry and authentic assessment.
• Invite current faculty to serve as teachers, mentors, evaluators, or observers of these initiatives.

Enhanced First-Year Programming will:

• Decrease isolation/alienation and increase retention by helping first generation students become part of a supportive and highly-motivated learning community.
• Allow current faculty to experience higher levels of student engagement and active learning.
• Provide a laboratory for 21^stcentury liberal arts pedagogy.