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Thriving in Academe

Sustaining First-Year Students
Students beginning college do have unique needs.
By Calvin B. Peters, University of Rhode Island

Unless we engage first-year students in those practices that sustain deep learning, we shortchange both them and our institutions.

This fall, many of us stood in front of classrooms filled with first year students. Most were fresh out of high school young and inexperienced, but eager to be free from the regulation of secondary school and the limits of household rules and routines. Others were returning to the classroom after time away. Some had stopped out to travel or do volunteer work; some had begun careers that they now sought to change; some had raised families; and some, perhaps has seen more than they wished in the service of their country.

No matter their background, all the evidence indicates they came to college for reasons we would applaud: to learn thinks that interest them; to get training for a specific career; to gain general appreciation of ideas; to prepare for graduate or professional school. Those students we met for the first time in the waning days of summer present both an opportunity and a profound challenge.

Students' enthusiasm, curiosity, and desire to start a new stage in their lives hold out the promise that we can engage them in the real substance of intellectual life.  Yet, that promise often goes unfulfilled, lost in cavernous classrooms, dulled by the drill and kill repetition of problems, or, most frequently, simply fading away because of our inattention to the unique needs of first-year college students.  It does not have to be that way.

Meet the Author
Calvin B. Peters is professor of sociology at the University of Rhode Island. He is a graduate of Westmont College and the University of Kentucky.  For the last 30 years, he has been heavily involved in instructing and advising first-year students, regularly teaching introductory sociology sections with enrollments of more than 500.  His scholarly expertise is in cultural sociology and the sociology of knowledge.  In addition to his sociological books and articles, Peters has published papers and presented workshops and seminars on teaching and instructional design. He is the coauthor of Teaching First-Year College Students (Jossey-Bass, 2006). He can be reached at cbp@uri.edu.

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