Program provides frosh study groups

If all goes well with a trial advising program set to start this fall, a new generation of freshmen may soon have a little more help as they face huge college lecture halls and 20-page papers for the first time. The Office of Academic Advising will implement a small pilot program of Freshman Study Groups (FSG) next semester to test whether upperclassmen mentors can ease the freshman transition to college academics.

"Freshmen face two large challenges upon arriving to a college campus: They have large classes for the first time in their lives and they are disconnected academically," said Dean John Bader of the Office of Academic Advising. "They can't make friends in class like they did in high school, and they lack the study skills to succeed in college."

The pilot program is based most notably off similar programs at the University of Missouri and the University of Wisconson, Madison. Nine groups of eight freshmen will be recruited to become "social groups with an academic mission." Each FSG will have a "trio" of three related courses in which all eight students have agreed to enroll. Groups will be led by a "study consultant," either a senior or graduate student who has applied, been trained and is paid to tutor the group in their shared courses. Bader said that the groups will determine their own meeting times, but that he envisions weekly informal meetings to review class material, reading and writing tips, research techniques and study strategies.

"There's nothing we can do about big classes in history, chemistry, and biology, but we can make it more possible for students to succeed in these classes by providing them a small study group to work with," Bader said.

Three of the FSGs will focus on natural science courses, three on social sciences and three in the humanities. Each FSG will have a unique "trio" of subject-relevant courses, which have been selected by the academic advisors and FSG Coordinator Angela Ruddle, of the Office of Academic Advising. The University has already reserved eight slots for freshmen in every course that is included in an FSG. Incoming freshmen must decide by June 13 whether they want to register with an FSG during summer registration.

"We looked at the requirements [for related majors], what looked interesting, and what a lot of students would like," Ruddle said. "A lot of good can come from a study group, but it's very hard to make that happen freshman year when you don't know anybody."

Students in one science FSG will take General Biology, Introductory Chemistry and lab, and Seven Wonders of the Modern World. Students in one social science FSG will take Contemporary International Politics, Medieval World, and Macroeconomics. Students in one humanities FSG will take Introduction to European Art, Introduction to Western Classical Music, and Losing Faith in Faith.

According to Ruddle, once students are chosen for an FSG, they must stay with their group and continue to take the three assigned courses.

FSG is an academic advising program and will not replace faculty advisors or Student Advisors, who are volunteers assigned through the student-run Freshman Orientation committee. The pilot program derives from the current tutoring program that is offered through the Office of Academic Advising -- the Study Consultant and Accountability Program (SCAAP) -- which pays eligible undergraduates $15 per hour to tutor other undergraduates one-on-one. FSG study consultants will also be paid $15 per hour, but Bader said that the permitted time commitment has not been determined yet because the process is "still a bit experimental."

The 72 student participants and their study consultants will evaluate the pilot program with a survey at the end of fall semester. Bader said that for now, FSG is only organized as a first semester program, but he said that the program has potential to grow, both formally and informally.

"I'm hoping that groups of students will think of this as a model to register as groups even without an assigned study consultant," he said. "I can see it being applied to other majors and to other years."

"It [having student-led study groups] is definitely a step in the right direction," said freshman Matt Brinker.

News-Letter staff writer Kathryn Gradowski contributed to this report.