First-Year Experience to be first-time experience for Tech freshmen - ebchrist

Freshmen entering Louisiana Tech this fall will not only be entering college for the first time but will also embark on a new First-Year Experience program that university officials say will connect classmates together in a new tradition.

The First-Year Experiences centers around eight core initiatives the university has adopted to acclimate entering freshmen to their new Tech family. One of those initiatives, the First-Year Convocation, will highlight the Welcome Week activities.

Medallion to be presented to freshmen at First-Year Convocation on Sept. 5

"We want it to mirror graduation," said Stacy Gilbert, director of co-curricular programs and the Bulldog Achievement Resource Center. "It struck us that most times the only time the whole class gets together is graduation, and that's why they don't really feel a connection to their class.

"We want this convocation to have all the pomp and circumstance of graduation and also serve as a welcome."

The Convocation will be held Sept. 5 in the Howard Center for the Performing Arts at 7 p.m. followed by a pep rally and refreshments in Centennial Plaza, and all 1,800 entering freshmen are invited and expected to attend, Gilbert said.

Lance Traweek, a freshman journalism major from Monroe, said he is eager to get involved and thinks the First-Year Experience and Convocation can only help new students feel more connected.

"By the time we graduate, it's too late," Traweek said. "It will be nice to come together at the beginning as a kind of stepping stone and create a bond like a family."

It will create a class camaraderie similar to what people feel for their high school alma maters, he said. Plus, it gives freshmen the opportunity to learn important information and traditions about the university that they wouldn't otherwise know.

A new tradition the university will be starting at this year's Convocation will include the medallion presentation with the inscription of the Tenets of Tech.

"The tenets of the foundation of our first-year experience," said Dr. Linda Griffin, dean of student development. "They will be introduced at the convocation."

The 12 tenets of Tech are: confidence, excellence, commitment, knowledge, integrity, respect, leadership, loyalty, enthusiasm, caring, hope and pride. Each of these will be inscribed on a bronze medallion that will be presented to each freshman at the ceremony.

"The students will then be given an opportunity to deposit their medallion as a symbol of their investment in their college careers," she said. "And in four years they will be presented again with their medallion with their graduation date inscribed upon it--this time, to keep it."

The students will each be asked to sign a document at the end of the ceremony promising to abide by these guiding principles during their tenure at Tech. These will be collected in a leather-bound book and housed in the University Archives by year, Griffin said.

"We think this (convocation) is going to create a lot of energy not only for first-year students but for continuing students and faculty as well," said Dr. Norm Pumphrey, director of the Bulldog Achievement Resource Center.

Griffin, Gilbert and Pumphrey have spearheaded this First-Year Experience program and said they are excited to see it come to fruition. It has been a complete collaborative effort between academic and student affairs.

While Tech has always aimed to provide activities to orient incoming students to the university, this program serves as an umbrella to coordinate them and create new and innovative plans, the committee said.

Other key initiatives in the First-Year Experience include an increased focus on advisement, a common reading program, and the faculty concern form.

Pumphrey said he has been doing training for advisers because it is so essential to the success of the first-year student.

"That's definitely the place that many students connect, and we are trying to strengthen that relationship," he said.

If advisers or other faculty members notice a student in need of help„Ÿbe it financial, emotional, or academic„Ÿthe new faculty concern form allows them a way to refer students to someone who can help them with a specific need.

The common reading program begun this year will introduce all incoming freshmen to a book they will all be invited to read over the summer before they begin classes. This year the book chosen to initiate the program was "Who Moved My Cheese?" by Spencer Johnson. The university seminar course, which all entering students are required to take, will serve as a place for discussion of the concepts in the book.

This year's convocation speaker, head football coach Derek Dooley, will also be using the book in his speech.

"His changed career embodies that leap of faith in the book," Gilbert said.

Dooley was a practicing attorney prior to entering the coaching profession.

For a complete list of First Year Experience Programs and Welcome Week Activities go to www.latech.edu/fye.