The First-Year Experience
Franklin Pierce University (Pierce) has conducted four NSSE administrations and, more recently, administered FSSE to assess quality in undergraduate education. Pierce began with an emphasis on assessing the impact of the required first-year seminar, Individual and Community. The institution revised the seminar in 2008 to provide incoming students with more choices, build greater faculty enthusiasm for the course, and increase curricular commonality via common summer readings, advising, and community service projects. Two of the major common learning goals for the seminar include the development of collaborative learning skills and active involvement in the community. The seminar’s requirement of a number of hours of civic and community engagement activities, which are predetermined by each professor, introduces the university mission of preparing students to become active, engaged citizens and leaders of conscience.
NSSE results showing that first-year and senior involvement in community service and volunteer work at Pierce far exceeded students’ participation at comparison institutions provided confirmation of the learning goal of active involvement in the community and for strengthening students’ responsibility toward and contribution to the community. Student feedback suggested that entering students who had participated in community service in high school did not necessarily expect to continue their efforts in college due to academic demands. However, the first-year seminar requirement created time for community service and positively influenced their continued involvement in service throughout their years at Pierce. Additional efforts to combine NSSE results with a full inventory of student involvement in other high-impact educational practices, including active and collaborative learning, common reading, undergraduate research, and capstone experiences, are part of the university’s program review process.
