Friday @ the Center
February 11, 2011
Marston Lecture this Tuesday
You are invited to hear C. May Marston Assistant Professor of Classics, Owen Ewald, present "Augustine's Journey" at the 2011 Marston Lecture this Tuesday at 2 p.m. in Demaray Hall 150.
SPU SERVE Grant Applications
Applications for 2012-2013 SPU SERVE grants for the exploration of vocation are due March 1, 2011. See the Center's SERVE webpage for more information.
Sophomore Slump
To follow up on Cindy Price and Margaret Brown’s presentation in Senate yesterday, sophomore slump is much more complex than students of the “millennial” generation no longer feeling special. Research shows that for many Sophomores, their second year has an existential quality:
- Second guessing their choice of institution
- Feeling a sense of isolation
- Questioning goals made at a less mature age
- Desiring to own their personal aspirations rather than please others
- Grudgingly discovering that they don’t have the knowledge, skills or abilities to pursue the career that they had mentally and emotionally invested in
- Downright not knowing what they want to do and feeling like the clock is ticking on them
SPU, like many other schools, is in the midst of developing University wide programs to address these and other issues for sophomores. However, key components to rising out the slump are interaction with faculty and student’s commitment to a major. Subsequently, providing students one on one advising becomes very important during the sophomore year. A program evaluation associated with a 2000 initiative at William and Mary to improve retention “reasserted the original (and often lost) mentorship role of advisement by making it a significant adjunct to instruction. Rather than discharging a purely informational function in helping students to understand curricular requirements and how to act them out, advisers, in the best cases, became tutors - actively shaping student understanding of the connection between courses and their own path of development.”
Want to read a bit more on sophomore slump? The Gahagan and Hunter article is a good summary of the issues while Graunke and Woosley covers similar ground but also presents original data to support their conclusions. Thanks to Margaret Brown for passing on these resources. Next week, I’ll have more on advising for retention.
Maa al salama,
Margaret Margaret Diddams, Ph.D. |
