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Provost’s Office funds First-Year Experience proposals |
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Shannon Wermer |
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Jul 30, 2008
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Faculty and staff members from various departments and offices have received funds to enhance first-year student success and transition to college via new projects based on UT’s First-Year Experience Program.
“In recommending to the provost the proposals to be funded and their award amounts, the FYE Proposal Review Panel was guided by the goal of UT’s First-Year Experience Program, which is to increase the success of our first-year students, including direct-from-high-school, adult and transfer students,” said Dr. Bernie Bopp, director of the Center for Teaching and Learning, chair of the First-Year Experience Committee and professor of astronomy.
According to Bopp, the panel “sought to highlight proposals that would impact as many students as possible, decreasing student failure rates in challenging first-year courses, increasing student retention to the second year, and ultimately increasing the likelihood of their successful graduation from UT.”
A total of $247,526 was given in grants to fund proposals.
The lead investigators and their projects are:
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Jo Campbell, director of residence life, to expand the Parks Tower Academic Cluster Floor and Peer Mentor Program to include live-in members, which will impact hundreds of first-year students.
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Dr. Alice McAfee, associate professor of kinesiology, to implement phase II of Supplemental Instruction in Human Anatomy and Physiology. This will affect some 1,000 students each year and work to increase pass rates and retention into paraprofessional programs.
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Dr. Sudershan Pasupuleti, director of the Office of Service Learning and Community Engagement, to develop a Service Learning Fellowship Program that will involve 30 students.
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Luanne Momenee, director of the Learning Enhancement Center, to put together a supplemental instruction program at the Learning Enhancement Center to cover academically critical, high-risk courses in the nursing program.
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Angela Paprocki, director of the Office of Accessibility, to develop peer mentoring seminars that will provide information on self-advocacy, disclosure and confidentiality, and accommodations to first-year students with disabilities via a peer-mentoring system. The Office of Accessibility currently serves about 450 students.
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Kate Abu-Absi, director of the Arts Living Learning Center, to provide a second-year mentor experience. The center has shown considerable success in student achievement and retention, and this award will further enhance the program, according to Abu-Absi.
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Dr. Barbara Schneider, director of the Writing Center, to build connections by introducing students to UT through the Epsilen electronic portfolio/networking system; this has the potential to affect the entire first-year class.
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Edith Preciosa Kippenhan, lecturer in chemistry, to provide training and mentoring for new chemistry teaching assistants with the goal of improving the learning of hundreds of students.
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Charlene Gilbert, director of the Catharine S. Eberly Center for Women and professor in the departments of Women’s and Gender Studies and Theatre and Film, to provide an intensive mentoring program designed to partner incoming undergraduate women students pursuing STEMM-related degrees (science, technology, engineering, math and medicine) with upper-level women students, graduate women students and professionals in their fields.
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