Thomas B. Day
Freshman Success Programs
September News from FSP
Welcome Back!! You are the heart of SDSU.
Thank you for your
commitment to our incoming students.
Here
are the topics for this month:
§
Fall Meeting Calendar
§
Class Rosters and Add Codes
§
Pre-course Survey
§
Teaching Materials
§
Welcome Week Activities
§
Summer Reading Program Info
§
Course Planning/Fall Luncheons
§
FSP/Seminar Directors Communication
§
Beloit College 2004 Mindset List
(See the related articles below for details
about these meetings)
University
Seminar Directors Luncheons:
(Please
contact lvanhorn@mail.sdsu.edu for reservation.)
Stand-alone
sections:
DAY DATE TIME Faculty/Staff
Club
THU 9/23 11:30-12:30 Rm'B'
WED 10/27 " Rm'B'
IC sections:
WED 9/29 11:30-1:00 Rm'B'
WED 11/3 " Rm'B'
LLC sections:
WED 10/6 11:30-1:00 Rm'A'
THUR 11/11 " Rm'B'
WED 12/1 11:30-12:30 Rm'A' & 'B'
(Please
contact lvanhorn@mail.sdsu.edu for reservation.)
Sep
1 12-1pm Fac/Stf (meet MK for lunch)
Sep
3 12-1pm Fac/Stf (meet MK for lunch)
(Please
contact lvanhorn@mail.sdsu.edu for reservation.)
Sep 7 10-11am DUS conf Rm
Or AD 201
Sep
7 2-3pm (same)
Blackboard
Directors Lounge Intro
(Please
contact lvanhorn@mail.sdsu.edu for reservation.)
Sept 8 2-3pm LL261 (BATS classroom)
The class rosters for your sections of University Seminar are available through the Web-portal. If you have not set up your portal password with Lynnette, please call immediately to ensure that you have a current roster for the first day of class. Once in the Portal you will be able to make your own list of add codes based on the number you need.
You may have a number of students try to crash your sections this year. Please accept only the number of students in your class that you feel comfortable enrolling. Remind the other students that this is an optional class and they are not required to take it, even though it’s listed on their MAPs.
At the Faculty Week Orientation Luncheon, all Seminar Directors were given a set of survey sheets and Scantron forms to use with your class. The FSP has a mandate to assess student learning in all of our programs, and this survey will help us take one of those measures. Please administer the survey on the first day your class meets, and then return the Scantrons in the attached envelope. If you were unable to attend and have not been by the FSP office to pick up your new materials, (including your “gifts”), please do so before your first class meeting, so we can have a full representation of the students’ responses as they begin the semester.
We have been very gratified by the early comments about the new Seminar Directors Sourcebook that we distributed at the Orientation. Some of the highlights to look for include:
§ University Seminar Student Learning Outcomes and assessment suggestions
§ Complete descriptions of the elements of the course, including the Campus Resource Forum and the Wellness Workshop.
§ Annotated Suggested Course Outline
§ A Syllabus Template
§ 27 Assignment and/or Activity Descriptions
Many of the Sourcebook contents are also available at our Blackboard classroom, University Seminar Directors Lounge. We are very eager to hear from Seminar Directors who use these materials and can offer suggestions for improvements and additions to the Sourcebook. Please use the Blackboard discussion board or an e-mail to the FSP office to share your reactions and suggestions for our Sourcebook.
Using the Sourcebook
however does not preclude adopting last year's textbook, Your Guide to College Success by
Halonen and Santrock, for your class again this year. That text will not be automatically sold at the bookstore as a
required text for all students in University Seminar. It is still
available at the Bookstore and can be required by you for your section. If you plan to require the textbook for
the students in your section, please contact Mary Dettweiller at the SDSU
Bookstore (4-7546 or mail to: mary.dettweiler@sdsu.edu).
If
you are not planning to use Your Guide…
in your class, but you find that some of your students have purchased the book
and have opened it, please encourage them to make use of the book as a personal
activity that can help them, in addition to the activities in the seminar, to
help them get acquainted with and adjusted to the new demands and opportunities
of their first year in college.
2nd Annual Welcome Week!!, August
30-September 11, 2004
http://www.sa.sdsu.edu/welcomeweek
The 2nd Annual
Welcome Week, “Lights, Camera, Aztec!” is a 2-week event that encourages ALL new and continuing students to pursue
involvement through academic and social activities, such as the BATS Computer
Training Classes, On-Campus Job Fair, “Night at the Padres,” “Traditions” BBQ,
Student Organization Fair, Community Receptions, "Dance Your Az(tec)
Off!" Dance & Casino Night, SDSU Community Service Project and
more! Please review the schedule of
events at
http://www.sa.sdsu.edu/welcomeweek to determine which events can be
incorporated into your overall University Seminar course syllabus.
Students
who attended Academic Orientation in the summer, can attend all Welcome Week
events that have a fee (except the Sea Kayaking Wilderness Weekend) for
free! Although these students do not
have to pay for the events, we still need them to go on-line and register so we
can reserve space at the events. All reservations are being taken at http://www.sa.sdsu.edu/welcomeweek.
These students
are also encouraged to attend the Orientation Reunion & Pizza Bash on
Monday, August 30, where Academic Orientation participants will receive a
Welcome Week t-shirt, pizza, and passport. The passport, which will list the
Welcome Week events, will be punched as
students attend these events. At the end of the 2 weeks, students will turn in
the passport to be entered into a drawing for a round-trip airline ticket or a
spring break package trip. The free admissions, pizza bash, t-shirt, and
passport are only for students who attended orientation.
If you have any additional
questions, please contact Jennifer Johnson directly at x41042 or the front desk
of the Centers for Student Involvement at x45221 We look forward to seeing your
students at Welcome Week!
For
Seminar Directors who want to include the Summer Reading Program their seminar,
the FSP will hold two more workshops.
These meetings will be held just before the campus discussion event
during Welcome Week. Check the meeting
calendar above for the workshop date and times.
The committee preparing the Summer Reading Program activities has developed, under the guidance of Bruce Harley, an extensive Website, http://dus.sdsu.edu/srp, with links related to The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, its author and many of the issues raised in the text. If you are looking for interesting ways to connect students to the text, you might find this website especially helpful. The committee chair, Chris Procello, is also eager to hear about any links you would like to suggest, as the site can continue to build throughout the semester. Please send your suggestions to procello@mail.sdsu.edu.
The
committee has requested that all campus
activities related to the Summer
Reading Program be announced through University Seminar, in the hope that
students might choose as a group to attend, or get credit for a class
activity.
The
calendar of events related to the SRP includes:
All-campus Book Discussion Sept 9
Cross-cultural film night Oct 6
Anne Fadiman campus visit Oct 15-16
For more details, look for a calendar of SRP activities on the SRP webpage at http://dus.sdsu.edu/srp.
Once again the FSP will invite Seminar Directors to monthly luncheons to share and ask questions as the fall semester unfolds. The Directors who teach Stand Alone sections (100A) will meet and eat for an hour. Those Directors who teach in the packages (100B/C) will meet for one-half hour for questions and sharing, and then have lunch with their entire package teams. Please check the meeting calendar above for the dates and times of these luncheons.
We
have our own classroom site on the campus Blackboard System. The Seminar Directors Lounge, the
classroom for all Seminar Directors, is our site for announcements, sharing
ideas and materials, and communication. You can use our site just like the
students will use theirs, and then be able to understand their questions about
how to use the system.
If
you have never used the system before, trying it as a Seminar Director can be a
low stress introduction. FSP will be
offering a 1-hour Blackboard Intro
Workshop just for Seminar Directors who want to practice how to get into
the system and how to use our Directors Lounge classroom site (see workshop
schedule).
This e-newsletter minimizes the need to
send messages from the FSP. However,
upon e-mailing our first newsletter we discovered that many Directors did not
receive it because it got picked up in a Spam filter or for other reasons we
cannot fathom. That is why we are
sending out two versions this month, print and e-mail. We will not be able to do this on a regular
basis. Please be sure to check your
Spam filters and any other mailboxes that might intercept this newsletter, so
that you can be sure of receiving this vital source of news from the program.
As
more Directors become accustomed to using and checking Blackboard, we may be
able to avoid e-mail/paper announcements altogether, and simply use e-mail for
individual messages.
This
year's first-year students, members of the Class of 2004, were generally born
in 1982, the year the E.R.A went down to defeat, AIDS was designated a top
priority after it killed 164 people, the Weather Channel and CSPAN went on the
cable, and Phil Gramm became a Republican.
For several years, Beloit College has
prepared a list of some of the things that differentiate the frame of reference
of entering students from that of their teachers and mentors. After all,
students of 18, for whom the fall of the Berlin Wall was a topic of their
parents' conversation, know little of the fears of the Cold War and nuclear
annihilation. For their younger teachers, Watergate is a distant memory; for
their distinguished senior professors-the ones with a pile of vinyl LPs in the
closet -the Crash and the Depression probably shaped their lives. Courses on
American history now need to include Vietnam and the sixties, not to mention
the development of electronic communication.
According to Beloit College's Keefer Professor
of the Humanities Tom McBride, "We assemble this list out of a genuine
concern for our first-year students, and as a reminder to the faculty of the
gap that may exist between generations. Education is the best remedy for the
situation, but we start out with varying points of reference and cultural
touchstones."
1. Most students entering college this fall
in the class of 2004, were born in
1982.
2. Grace Kelly, Elvis Presley, Karen
Carpenter, and the E.R.A. have always been dead.
3. Kurt Cobain's death was the "day the
music died."
4. Somebody named George Bush has been on every national ticket, except one, since they were born.
5. The Kennedy tragedy was a plane crash, not
an assassination.
6.
Huckleberry Finn has always been a "banned book."
7. A "45" is a gun, not a record
with a large hole in the center.
8. They have no clue what the Beach Boys were
talking about when they sang about a 409,
and the Little Deuce Coupe.
9. They have probably never lost anything in
shag carpeting.
10.
MASH and The Muppet Show have
always been in re-runs.
11. Punk Rock is an activist movement, not a
musical form.
12. They have always bought telephones,
rather than rent them from AT&T.
13. The year they were born, AIDS was found
to have killed 164 people; finding a cure for the new disease was designated a
"top priority" for government-sponsored research.
14. We have always been able to reproduce DNA
in the laboratory.
15. Wars begin and end quickly; peace-keeping
missions go on forever.
16. There have always been ATM machines.
17. The President has always addressed the
nation on the radio on Saturday.
18. We have always been able to receive
television signals by direct broadcast satellite.
19. Cities have always been trying to ban the
possession and sale of handguns.
20. Watergate is as relevant to their lives
as the Teapot Dome scandal.
21. They have no idea that a
"presidential scandal" once meant nothing more than Ronald Reagan
taking President Carter's briefing book in "Debategate."
22. They have never referred to Russia and
China as "the Reds."
23. Toyotas and Hondas have always been made
in the United States.
24. There has always been a national holiday
honoring Martin Luther King, Jr.
25. Three Mile Island is ancient history, and
nuclear accidents happen in other countries.
26. Around-the-clock coverage of congress,
public affairs, weather reports, and rock videos have always been available on
cable.
27. Senator Phil Gramm has always been a
Republican.
28. Women sailors have always been stationed
on U.S. Navy ships.
29. The year they were born, the New York Times announced that the
"boom in video games," a fad, had come to an end.
30. Congress has been questioning computer
intrusion into individuals' personal lives since they were born.
31. Bear Bryant has never coached at Alabama.
32. They have always been able to afford
Calvin Klein.
33. Coors Beer has always been sold east of
the Mississippi, eliminating the need for Burt Reynolds to outrun the
authorities in the Smokey and the Bandit
films.
34. They were born the same year that Ebony
and Ivory lived in perfect harmony.
35. The year they were born, Dustin Hoffman
wore a dress and Julie Andrews wore a tuxedo.
36. Elton John has only been heard on easy
listening stations.
37. Woodstock is a bird or a reunion, not a
cultural touchstone.
38. They have never heard a phone
"ring."
39. They never dressed up for a plane flight.
40. Hurricanes have always had men's and
women's names.
41. Lawn darts have always been illegal.
42. "Coming out" parties celebrate
more than debutantes.
43. They only know Madonna singing American Pie.
44. They neither know who Billy Joe was, nor
wondered what he was doing on the Talahatchee Bridge.
45. They never thought of Jane Fonda as
"Hanoi Jane," nor associated her with any revolution other than the
"Fitness Revolution" videotape they may have found in the attic.
46. The Osmonds are talk show hosts.
47. They have never used a bottle of
"White Out."
48. If they vaguely remember the night the
Berlin Wall fell, they are probably not sure why it was up in the first place.
49. "Spam" and "cookies"
are not necessarily foods.
50. They feel more danger from having sex and
being in school, than from possible nuclear war.