 Hi welcome to the academic advising and six-week check-in. My name is Colby Lemieux and I'm joined here today with my colleague Will Johnson and we'll be providing you a bit of insight and advice and a little bit of an overview of what your students have experienced so far in these six weeks. What we're going to review today is the academic and career development center. I currently work there as an associate director and Will will be speaking to a little later on in the presentation as he is representative from the Dean of Students Office. We'll also talk about the fall academic support and peer tutoring that we have on campus. Some of the academic advising as well as spring course registration. I can't believe we're already talking about that in October, but we are. We're also going to hit upon some important academic dates, the FERPA Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, the first six weeks what your students have been going through up until this point, as well as the first year experience. So let's start off with the academic and career development center. Academic and career development center or as your students might refer to it as the ACDC is a holistic one-stop shop for all academic needs. We support students in transition. We offer accessibility if your student has ever worked with a 504 plan or needed academic accommodations. If they have a temporary impairment, this office within the academic and career development center can certainly help your student receive academic accommodations where eligible. We also have academic support and learning resources. We're going to talk a little bit later about the academic support workshops that we have as well as our peer tutoring. We also consist of the career services aspect where your students can work with our career counselors to ascertain what skills they have in developing their cover letter, their resume. We have personality assessments for them like the strong, the strengths quest so that they can kind of get a better idea of what they're innately talented in and how they can portray that not only through their academics but also as they progress through their college career and ultimately into the job market. Students may come to us to declare their major, to declare their minor, to change it, to transfer between schools, for example, from the College of Arts and Sciences to the Dolan School of Business. Vice versa. We're here to support your student throughout their college career from when they step on campus until when they graduate. On the screen now you see the fall academic workshop series. Most of them on the left side have already occurred. Our next one coming up is test for success. These workshops are created by student request and demand as we want to support them throughout their transition here at Fairfield and get the study skills that they really need to have success in their college career. These workshops are offered on a rotating basis in the fall and the spring. So in the spring semester we will still offer workshops. They will be a little bit different as most students have had their first experience at their college semester with them. We want to change it up a little bit but still offer some of our most requested ones such as the taking note and the test for success workshops. These students are available to your students on org sync which is an on campus app where they can sign up for events and register and learn about what's going on on campus. Up next we have our academic and support peer tutoring program. Fairfield is pleased to offer peer tutoring in a variety of subjects. You can see in the bottom corner of your screen the fall peer tutoring sessions. We offer tutoring across all four schools and in some of the most critical subjects such as biology, chemistry, the modern classical languages, as well as a math center, an English center, a writing center, accounting economics. These programs are designed to help support your students and in addition to the peer tutoring, we also have various offices who are offering their success methods and techniques to your students. Project Excel, athletics and the library research support program are just a few to name some. At Fairfield we offer a faculty advising model. What that means is each one of your students is assigned a faculty advisor in their discipline. Some of you may have students who are undeclared. They are also assigned a faculty advisor who specialize in working with students who have not yet declared a path of study. The faculty advisor is your students first point of contact when it comes to course selection, advising through a program, but your students also have a myriad of support through other channels as well. Our office, the academic and career development center provides supplemental advising for your students throughout the year, as well as during advising season, which is coming up in November. Their students can also visit the department chairs. I usually recommend students to visit department chairs if they're unsure of what major they want to declare. If they're not sure exactly what they could do with an English major, but they want to learn more about that, the department chairs are a great resource. There are also peer academic advisors, which your students can speak with someone who's gone through this and is going through this. They are trained in the academic core curriculum and can assist students in kind of declaring what they are interested in and what they can kind of connect with them on. Of course, we have our assistant and associate deans of each school. So for instance, the College of Arts and Sciences, the Dolan School of Business, the School of Engineering and the Egan School of Nursing and Health Studies. I'll have assistant and associate deans ready and prepared to assist your students through the academic advising period and throughout the year. Some of the things that are covered within the academic advising season or times when they're meeting with their advisor are things like the university core curriculum, school program requirements, the pre-professional programs, and by that, I mean law and the health studies, cross school collaboration. So if you are majoring in the Dolan School of Business, but you're interested in pursuing a minor within the College of Arts and Sciences, that is something that can be done. Your students will also be familiar with their degree evaluation, which is accessible to them 24 hours a day online. They should become familiar with that and go over that with their advisor or their assistant dean, whoever they are meeting with. As I mentioned, we are also here for supplemental support. A lot of students also come to us asking about Study Abroad. The Study Abroad office also partners with us in determining what courses they should save for abroad or take here on campus in the regular fall and spring semesters. On the screen now, you're going to see some important upcoming dates. Next week, we have the majors and minors fair, which is a large event where you can see a lot of different majors and minors represented. Students have the opportunity to meet with department and faculty who are from each of the majors, test out what kind of things they might offer, see what kind of programs are available to them. It's a great event. We encourage your students to attend, as it really provides the opportunity for them to meet and connect with some important faculty staff. Also, we have midterm estimates coming up. At Fairfield, we identify midterm estimates as grades of C minus D or F, and these are communicated to the students to help connect them to the support resources to ensure that they feel supported academically and to get them the help that they may need in a specific course. If a student decides that a specific course is not for them and that they need to withdraw from it, we do have the course withdrawal deadline coming up on November 14th. Every student experience is unique and every student curriculum is unique. So the course withdrawal deadline should be something they discussed with their academic dean's office or our office in the Academic and Career Development Center. Academic advising for Spring 2018, as I mentioned before, is coming up. Academic advising will begin this year on November 1st and end on November 20th right before the Thanksgiving break. The class of 2021 will be registering on November 20th. Then they'll go home for the break and we're going to come back with them if they have any final schedule changes. The 20th is just a starting point for their registration, so they certainly can make changes after they return from the break, but certainly the 20th is when they will begin their registration. At this point, I'm going to pass it on over to Will to discuss some of the other pieces in the six-week experience. Thank you Colby and good afternoon. My name is Will Johnson and I'm the Associate Dean of Students here at Fairfield University. I'm going to start by talking to you a little bit further about FERPA. And I know FERPA was a hot topic of discussion during June orientation, but we want to use this as an opportunity to review it as certainly throughout the course of the first semester some other questions may have come up in your minds about what FERPA is, what FERPA means, and how do I address that. In essence, FERPA is a federal law and it requires us to allow students who are 18 years of older to have protection over their educational records. Now, I certainly understand that many parents and guardians are at home saying our students are very dependent on us. We're paying lots of money in many cases for them to be at college. We want to know how our sons and daughters are doing at the university. And there are certainly ways that that can happen, but it does take the approval of the student here at the university in order for that to take place. So there are a number of release forms in various offices across campus. Unfortunately, there's not one universal FERPA release form, so a student may need to fill out different forms in different offices to allow you, as their parent or guardians, or any other individuals to be able to review, access their records, or speak with an individual such as myself or Colby about a student's individual record. So there are forms available in the Office of the Dean of Students, and these forms would be released if a student may have any student conduct, disciplinary, or behavioral history that you would like to discuss with the university within all of the academic administration offices, all the academic deans offices, as well as ACDC. There are release forms there as well, too. All of these forms are available online, so they're easily accessible by students to go on to print off the form, to sign off on that form, and then submit it to our office, granting any other individual the permission to review their academic records or speak with someone about the student's academic records. So the first six weeks is an important period in the transition of any new student to the university, not necessarily just a first-year student, but any student, you may be a parent or guardian of a transfer student as well, too. And that's really what we define as the week between move-in, which took place in late August this year, and Columbus Day weekend, or fall break as we also refer to it, which just took place this past year. We see the first six weeks as a critical juncture in the student experience. We know there is a lot of adjusting that goes on within a student, and also for parents and guardians as well, too. We recognize that. But the first six weeks is a period where we put a lot of emphasis, a lot of attention, make sure that we are providing our students with lots of support so that they can ease in their transition to the university, their transition to the university goes as smooth as it possibly can. All of our first-year students as well as our transfer students to the university are enrolled in our first-year experience seminar, and this is really a great way to help students acclimate to the university. There are a number of different topics that are talked about during the first-year experience program. Many of them Colby just talked about as she described some of the work that goes on within the Academic and Career Development Center. So the student experience, you know, so what have first-year students experienced to this point, and what should they be experiencing? On the screen you'll see there are a number of different topics that first-year students, or any again any new student to the university, may be experiencing, and you may have heard about some of these experiences as well, too, as they are beginning to claim their independence, to take more responsibility for their life and their future and what direction they're heading in, both academically but also socially and personally as well, too. The first six weeks are the beginning of a period of what we call self-discovery, where a student begins to individuate to a certain degree and determine what their likes are, what their interests are, what their preferences are, and how they can pursue them within the university community. Oftentimes one of the reasons why students and their families select Fairfield University as an undergraduate destination is because of the multitude of opportunities that are available for students. So through some of the programs, again, that Colby pointed out, as well as many others that we haven't talked about or may not talk about in this session, I think back to our student activities fair, which takes place during the very first week of the semester. It's really an opportunity for students to really see what Fairfield has to offer and how they're going to begin to make their way through this university community. Probably the biggest struggle that we see students having is balancing the academic and social demands. Certainly being new to any environment, one of the first things that particularly our late adolescents will want to do, is find a friend and peer group. They want to know who are the people who are going to be by their side, who are the people they can connect with, who they can communicate with, who are they going to live with, and that often takes a priority in the minds of some of our students. So those social elements making friends becomes a very large part of what students do, particularly during the first six weeks. What we will continue to make sure students stay focused on is certainly the academic part of their experience. Knowing that that is a reason why they are here, that is one of the reasons why we have so many systems in place, that if we see students are struggling academically and socially as well too, that the proper offices or individuals will be alerted so that we can provide the students the necessary support that they need in order to be successful. So student life, in any given academic year we probably have 80 to 90 plus active clubs and organizations, and we encourage our students to get involved with clubs and organizations, and we recognize that in some instances there may be a hesitancy to get involved, that tends to be those students who want to make sure that they have their academics down pat first before they get involved in any activities, but what we like to say to students is becoming involved in activities is a progression, right? As a student first arrives on campus, getting involved in a club or organization may be just an initial way to form a community, to find other individuals who have like interest, to find a sense of belonging within the university community, which is a really important element of this transition. It does not mean that they need to come in and take on any leadership role or get behind the development of any initiative on our campus, although some of our students will, and we encourage that, but getting involved really does help our students find a sense of belonging here at Fairfield, and if the student has not done so to this point, we encourage them to go ahead and do so. Colby referenced Org Sink a little bit earlier. On Org Sink, which is our online platform, all of our clubs and organizations and activities are listed there, so students can go on to Org Sink, find clubs and organizations based on a particular interest that they may have. There are many different ways to sort out the clubs and organizations. They can find out who the leadership of those clubs and organizations are, as well as when those clubs and organizations meet. We have a number of athletic contests that are taking place on campus. Our fall sports are well on their way and we're starting to get revved up for our winter sports. We have Red Sea Madness coming up this Friday here on campus. Certainly encourage your sons and daughters to attend that event as we kick off the men's and women's basketball season, and the fall concert will be taking place this weekend as well too, just a shameless plug for those activities taking place this weekend. Fairfield at night is a university-sponsored activity that goes on every single weekend to make sure that every Thursday, Friday, and Saturday night there is some programmatic event activity for students to participate in. If at any time a student says there's nothing going on on campus on a weekend, all you have to do is take a look at the calendar. There is always something happening. In many of these events, they tend to be free. They often have prizes associated with it, and in many cases there is free food provided as well too. So if that's not enough instead of for students to come out, I don't know what it is. Campus jobs and employment, certainly those opportunities are of interest to our students. Students may have received federal work study money in their financial aid packages, and hopefully by now have secured work study job and an office on campus, but there are as far as I'm aware still some openings in certain departments for federal work study employees. So if a student is looking for that, I encourage them to go to the financial aid website or schedule time to meet with their financial aid counselor in the Kelly Center to talk about how they might go about securing a federal work study position. There are a limited number of non-work study positions on campus where students who may not have been offered work study through their financial aid award, and many of those jobs are posted on the university website as well too. Retreats, retreats are a strong component of what we do here at Fairfield University. I think it's part of the experience that students can have from their first year all the way through their senior year. This past September, our first year students were given the opportunity to participate in the escape retreat, and the escape retreat is specifically for our first year students here at the university again to give them a sense of belonging, a sense of community. It was certainly something that generally is attractive for students who may be struggling a little bit to find that niche here, find that group of friends that they can connect with. Most of these retreats are sponsored by campus ministry, so that's certainly another great resource for students who are looking to get involved, who are looking to get engaged on campus, to find out some great ways to make friends and become a part of the Fairfield University community. So how can you help? How can parents and guardians help students during this transition period? Certainly one piece of it is open communication. Have frank conversations with your sons and daughters about their experience, and I know students vary. There's some students who are going to tell you every single thing that's on their mind and everything that's going on with them. At times things you may not want to know, and there are other students who are just going to tell you, you know, everything's fine, everything's okay, and won't give you much along with that. But I think certainly as long as you make it a point to keep that open channel of communication available for your son or daughter, that is a great way for you to help them with this transition period. Certainly rather than giving them the answers or perhaps reaching out to a department on their behalf, one of the things that we encourage parents to do is ask questions of the students to help them solve the problem that they may be facing. Oftentimes when a student finds that they are trying to figure something out themselves or discover something for themselves, they're much more likely to act upon it and take ownership for it. And that's one of the things that we want our students here at Fairfield to do. I think that is part of the college experience as they move into adulthood and really start to take accountability for where they are going in their own lives. So again asking them those questions that will help them resolve a problem rather than just answering or solving the problem on their behalf. Certainly give them space to adjust. You know many students went home this past weekend. The campus was very quiet this weekend. We appreciated that. We hope that you had some a great opportunity to connect with students when they return home and they shared with you a lot about their experience and what was going on with them. But certainly give them that space to adjust. Give them the opportunity to learn what Fairfield has to offer. Figure out their way of navigating through the university and again to take ownership for it. And last but not least encouragement. Encouragement is certainly an important element in all of our lives. Let students know that you are behind them. That you want them to do well. And really if they are ever in need that you are there for them. Much in the same way we do here on campus. Letting them know that we are here to support them to make this the best possible journey possible. And you know whatever it is that we can do to help. We are certainly here to do so. So some of the resources on campus we've mentioned many of these already so I will not go through them one by one but certainly they're the academic offices that are here to support students on the academic side. There is the office of the dean of students which encompasses a number of other sub offices as well too. That are here to support students in some of the student life areas. But that does not mean that students can't go to any of these other offices if they have questions or concerns about academic or student life. I think all of the staff members in both of these offices are very well versed on both the academic and student experience here at the university and are well poised to answer any questions or concerns that they have or that you may have as well too. Counseling and psychological services if students are having a far more difficult time adjusting or transitioning to the university. We certainly encourage them to utilize the services of counseling and psychological services. There's some really great counselors and therapists up there who are ready and willing to support our students in any way they can and certainly the same goes for for campus ministry. The campus ministry staff all of our campus ministers are welcome already with open arms to help our students as they transition to the university. A few additional dates for you to keep in mind. Alumni and family weekend if you haven't marked it on your calendar hopefully you'll do so now and we'll see you back here not this coming weekend but the weekend after next. Alumni and family weekend is going to be capping off a very big week for us here at Fairfield University as we will have the installation ceremonies of president mark nimic here so it's going to be a great book into a week full of festivities here on our campus. The kairos retreat is another one of those many retreats that I mentioned that are offered through campus ministry that's coming up at the end of November and Thanksgiving break it will be here before we know it. These six weeks will go by pretty quickly and certainly something to mark on your calendars in terms of when students will be returning home and then we'll be looking at the end of the semester after the Thanksgiving break things go by at a very rapid rate and it will be the intercession and then the students will be home with you for a while a good solid three weeks it looks like there so that will be a great opportunity again for you to reconnect with students as they return home and really take the time to assess how the first semester has gone and come up with a game plan or strategy if needed to make any changes or adjustments necessary for continual improvement and with that I think we're going to open up the floor for questions and turn it over to Brendan. Awesome so um a couple of families have submitted um sorry some questions so do you think you guys could just talk about the process of being advised um or being assigned an academic advisor and how the first year students find out who their advisors are. Sure so advisor assignments are done very thoughtfully um and what I mean by that is an individual process by which the academic dean's office will assign an advisor based on the program of study or if the student is undeclared based on student interests that your students identified during their first year questionnaire that was submitted over the summer months um if a student currently has an advisor and is thinking of changing their major um then their advisor will change when their major changes um and does that answer your question enough? Where might they find their advisor if they're looking for? Thank you so to find their advisor they can log on to my.fairfield and there's an icon there that says degree evaluation all of the information regarding your student's academic record as well as their academic advisor is listed there in order to get in contact with their academic advisor all they have to do is click on the name and it will automatically open up an email address to the advisor with a copy to the student for their records as well. Awesome um a second question was if students are able to create their own major or minor? That is a possibility um we call that the individually designed major it is most commonly found within the College of Arts and Sciences the process by which an individually designed major is created is that this student works closely in conjunction with the academic dean um who then provides an advisor based on the area of interest um students work closely with an advisor in some instances with two advisors to create the major to make sure that it meets all of Fairfield's academic curriculum requirements as well as different components such as research, ethics, other components based on the field of study but certainly is something that can be done if your student is thinking about doing that I encourage them to get in touch with their academic dean's office. Just to kind of backpack off that point at what point in a student's Fairfield career do they need to declare their major or minor? So a student may declare their major or minor at any time um typically what we see is that most students declare by the end of the sophomore year if not sooner however that can be adjusted based on a student's individual timeline um that kind of timeline is set forth by the traditional four-year graduation model however we have many students who are part-time who might be taking summer classes so that does vary based on the student and what they're experiencing but typically I would say by the end of the sophomore year is what's most commonly seen. And then our last question is if it's frowned upon for a student to withdraw from a class? It is not frowned upon um as in seen negatively on a transcript um if a student is going to if a student is struggling within a class and they're just not getting what they put in and they're feeling they're fearing that they may impact their GPA by getting an you know an unfavorable grade in the class they have the opportunity to withdraw from the class with that being said um students should do this and can only do this in consultation with either academic and career development center or the academic dean's office as we look at their entire picture um so a student can go from full time to part time with a course withdrawal so we make sure that that won't happen um most students are registered for approximately five classes if they withdraw from one and they are then in four classes that is still considered full time so we go over that with the student based on what class they're looking to withdraw from what implications it may have if they're in a class like biology that has a sequence for the spring we kind of look at what is the best interest for the student um in terms of it being frowned upon um it does not have a negative connotation we don't do withdrawals pass fail it simply is just a w on the transcript the w does not impact the GPA whatsoever um many times student choose to withdraw from a course um so that they don't get a grade um that will bring down their GPA if they're going to try it again in the spring semester if they just change their plan of study there's a plethora of reasons why a student might choose to withdraw from a class um i always believe and i think will can chime in here too um if you have a couple of withdrawals on your overall college transcript it's not seen negatively if you start getting up there and it becomes a trend then that's where it would be concerning but one or two certainly is very normal i have a couple i think i've done all right um thank you that was the last question that we had excellent well thank you all for attending we wish your sons and daughters the best of luck as they continue through the fall semester and into the spring with fairfield great our contact information is on the bottom of the screen there feel free to reach out to either of us or our respective offices if you have any additional questions thank you