Resource Spotlight: Building a Case for the First-Year Seminar

Why the First-Year Seminar Matters: Helping Students Choose and Stay on a Career Path by Christina Harrington and Theresa Orosz, Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Copyright 2018. Used with permission.

Sabrina Mathues, Instructor, Innovation and Learning Resources, Brookdale Community College

Why the First-Year Seminar Matters: Helping Students Choose and Stay on a Career Path (2018) is a professional resource for coordinators and advocates seeking to make a case for the first-year seminar (FYS) at their institutions. The combined practical expertise of author Christine Harrington, a nationally known FYS advocate, and co-author Theresa Orosz, an accomplished FYS instructor and community college administrator, positions this book among the few that not only build a strong case for their call to action, but support that case with a clear road map of activities that professionals can undertake.

Harrington and Orosz deliver a thorough literature review of the history and evidence-based value of FYS, from its conception to the most recent calls for its reform as a component of the guided pathways movement. The book provides an extensive resource list and infographics that readers can use in their own efforts to support FYS. It illustrates the seminar’s impact on increased retention and graduation rates and on affective experiences (e.g., sense of belonging) in detail and supports an emerging urgency to both establish and require FYS at scale across institutions. The text uniquely frames the argument for an FYS requirement within the context of establishing equity. Accordingly, the authors emphasize the role of FYS in the exchange of cultural capital, noting that students—particularly those who are most disadvantaged—do not capitalize on optional supports.

The text further builds a case for how FYS either meets or can be redesigned to fit the guided pathways goals of helping students choose and then stay on a path, emphasizing the need for learning outcomes and activities in FYS to elevate the role of career exploration and decision making. Why the First-Year Seminar Matters provides related career theories and suggested topics for discussion in the course to support the case for a robust, rigorous FYS focused on developing career literacy and self-efficacy.

Part II of the volume gives a practical guide for FYS course redesign and implementation in accordance with the recommendations from Part I. Employing backward course design principles, the authors lead readers through the process of establishing learning outcomes, to developing course content, to applying appropriate teaching methods. Harrington and Orosz then turn their attention to those who are facing or will face the challenge of championing FYS at their campus, walking readers through Kotter’s eight stages of leading a transformative change process as applied to making the case for FYS.

In short, this text is a must-have reference for those seeking to positively impact student success measures at scale, with the idea that FYS is vital to that cause.

Reference

Harrington, C., & Orosz, T. (2018). Why the first-year seminar matters: Helping students choose and stay on a career path. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.

Contact: Sabrina Mathues, smathues@brookdalecc.edu

Related Articles in E-Source

Harrington, C. (2011, October). Using peerreviewed research to teach academic study skills in first-year seminars. 9(1), 15-17.

Young, D. G. (2013, October). Research spotlight: National evidence of the assessment of first-year seminars: How and how much? 11(1), 18-19.