Office of Faculty EngagementAll first-year students are required to attend a First-Year Advising Lab.
The purpose of the lab is to assist students in preparing to have discussions with their faculty advisors about course selection and how to include high impact practices in the student’s education. This lab will teach students more about the Stetson curriculum and how it impacts their specific goals. More
Colleagues:
This year, the Stetson Honor System Council is focused on a variety of educational initiatives aimed at first year students.
Primarily, we offer presentations for FSEM and first year classrooms. These presentations take 10-15 minutes, depending on content and engagement level. In addition, we are planning several other initiatives:
FSEM instructors who would like Honor Council members to visit their classrooms should contact Kimberly Noriega, vice president for education; Kathryn Renae Metcalf, president; or Cindy Bennington, faculty advisor.
Thanks,
Cindy Bennington
Honor Council Faculty Advisor
Maribel Velasquez has been providing part-time administrative support of Stetson’s FSEM Program since 2013.
“In this role, I coordinate the logistics of the FSEM Program,” said Ms. Velazquez. “For example, I maintain the FSEM Program budget and provide oversight of the $150 Class Experience Budget for FSEM instructors to engage students a classroom/social/field trip experience. I also maintain the FSEM web pages, assign classrooms to overlapping FSEM classes during FOCUS week, email rosters to FSEM instructors, coordinate FSEM workshop logistics, and provide other general administrative support of the FSEM director.”
Have questions? Ms. Velasquez can help you or point you to the right person or resource. Contact her at [email protected].
Maribel Velazquez is administrative specialist III for the English Department as well as the Master of Fine Arts and First Year Seminar Programs at Stetson University. She joined the Stetson University community in 2005. Prior, Maribel served in the areas of Residential Life and the office of Dean of Students at Stetson University.
Ms. Velazquez earned a BA in accounting, specializing in business practice. She has worked in higher education for over 20 years and is from New York City.
Stetson University’s Values Day will take place on Tuesday, Sept. 26, 2017, according to the Values Day Committee.
Irshad Manji will be the speaker at Stetson’s 2017 Values Day on Sept. 26. Photo by Jimmy Jeong/courtesy of Simon & Schuster.
The 2017 Values Day speaker is Irshad Manji. She is the Founder and Director of the Moral Courage Project, which equips students to make values-based decisions. She has turned her journey as a Muslim feminist reformer and lesbian activist into teachings about professional leadership, informed by cutting-edge research that connects across the disciplines.
The New York Society for Ethical Culture has given Manji the Ethical Humanist Award. And Oprah Winfrey awarded Manji the first annual Chutzpah Award for “audacity, nerve, boldness and conviction.” Manji has also produced a PBS documentary in the America at a Crossroads series titled “Faith Without Fear” and the documentary was nominated for a 2008 Emmy Award.
To learn more about Manji and her work, please visit her personal website and her NYU project.
This year’s R.E.A.D. (Reflect Engage & Affirm Diversity) book, “Allah, Liberty and Love” (2011), is written by Manji. Manji describes the book as an effort to “reconcile faith and freedom in a world seething with repressive dogmas.” One of the key teachings of Manji’s work and a universal theme in her book is “moral courage” or the willingness to question, speak up, and be a courageous global citizen in a world filled with inequities. To check out a description of her book, visit the following site or Amazon.
For faculty, staff and students eager to read the book prior to Values Day and for faculty/staff members interested in integrating the book in 2017-2018 courses, the Office of Diversity and Inclusion has generously ordered books and should have copies available for pick-up Aug. 7, 2017. Additionally, copies will be made available at Convocation and during the R.E.A.D. session at Values Day.
For any inquiries or questions regarding Values Day, please contact Dr. Chris Bell ([email protected]), Savannah-Jane Griffin ([email protected]), or me ([email protected]).
In community,
Rajni Shankar-Brown, Ph.D.
Associate Professor and Jessie Ball duPont Chair of Social Justice Education
Director of Education Graduate Programs
Stetson University
Adapted from Stetson Today. August 27, 2017
Stetson’s Quality Enhancement Plan, Transitions, aims to improve the onboarding of first-year students. The FSEM Program is the academic component of Stetson’s QEP.
The plan has two major initiatives:
Each university or college seeking reaffirmation of accreditation from the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges (SACS-COC) is required to develop a Quality Enhancement Plan. Quality enhancement is at the heart of the Commission’s philosophy of accreditation. The QEP describes a carefully designed and focused course of action that addresses a well-defined topic or issue(s) related to enhancing student learning. The plan is designed by engaging the wider academic community to address one or more issues that contribute to institutional improvement. Stetson is currently preparing to submit its 5th-Year Interim Review Report to SACS-COC.
The FSEM Program at Stetson University was delighted to welcome over 50 FSEM instructors, teaching apprentices, staff, and administrators to the FSEM kick-off workshop of the 2017-2018 academic year. The following recap, provided by facilitators, captures the essence of activity and outcomes of the gathering.
11:30
Lunch Served
12:00 – 12:15 pm
Welcome
Noel Painter, Executive Vice President and Provost
Rosalie Richards, Associate Provost for Faculty Development
Provost Painter welcome FSEM faculty and staff to the 2017-2018 academic year. pic.twitter.com/rqzwEyrU6g
— BrownCenter@StetsonU (@browncenter_su) August 18, 2017
Provost Painter offered greetings and urged FSEM instructors and teaching apprentices to provide a distinctive experience for first year students. He highlighted that a taskforce or committee focused on core student learning will become integral to the FSEM Program. Dr. Painter also highlighted the FSEM Discovery Initiative, a pilot project focused on moving an undeclared major into a major.
Dr. Richards reminds @StetsonU #FSEM instructors of the DOE #dearcolleague letter as we reflect on events in #charlottesville. pic.twitter.com/ansZgrpnfn
— BrownCenter@StetsonU (@browncenter_su) August 18, 2017
Associate Provost Richards framed her remarks by reminding FSEM instructors of their responsibilitiy for creating classroom environments free of bias and hate. She read the first paragraph of a Dear Colleague letter penned by the former Secretary of Education and former Deputy Secretary and referenced Stetson University’s position of solidarity with the University of Virginia. She then provided an update of the FSEM Program.
Resources
Associate Provost Full Remarks
2017 FSEM Program Update
2017 FSEM TLI Report
12:15 – 12:30 pm
Goals and History of the FSEM Program
Megan O’Neill, Associate Professor of English and Director of the Writing Program
When we started the FSEM program, our faculty development meetings were brown bag lunches in the Faculty Lounge, and all 20 of us sat on mismatched chairs to share ideas, trade assignments, and talk about the intellectual work of the program for its students and the ways we translated our passion projects to the seminar parameters. Now, we meet in Allen Hall, and it’s barely big enough for us all.
Those early days were important in developing the heart and core of the program, but a number of questions had to be wrestled with:
- What is the FSEM’s purpose?
- Is it simply to help students transition from high school?
- Or is the FSEM supposed to be an intro to a discipline?
- Interdisciplinary? Quasi-disciplinary?
- Was it a place for students to learn note taking skills and how to ask for help when they needed it?
Then, as FSEM expanded, other questions came up: Is it solely a liberal arts course in A&S? What is a Business FSEM like? What about a Music FSEM? Where are the commonalities and how can we respect differences?
After a decade of thinking, developing, investing, teaching, refining, and measuring, I think we’re coming around again to study the nature of the FSEM. It’s a place where students come to experience the life of the mind, the world of ideas, where they learn about new perspectives, read engaging texts, discuss new ideas, and join the intellectual world of the university. And although we don’t talk about our goals in this kind of language, I think we are also trying to teach them the habits of mind: inquiry; curiosity; creativity; resilience.
12:30 – 1:00 pm
Student Success: Interactive Case Studies
FSEM Instructors partner with FSEM Teaching Apprentices to unpack student scenarios
Julia Metzker, Executive Director of Brown Center for Faculty Innovation and Excellence
https://twitter.com/browncenter_su/status/898818699376836608
Participants organized into three groups comprising teaching apprentices, and seasoned, proficient, and new FSEM instructors. Each group evaluated one of three situational case studies steeped in stereotypes and microaggressions in the classroom. Participants offered recommendations on how each case embraced bias or discrimination and offered suggestion for how the FSEM instructor could positively address or redress each situation.
Resources
Interactive Case Studies
1:00 – 2:30 pm
Breakout Sessions
Breakout #1: Getting Started: Aligning your assignments and assessments with FSEM learning outcomes
Target Audience: Novice FSEM Instructors
Colin MacFarlane, Director of Assessment and Operational Effectiveness (CLaSS)
Rajni Shankar-Brown, Associate Professor and Jessie Ball duPont Chair of Social Justice Education
New #FSEM instructors discuss and share assignments, assessments and expectations of @StetsonU first year seminars pic.twitter.com/lIDbZQV0Lv
— BrownCenter@StetsonU (@browncenter_su) August 19, 2017
This session was facilitated by Rajni Shankar-Brown and Colin MacFarlane for new FSEM instructors. Six instructors were in attendance as well as learning and information literacy librarian, Grace Kaletski-Maisel, and Leigh Ann Dunning, director of the Writing Center and associate director of the Writing Program. The breakout was originally designed as a workshop to align assignments with the FSEM learning outcomes: critical thinking, speaking, writing, information literacy, and integrative learning. However, it became immediately clear to the facilitators that addressing pressing questions about FSEM was more important. Additionally, several instructors had attended the FSEM Transformative Learning Institute in May where alignment of assignments was also discussed in considerable detail. Facilitators concluded that addressing immediate needs of the seminars (scheduled to meet within three days) was a more prudent use of time.
Questions were raised on a variety of topics including
Best practices to address questions were offered by all participants and facilitators were able to confirm some policies or procedures and other strategies based on experience. A few of the instructors brought their syllabus and had questions on specific items, and all instructors voiced having general questions amidst of both excitement and anxiety, i.e. being this was their first time teaching an FSEM course. A request was made for more information about the University’s policy related to student travel and off-campus events as related to the community-building activity. Information will be made available to all FSEM instructors.
Additionally, instructors inquired about the $150 Class Experience Budget and asked for seminar experience ideas . Dr. Shankar-Brown recommended that instructors review their FSEM contract letter and contact Dr. Richards if there were any additional questions or needs. The facilitators shared ideas on how the funds could be used. Examples included but were not limited to taking students to DeLeon Springs and visiting the Sugar Mill, going bowling as a class, visiting a local museum, purchasing materials for in-class activities, and purchasing items to support a culminating project or celebration.
Breakout #2: Next Steps: Improving outcomes for students in your class
Target Audience: Proficient FSEM Instructors
Julia Metzker, Executive Director of Brown Center for Faculty Innovation and Excellence
Dr. Julia Metzker works with #FSEM instructors @StetsonU to improve outcomes for students in first year seminars pic.twitter.com/szZLHSy05m
— BrownCenter@StetsonU (@browncenter_su) August 19, 2017
The session started with participants introducing themselves with a short description of the FSEM they were preparing to teach. The breakout was originally designed around an activity for participants to map their syllabus to the learning outcomes and QEP priorities but plans were abandoned to deal with immediate concerns.
After a short free-write activity participants identified things they were most anxious about and the things they were most excited about, the session evolved into a free-flowing conversation to address some of the concerns. The themes that arose predominantly centered around making sure participants were meeting the expectations of the FSEM – an issue they found challenging because they are either unclear about those expectations or did not feel they could adequately address all of the learning outcomes. A secondary concern was engaging first-year students so they were active participants in class.
Two best practices arose from the conversation:
There seemed to be a variation about which (and to what degree) of the expectations from the Quality Enhancement Plan (QEP) were being integrated into the class. It was recommended that a forum be established for FSEM instructors to come to some consensus about which of the eight expectations (5 General Learning Outcomes and 3 QEP priorities) are most critical to the course and which are optional.
Breakout #3: Looking Forward Discussion: Where do we want to go? How do we get there?
Target Audience: Experienced FSEM Instructors
Megan O’Neill, Associate Professor of English and Director of the Writing Program
Ranjini Thaver, Professor of Economics and Director of Africana Studies
Experienced #FSEM instructors @StetsonU discuss the future of first year seminars pic.twitter.com/ivmPJndxhp
— BrownCenter@StetsonU (@browncenter_su) August 19, 2017
Approximately 10 seasoned faculty discussed the status of the FSEM program, in particular, its past, present, and its future.
Faculty agreed that the FSEM program began as a visionary program with the mission of introducing new Stetson students to the rigors of college life and encouraging them to begin the journey of opening hearts and minds (see Stetson Values). However, for the past two years, the seminar has become a chore-like course with the overriding themes of housekeeping and retention, rather than enlightenment. There was general consensus that the overt reliance on top-down faculty development and the resultant frustration among seasoned faculty has triggered resistance to teaching an FSEM.
The following recommendations were made:
Seasoned FSEM faculty were clearly excited about effecting change to the program and hoped that suggestions will be considered and further deliberated by administrative leaders, and implemented in a timely manner.
2:00 – 2:30 pm
Report Out and Wrap-up
To close the workshop, each person provided a single word reflection. Some reflections are captured here:
FSEM Instructors:
Here are two pieces of information we would like to convey to you.
In Community,
Colin MacFarlane
Director of Assessment and Operational Effectiveness
Campus Life and Student Success
Stetson University
A crowd of students and their professors in First-Year Seminar classes gather outside Sage Science Center on Monday to view the partial solar eclipse.
Cloudy skies didn’t stop Stetson first-year student Carlie Minott from trying to catch a glimpse of Monday’s partial solar eclipse.
Carlie Minott
A physics major from College Park, Maryland, Minott tried a pinhole viewer made from a cereal box and then a pair of NASA-approved glasses as a crowd of students gathered outside Sage Science Center to view the celestial event Monday afternoon.
“I couldn’t really see it through the cereal box, but through the glasses, you can see the crescent shape,” Minott said. “It actually surprised me. … It’s just a wonderful phenomenon that you don’t get to see that often.”
It was the first total solar eclipse to cross America since 1918 and started at 11:50 a.m. EDT as a partial eclipse when the moon crossed into the path of the sun over the Hawaiian Islands, according to Space.com. It became a total eclipse over Oregon at 1:15 p.m. EDT and ended over mainland America at 2:49 p.m. in South Carolina.
Stetson Physics Professor Kevin Riggs tries to see the eclipse through a reflecting telescope.
Stetson Physics Professor Kevin Riggs, Ph.D., said he managed to get a clear look through his reflecting telescope outside Sage Science Center when the eclipse began.
“At 1:18, it just started and I saw just a little bit, about five minutes when it was clear and then the clouds rolled in — horrible timing,” he said.
The students met outside about 2-2:30 p.m. for First-Year Seminar classes, which allow them to work closely with a faculty member to explore a single topic — before classes begin for all students on Thursday, Aug 24.
First-year student Raven McCain said her mother went online to purchase NASA-approved glasses for her and the rest of their family. Such glasses were in demand on Monday afternoon, and she and other students were happy to pass them around, so others could see.
“Actually, it looks like a crescent moon up there right now, so that’s really cool,” said McCain, a biology major from New Smyrna Beach. “I could see through the clouds a little bit.”
Adapted from Stetson Today, August 21, 2017
Stetson Physics Professor Kevin Riggs has a timely activity planned Monday afternoon for students in his First-Year Seminar class.
Incoming students will meet in the FSEM classes for the first time today, Aug. 21, at 2:30 p.m. – just as a partial solar eclipse unfolds over DeLand.
The moon will begin to move between the Earth and Sun, blocking out some of the sun’s rays, about 1:18 p.m. on Aug. 21 and reach its maximum at 2:50 p.m.
The National Weather Service reported a thunderstorm in the area at 1:15 p.m. and partly sunny skies through the rest of this afternoon.
“The eclipse will be a bit under 90 percent in DeLand,” explained Riggs, Ph.D., chair of the Stetson University Physics Department. “You would need to travel up to South Carolina to see the total eclipse.”
Kevin Riggs, Ph.D., is chair of the Stetson Physics Department
Looking directly at the sun is dangerous and can cause permanent eye damage. Added Riggs, “I don’t have (eclipse-viewing) glasses and you need to be careful about bad quality ones that are not sufficiently optically dense or are scratched.”
Instead, Riggs has made a pinhole viewer for his FSEM class on Energy and the Environment to watch the rare eclipse. A pinhole viewer projects the image onto another flat surface for safe viewing.
For those who can’t get outside, NASA will provide live video streams of the total solar eclipse across America.
On Monday, Aug. 21, the moon will pass between the Earth and the Sun, casting a shadow.
To see the total eclipse, people will need to be in the path of “totality,” a 70-mile ribbon from Oregon, beginning about 9 a.m. Pacific Time, and moving over 13 states, ending near Charleston, South Carolina, at 2:48 p.m., according to NASA.
On the Stetson campus, Riggs said people will need a view of the southern and western parts of the sky to “see” the sun during the eclipse.
Stetson Professor Emily Mieras also will engage the 16 students in her FSEM class in the eclipse. She plans to make pinhole viewers from cereal boxes for students in her American Popular Culture class to watch the eclipse and discuss the media coverage of it.
Emily Mieras, Ph.D. is chair of the Stetson History Department
“It’s gone beyond a celestial event to being a cultural phenomenon,” said Mieras, Ph.D., associate professor of History and American Studies, and chair of the History Department. “I think people have this fascination with astronomical phenomena. There’s a long history of people being fascinated about it, long before people understood how it all worked.”
Adapted from Stetson Today, August 7, 2017
First-year students celebrate the end of their first class at Stetson University at the FSEM Ice Cream Social.