Welcome to Teaching, a weekly newsletter from The Chronicle of Higher Education. This week, Dan will be your guide. First, Beckie describes an effort to improve the student experience for sophomores, then we point you to some recent research and let you know about a new teaching kit you can buy.
Sidestepping the Sophomore Slump
When freshmen arrive on Ohio State University’s campus for move-in day, they’re greeted by cheering students who cart their belongings up to their dorm rooms. But then, “you come back your sophomore year and it’s like, ‘Oh, hi, you’re back, good luck,’” says Vicki Pitstick, an administrator there.
That contrast is part of a bigger problem, Pitstick says. Lots of colleges have “great” programs for first-year students, she says, like freshman seminars and living-learning communities. Sophomores, however, are often overlooked. Ohio State is working to change that: Pitstick runs the university’s Second-Year Transformational Experience Program, known as STEP, which started as a pilot five years ago and seeks to improve the experience — and success — of these students.
The university had decided to require sophomores to live on campus, and was looking for a way to make that a distinctive experience. And they saw STEP as an opportunity to solve another problem, too: According to the National Survey of Student Engagement, 80 percent of Ohio State seniors said they had little or no faculty contact outside of the classroom.
So STEP, which is optional and not for credit, revolves around weekly meetings between faculty mentors and cohorts of 15 sophomores held in residence halls. In the spring, each student works with the professor to write a proposal for engaging in a high-impact practice, like an internship or undergraduate research. The proposals include a budget, and if they’re approved, students can get up to $2,000 to fund them.
The directive to do more for sophomores came from Ohio State’s president at the time, E. Gordon Gee, who had pushed for them to live on campus, Pitstick says. Not every college will have such an impetus to build a comprehensive program. Still, Pitstick says, colleges can make smaller adjustments to better serve sophomores, like tailoring existing workshops to meet their needs.
By sophomore year, students have learned their way around campus geographically. But that doesn’t mean they’ve found their way academically or emotionally. Many still struggle, Pitstick says, with choosing a major, building relationships, or finding a community. If colleges can find a way to let sophomores know they matter — without talking down to them — it can go a long way.
Pitstick’s observations got us thinking about the curricular challenges of sophomore year, which can be a kind of no man’s land between intro courses and upper-level work. Does your college’s curriculum address the specific needs of sophomore year? Has your campus found a good way to engage sophomores? Have you? Share it with me at beckie.supiano@chronicle.com and it may appear in a future newsletter.