Principles of the SCSU First Year Experience
St. Cloud State University’s First Year Experience is organized according to five basic principles:
- Students are more likely to achieve academic success and to pursue degrees at SCSU to their completion when they feel a strong sense of connection to the institution, fellow students, individual faculty members, and the larger community of which SCSU is a part.
- SCSU can help students foster a sense of connectedness by insuring: ongoing one-on-one contact with faculty, excellent advising, the formation of student learning communities, and widespread academic and social support for students across institutional boundaries (e.g. classes, departments, residence halls, etc.).
- Academic skills including, but not limited to, time management, study, strategic research, critical thinking, and deep reading are most effectively taught and learned in the context of disciplinary and cross-disciplinary scholarship rather than in isolation from their actual practice. The teaching of such skills must be offered not only as add-ons to existing curricula, but as an integral component of learning in all disciplines.
- The First Year Experience should introduce and orient students to the structure of the University, its colleges, departments, and social and academic support services. First Year Experience faculty members and staff should help students think productively and strategically about professional goals, major and minor courses of study, and career planning.
- First Year Experience coordinators and faculty members should work with the Academic Learning Center to provide learning styles and study behaviors assessments to all students enrolled in the First Year Experience program.
