Trinity's New Challenge: Helping First-year Students Start Strong

Click here for an interactive timeline of the Starting Strong Initiative
(created by Sam McWhorter)

By Sam McWhorter and Erin Crooks

In just three months, the incoming freshmen class will begin their college career at Trinity, and the university is hoping to start the Class of 2023 off on a stronger foot with the newly implemented Starting Strong Initiative.

The initiative traces back to early 2016 and Dr. John R. Hermann, professor of political science, who was responsible for writing the initial proposal.

In April 2016, the plan was chosen as the new QEP, or Quality Enhancement Plan, as part of the re-accreditation process, and Hermann chaired the initiative through its planning stages. By June 2016, the planning officially began, as the newly christened “Development Team” received funding from the Office of the President.

More than a year later, the first tangible portions of the plan were put into motion. Pilot programs were put into place and tested on a limited number of students from the freshman class matriculated in 2017. The most successful of these pilot programs, according to Dr. Michael Soto, associate vice president for student academic issues and retention, was the ”Early Alert System.” The system allowed teachers to notify students who were struggling, along with their advisors, after five weeks of classes, hoping to use available resources to redirect and aid them towards success.

In fall 2018, the QEP went into effect alongside multiple other features of the Starting Strong Initiative, including restructuring of the Tiger Learning Commons to better facilitate quantitative learning, and faculty grants designed to support classes aimed at freshman.

An important challenge for Starting Strong to tackle is helping first-year students navigate the Pathways curriculum, says Soto. To meet the challenge, a new advising center was established in fall 2018, headed by Dr. Lapetra Bowman. Within its very first year of operation, the advising center has already undertaken substantial amount of work. Bowman has individually advised over 150 students in addition to organizing multiple advising workshops. “We weren’t sure what to expect. Students have sought her out,” says Soto.

A fall 2018 survey shows that first year students are getting to know the relatively new curriculum, implemented in fall 2015. “We were pleased to find that while students weren’t as confident about Pathways during NSOs [new student orientations] as we hoped, by late in the fall semester most students answered almost all of the questions we asked,” says Soto.

First-year student Devan Karp has been content with his Pathways plan. “I’ve found a lot of success personally in what overlaps for me as a Communication major, but I understand that it varies with the different majors and minors that exist on this campus.” Though able to find it manageable, Karp admits that he has had to do extra work in order to figure out which classes he needs to take in order to fulfill various requirements of the Pathways and graduate on time.

In comparison, freshman Lindsay Schmitt finds Pathways to be frustrating. “It has been very difficult to get Pathways classes, especially those in my cluster.” Likewise, first-year student Ishana Khetarpal says, “I think it’s hard for pre-med students to fit in Pathways and pre-med requisites. I have so many to fulfill, which is restricting me from focusing on the classes that matter or even taking other classes that I’m interested in.” While Khetarpal realizes the importance of taking a diversified course curriculum, she believes her attention to Pathways may be affecting her grades.

Though many freshmen have encountered difficulties with Pathways, some are hopeful of the new adjustments recently approved by the faculty assembly. One of the adjustments allows students to take two lower division written capacity courses, instead of one lower division plus one higher division course as required previously. First-year student Patricia Cordero says she “hope[s] the new improvements give students more room to explore rather than being forced to get a certain credit in such limited courses.”

Starting Strong is a five-year plan and will only be judged in time. Regardless, students currently in the university as well as newcomers will continue to feel its impact.