Since Fall 2018, we have been offering “passion” courses (First-Year Signature Courses) each fall semester to incoming first-year students. The intent of these courses was to build student engagement and academic rigor in the very first semester here at Oswego. Studies show that engaged students are retained at a high level at most institutions (Barefoot, 1993; Tinto, 1997; Kuh, et. al, 2005).
We ran 13 such courses this past fall, which you can find described on this website.
These courses all include the following: collaborative learning, oral and written communication, creative problem solving, learning strategies and information literacy and intercultural knowledge and competence.
Our data show increased retention rates in both fall to spring and fall to fall cohorts for those students who take a Signature course, so we are looking to offer a robust menu of these courses for the upcoming fall.
We are writing to you to invite you to teach one of these passion courses in Fall 2022. These are “F” section courses, but not discipline-specific or Gen Ed courses at this time. The courses all have a discipline-specific prefix and count toward liberal arts electives. Incoming students indicate interest in these courses on the information sheets they already fill out prior to pre-registration. We had no trouble filling the courses these past two falls.
Our intention is that these courses would be taught on load rather than as extra service. This means your department chair needs to be fully on board with your decision to teach one of these courses. Since these will be F section courses, the first-year signature course might replace a current F section in the department if not needed for your majors.
If you are interested, please let us know via this interest form as soon as possible, so we might include you in the discussions as we move forward.
We will meet as a group to learn from each other approximately once a month in Spring 2022. You can indicate your availability on the form.
Thank you.
Julie Pretzat
Dean - School of Communication, Media and the Arts
Co-facilitator, First-Year Signature Courses