Committee recommends substantial improvements for first-year students

By Jacquie Powers

A committee charged with improving the first-year experience at Cornell has recommended significant changes in programs and approaches, including a new welcoming annual event for arriving students with all the pomp, circumstance and festivity of Commencement.

The 27-member Residential Initiative North Campus Program Committee, in its final report released Oct. 28, identified three areas on which to focus: faculty-student interaction, upperclass and alumni mentoring and small group activities. In the context of those focus areas, the committee -- which includes students, faculty and staff -- identified four areas for further study and made recommendations in those areas. They include faculty involvement, orientation, freshman resource center and alumni interaction. (A full text of the report is available at http://www.campuslife.cornell.edu/Residential_Initiative.)

The committee was created in March 1999 in response to President Hunter Rawlings' Residential Initiative, announced in October 1997, that aims to provide a unifying educational experience for new students. Rawlings' initiative includes plans for a living and learning experience for all entering freshmen on North Campus by 2001.

Susan H. Murphy, vice president for student and academic services, charged the North Campus Committee with developing a program that "provides a unifying educational experience that will introduce first-year students to the breadth of the intellectual, social and cultural environment at Cornell and enable new students to experience the full diversity of the freshman class."

Murphy thanked the committee for its energy and hard work. "As requested, it provided concrete recommendations that can be acted upon almost immediately, and it did so in a relatively short period of time," she said. "These ideas, together with those successful activities currently under way for our first-year students, will give us the platform to launch the Residential Initiative in 2001 and challenge us to continue to develop and initiate new ideas to make the living-learning environment a reality."

Jean Reese, committee chair and project leader for the Residential Initiative, said the range of experience of the committee members was invaluable.

"The participation of so many faculty, students and staff brought incredibly varied perspectives and expertise to our deliberations," she said. "Opinions and ideas were challenged as we transformed concepts into achievable tasks. I look forward to continued collaboration as we begin to implement the recommendations."

Under faculty involvement, the committee made three main recommendations:

• Develop a Faculty Mentor Program, creating a linkage between an academic program (large introductory courses) and the residential program. The program will provide opportunities for freshmen to explore and expand upon the course work by interacting with faculty who specialize in those disciplines.
• Provide guest meal passes so students can invite professors to lunch or dinner, to help personalize faculty-student interactions.
• Offer dining privileges to teaching assistants in conjunction with their holding sections in the less formal residential environment, to facilitate freshman-upperclass student interaction and encourage positive upperclass mentoring possibilities.

According to the committee report, the goals of Cornell's orientation program "include creating a more welcoming campus climate, ensuring a smooth transition to university life, instilling an appreciation of Cornell's history, developing students' identity as Cornellians, facilitating academic success and exploring new ways of linking students to the Ithaca community."

The committee made these recommendations on orientation:

• Conduct a formal survey to assess the effectiveness of the current program and identify areas for change.
• Consider program changes such as an extended orientation, more uniformity in programming among the colleges and more small group activities.
• Strengthen co-sponsorships to develop an institutionwide commitment to orientation.
• Review the role of orientation counselor (OC) and improve OC marketing, recruitment selection and training strategies.
• Revise communications.
• Develop a transfer student orientation program.

The committee suggested that a Freshman Resource Center "would offer local neighborhood convenience of information, referral services and on-site programs and would provide a natural mechanism to involve upperclass students and faculty in very visible support-mentor roles." It would also facilitate study sessions with teaching assistants, student services programs, Learning Strategies Center programs and health-wellness information.

The committee recommends that the center provide:

• Dedicated space in a high-traffic area.
• Technology support, including a web page and information kiosks.
• A supportive staffing structure.
• A dining program to facilitate interaction between staff members and first-year students.

The committee noted that alumni -- with 7,000 in the area -- are a substantial resource. On alumni interaction, the committee recommended:

• Airport welcome of new students. This would make the trip to their new campus residence more welcoming and less stressful and could lead to ongoing interaction such as impromptu visits and shared meals.
• Alumni Club Membership. Current students would receive membership in regional alumni clubs and would be invited to attend activities and events.
• Alumni Fellows Program. Alumni Fellows would be assigned to a particular residence hall and could serve as program resources for residence hall advisers, hall directors and faculty fellows/faculty-in-residence.
• Student Thank-a-Thon. First-year students would call alumni and personally thank them for their annual gifts to the Cornell Fund and provide an update on Cornell events.
• Home Suppers. Ithaca area alumni would host freshman suppers, brunches and teas in their homes.
• Move-In Day Welcome. Alumni Affairs and Development staff would welcome new students and their parents with refreshments at Alumni House.

Murphy said the next step is immediately to form task groups to start work on implementing the ideas. "Some we hope to pilot in the fall, but we will know more about our ability to do any of that by the middle of next spring," she said.

Murphy added: "While some of the recommendations require funds for implementation, not all do. If necessary, we will set priorities. But I think we can accomplish virtually all of what has been proposed."