As a senior, psychology major Megan C. Myers knows her way around the College library and doesn’t get rattled by the prospect of a tough research paper or an oral presentation in front of her peers. But she also remembers what it was like to be a first-year student: "I was overwhelmed and very homesick," she says. Like many Trinity students, Myers learned how to become a successful college student fairly quickly, thanks in large part to the First-Year Program. Through a seamless system of teaching, advising, mentoring, support, and orientation, the First-Year Program helps each new crop of entering students make that transition. "The First Year Program," states Dean of the Faculty W. Miller Brown, "recognizes that the freshman experience is critical in shaping students' academic aspirations and commitments, stimulating their intellectual curiosity, and setting the pattern for their remaining undergraduate years." Founded in 1969, the program was lauded last year as an "Exemplary Program" in The Templeton Guide: Colleges that Encourage Character Development.

Beginning the intellectual journey
At the heart of the First-Year Program is the first-year seminar course. Entering first-year students who are not enrolled in the specialized Guided Studies, InterArts, Cities, or Interdisciplinary Science programs choose from about 30 diverse and compelling first-year seminar topics. Some seminars, such as "The Legal History of Race Relations," may speak to a particular interest that students have. Others--for example, "Sense and Nonsense" (which addresses the senses and perception) and "Experiencing the Human Face" (which analyzes faces historically, artistically, and psychologically)--are more exploratory, bringing the standard tools of critical investigation to a subject students might not have examined before. All emphasize thinking, speaking, and writing skills and acquaint new students with the high expectations and heavy workload that will characterize their studies at Trinity.

First-year student Gerald Eugene ’04 asserts that the First-Year Program "helps first-year students get accustomed to the rigors of academic life. The biggest thing I’m learning is time management." One of the things he likes most about his seminar, called "Transitions" and taught by Associate Professor of Psychology David Winer, is that students take turns leading the discussion. "We’re given a leadership role already, " he says, "even though we’re only first-year students." Eugene notes that his seminar is also helping him become a better writer. Within the first couple of weeks of the semester, he says, his written work evolved from "being very general to being much more specific, with more references and more revising. A lot more revising."

Seminar teachers play the dual role of classroom instructor and academic adviser. As advisers, they ensure that students become well acquainted with Trinity’s academic resources, including the Computing, Mathematics, and Writing centers, and the Library. They also help students navigate through a variety of processes and issues. For example, chairman of the history department and Director of Asian Studies Michael E. Lestz employs a "mid-semester counseling session" for his first-year advisees to help them devise schedules for the second semester. He says he wants them "to understand how the liberal arts curriculum works" and to invest in the thinking and research necessary for building a more cohesive semester and ultimately a more satisfying college career.

Integrating academic and residential life
A key feature of the First-Year Program is that students who share a seminar also share a residence hall, creating a context for intellectual life beyond the classroom. Students are encouraged to bring their work home with them, to talk and study together after class, and to take advantage of their proximity to mentors. First-year mentors -- older students who act as teaching assistants in the seminars -- live with seminar participants in the residence halls and play an important role in integrating academic and residential aspects of campus life, notes Dean of the First-Year Program and Professor of Religion Frank Kirkpatrick. "Mentors are carefully selected from among the academically most qualified upperclass students. They have demonstrated a commitment to Trinity's academic mission and to the standards of rigorous learning that each seminar will be inculcating," he says. "One of their most important tasks is to convey to their mentees the significance and practice of continuing discussion about ideas and current events beyond the classroom itself."

Megan Myers, who had a particularly positive experience herself as a first-year student, is now a first-year mentor for the "American Novels of the 1990s" seminar, taught by Associate Professor of English Sheila M. Fisher. A mentor for another seminar last year, Myers says, "I wanted to be a mentor again because I had such a phenomenal experience the first time. The program really fostered a good environment for learning and making friends. I loved being a part of it and seeing the first-year students grow." She believes that setting a good example makes the biggest impact in the residence halls. She likes to work in the evenings with her door open so that her mentees, who may be intimidated by the workload, can "actually see someone who can do the work."

Denny O. Petrov ‘01, an economics major and mentor for "Genocide, Collective Identity, and Human Rights" taught by Professor of Philosophy Maurice Wade, says, "I try to put myself back to my first year and remember what kinds of different issues and concerns I had." A big part of his job, he believes, is just "staying close," and he notes that the living arrangements enable him to do that. It is not unusual for students to visit his room in the evening to talk about a paper or seek advice about leading a class discussion.

Creating many contexts for learning
First-year seminars create a variety of contexts for learning and exploring for all participants, including faculty members. Associate Professor of Anthropology James A. Trostle views teaching his first-year seminar as "an opportunity to climb out of the narrower disciplinary constraints we tend to work within." His seminar, "Mapping Communities: Trinity, Hartford, and Beyond," is exciting for him precisely because he is not an expert. Rather, he says, he and his students "will together develop some collective expertise." In one mapping exercise, students headed out to a four-block section of a neighborhood just beyond campus, each taking note of one feature of the community, such as the location of empty lots, laundry hung out to dry, or evidence of children. Mapping these items on transparencies and overlaying one on top of the other, the class collaboratively built up its knowledge of the community.

Professor Lestz sees his first-year seminar, "Highlanders: People and Cultures of the Himalayas," as an opportunity to introduce first-year students, who are often open to new areas of interest, to the Asian continent, about which they tend to know little. In selecting an interesting reading list, he admits that his agenda is in part to "romance these first-year students into a relationship with that part of the world." Lestz also teaches a related first-year colloquium, "To the Mountains: A History of Mountaineering," during the spring semester. Optional half-credit courses, colloquia often continue themes or discussions begun in the fall-semester seminars. Lestz has combined his seminar and colloquium with a trekking trip in the past, further expanding the learning context.