But the world of first year programs is much larger than that of religious studies departments. Everyone has first year students! Almost everyone is haunted by concerns about their "retention and persistence." And everyone seems to be doing the same two or three things - first year seminars and common reading programs, "(living-)learning communities," and assorted IT tricks - to try to improve "student satisfaction and success." The panels seem all to be describing different ways of juggling these big things, but the best ideas I've heard, and the newest, were in a panel called "The little things count."What makes this conference different from those I'm used to is that faculty are in the minority. Most of the attendees are "student affairs" or "student life" professionals - people involved in advising, admissions, career services, etc. I've heard (and know from my own experience) that there is little communication between "academic affairs" and "student affairs" in most American colleges and universities, but not many of us faculty types care or even know, which drives the "student affairs" people up the wall. It's true that the "student affairs" people know and care about "the whole student," but in a setting like this one can forget that universities are really about acquisition and transfer of knowledge, not just social and intellectual skills.
Or maybe that's a naïve, faculty-centered view? In a room with people concerned with student experiences from the whole gamut of institutions of higher education it's clear that American college students do a lot more than study while at school, and get a lot more (or less!) from the experience than academic expertise, critical thinking skills, etc. Is the academic project the hub or just one of the spokes? I suspect that us faculty types might answer that differently (or less equivocally) than administrators, students, parents, alums...!
