Librarians revamp first-year programming

Moving to college requires many adjustments for students. Living away from home while managing a full class schedule and navigating a new campus can be stressful. Western Michigan University has created courses to help students transition from high school to college. The University Libraries offers programming to support students in these courses, helping them build research skills and the knowledge needed to take advantage of all of the services and resources we have to offer.

Library instruction has been a critical component for these courses for several years. In fall 2021, our program was revamped to meet the emerging needs of first-year students and bring two high-impact instructional experiences together. FYE 2100 is an intensive and interactive course for first-year students that focuses on personal discovery, building habits and learning about campus. ENGL 1050 is a foundational general education course on writing and researching at a college level—two critical skills for nearly all other classes at WMU.

ENGL 1050 and FYE 2100 are taught separately, but first-year students often take these courses during their first semester.

“This was the first year the programs were purposefully coordinated in order to better improve the first-year student experience in terms of the activities, delivery, learning outcomes and scheduling,” said Juliana Espinosa, user engagement librarian.

“Knowing that retention and attrition are core issues facing higher education, we were trying to increase engagement with first-year students while solving some logistical and pedagogical problems,” said Kate Langan, engagement librarian.

Every element was reconsidered as part of the revamp, from how sessions are scheduled to learning outcomes to program delivery. For FYE 2100, the changes went even further; rather than having peer student leaders facilitate a library tour, faculty librarians delivered sessions to help create a connection with students earlier in their WMU careers.

“Research has shown that student retention, persistence and graduation is positively impacted when they interact with faculty beginning early in their academic careers,” said Espinosa. “We wanted to connect students to faculty librarians in two high-impact first-year classes, FYE 2100 and ENGL 1050.”

These programs also reach a significant segment of WMU’s first-year student population. In fall 2021, over 600 students and 780 students were enrolled in FYE 2100 and ENGL 1050, respectively.

The changes were positively received based on feedback from the students who attended an ENGL 1050 session. Over 91% reported learning something new, and 95% reported that they intended to apply what they learned.

Based on this input and feedback from course instructors, librarians will continue to improve on the experience and plan to implement additional sessions for spring and fall 2022.