Freshman Year Experience

The Freshman Year Experience is more than a single class or program component, but an ongoing process of integrating new students into the campus’ academic and social environment.  The university has developed the following goals to serve as guidelines for the purpose and place of the program:

1. To introduce students to liberal arts education.
2. To introduce students to academic and life skills for success.
3. To develop an understanding of academic disciplines and their connections to each other.
4. To ensure students’ successful transition and engagement with university life.

The TLU Freshman Year Experience consists of the following program components:

1. Bulldog Basics & New Student Orientation – Through a summer enrollment process for all incoming freshmen and a three day on campus orientation session immediately prior to the start of fall semester, students begin the transition integration process of becoming an official TLU Bulldog!
2. Freshman Experience Course – FE134 Exploring the Arts and Sciences.  This course is taken by all freshmen in the fall semester and focuses on the exploration of a liberal arts education as well as provides some sense of the nature and relationship of individual disciplines.  Through the course students will begin to understand the role of education in providing them with the knowledge and skills necessary for success beyond college – the aim of education.  
3. Freshmen Experience Designated Courses – During the spring semester of the freshman year, every freshman will enroll in one course that bears the freshman experience (FE) designator.  These are traditional freshmen courses where the instructor have assumed the responsibility of making their freshmen students aware of important campus events, dates, and processes that first year students need to know.
4. Peer Mentors – An important part of any successful college experience is the social component and connecting not only with other freshmen, but also with upper level students.  Peer Mentors are experienced students that help freshmen adjust to TLU and empower them to become academically successful by passing on academic and campus knowledge and culture to new students.  TLU Peer Mentors are successful upper level students who are selected and trained in student development, transitional issues, community building, student to student interaction, and student to faculty interactions.
5. Advising
1. Academic Advising – Incoming freshmen students are assigned to full time faculty advisors from their stated major area of interest.  
2. Faculty Mentors – The FE134 course instructors assume the role of Faculty Mentors and act as a guide to their students for academic, social, and cultural transitional issues.