The sophomore year represents a critical transition for students. As institutions shift their attention from these students to the incoming class, sophomores can feel unsupported as they face increased academic challenges and explore major and career options. Sophomore dropout and disengagement has led administrators, faculty, and researchers to increase their attention to these students’ unique needs.

The 2019 National Survey of Sophomore-Year Initiatives sought to explore institutional responses to and support for sophomore students. This new report reviews these findings, including institutional practices related to academic advising for sophomores. Additionally, the report offers implications for research and practice by highlighting the ways in which institutional efforts and initiatives can be better designed for responsiveness based on differences in campus context, student backgrounds, and student needs.

A publication of University 101 Programs, University of South Carolina.

Transitions is the customized textbook for students in the University of South Carolina's University 101 first-year seminar. It includes both general and institution-specific information for first-year students. Topics include time management, academic success strategies, career development, information literacy, health and wellness, and values and identity. An ideal model for institutions working to design a custom-published first-year seminar text.

The National Resource Center for The First-Year Experience and Students in Transition has been studying the structure and administration of high-impact practices in the first college year for nearly three decades. 

This package offers the most comprehensive landscape study of these initiatives to date, drawing on analysis of the 2017 National Survey of the First-Year Experience. The survey includes sections on overall institutional attention to the first year, as well as common first-year programs including first-year seminars, academic advising, orientation, common-reading initiatives, early-alert programs, learning communities, and residential programs.

The package includes:

2017 National Survey on the First-Year Experience: Creating and Coordinating Structures to Support Student Success, a paperback report of the major findings of the survey with analysis of specific first-year initiatives written by scholars and practitioners in the field.

Response Frequencies from the 2017 National Survey on the First-Year Experience, an eBook which contains comprehensive data tables including responses to all survey items disaggregated by institutional type, control, and first-year cohort size.

Buy separately or as a package with the eBook Response Frequencies from the 2017 National Survey on the First-Year Experience.

The first-year seminar continues to be a common structure for supporting student success in higher education, yet it represents only one of many first-year programs.

With this in mind, the 2017 National Survey on The First-Year Experience marks a change from previous surveys administered by The National Resource Center for The First-Year Experience and Students in Transition by exploring a broad range of initiatives designed to support success in the first college year.

Recognizing that individual first-year programs are connected to extensive bodies of literature and practice, authors representing diverse professional networks focused on college student success contribute their voices to the analyses and presentation of results. The report includes an overview of institutional attention to the first year and the prevalence of and connections between first-year programs, a review of the results relating to selected first-year programs, and implications for practice and future research.

The 2017 National Survey on the First-Year Experience was designed to explore the structure and administration of a broad range of initiatives designed to support success in the first college year. Specific sections of the survey examine overall institutional attention to the first year, as well as common first-year programs including first-year seminars, academic advising, orientation, common-reading initiatives, early-alert programs, learning communities, and residential programs.

Response Frequencies from the 2017 National Survey on The First-Year Experience is a fixed-layout eBook which contains comprehensive data tables including responses to all survey items disaggregated by institutional type, control, and first-year cohort size.

Buy the eBook separately or as a package with the print version of the Research Report on College Transitions No. 9, 2017 National Survey on the First-Year Experience: Creating and Coordinating Structures to Support Student Success.

Colleges and universities are seeing increasing numbers of students with a range of disabilities enrolling in postsecondary education. Many of these disabilities are invisible and, despite their potential for negative impact on students’ academic and social adjustment, some students will choose not to identify as having a disability or request support.

Approaching disability from the perspective of difference, the authors of this new volume offer guidance on creating more inclusive learning environments on campus so that all students—whether or not they have a recognized disability—have the opportunity to succeed. Strategies for supporting students with specific learning disabilities, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, autism spectrum disorder or who display learning and behavioral characteristics associated with these profiles are described. A valuable resource for instructors, advisors, academic support personnel, and others who work directly with college students.

With the passage of the Post-9/11 GI Bill in 2008, more than 1.4 million service members and their families became eligible for higher education benefits, and veterans from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan enrolled in colleges and universities in record numbers. The first wave of research about these new student veterans focused primarily on describing their characteristics and the transition from military service to civilian life and the college campus. This new edited collection presents findings from the second wave of research about student veterans, with a focus on data-driven evidence of academic success factors, including persistence, retention, degree completion, and employment after college. An invaluable resource for educators poised to enter the next phase of supporting military-connected college students.

Published in partnership with NODA, the Association for Orientation, Transition, and Retention in Higher Education

Family members of new college students are often unsure what to expect and how to best help their students succeed in higher education. Focusing on the unique needs of commuter students, this brief guide describes typical challenges in adjusting to college, support services and opportunities offered by colleges and universities, and strategies family members can use to encourage student learning and success. A glossary of college terms is included.

$2.25 each when purchased in multiple copy pack of 100.

Published in partnership with NACADA: The Global Community for Academic Advising

Academic advisors help students learn to make the most of their college years, not merely by completing requirements toward a degree but also by growing intellectually and developing all aspects of their identity. Yet, many professional and faculty advisors are new to academic advising and may feel ill-equipped to do more than help students register for classes. This new edited collection provides an overview of the theory and best practice undergirding advising today while exploring the transition challenges of a wide-range of first-year college students, including those attending two-year colleges, coming from underrepresented backgrounds, entering underprepared for college-level work, and/or experiencing academic failure.

In January 2014, the White House urged that college be made more accessible for low-income Americans. Moving beyond access to success, however, requires knowing more about the experiences of these students.

This research report captures the challenges low-income, first-generation students face in their collegiate journey, examining the strategies they employ to persist. Organized thematically and using student narrative, the brief report explores the diversity of first-generation students, the intersections of their multiple identities, and their interactions with the institutional agents that affect college success. An Exploration of Intersecting Identities of First-Generation, Low-Income Students also offers practical suggestions for higher education professionals working with this diverse and growing population. 

Welcoming Blue-Collar Scholars Into the Ivory Tower is the first volume in a series designed to explore how institutional policies, practices, and cultures shape learning, development, and success for students who have been historically underserved or given limited consideration in the design of higher education contexts. Using the theory of social reproduction as a lens, Krista Soria explores working-class students’ access to and experiences in the academic and social spaces of the campus. Chapters focusing on the classroom and social settings offer recommendations for transforming the learning environment to better support students from working-class backgrounds. Strategies for increasing access, including precollege support networks, and creating inclusive campuses are also addressed. This compact, accessible volume provides both the theoretical grounding and the practical strategies educators need to create a welcoming environment for this underserved population.

Published in partnership with NODA, the Association for Orientation, Transition, and Retention in Higher Education

Parents and family members play a critical role in the success of new college students, but those who never attended college or who have been away from it for a while may lack critical information about the purpose, goals, and structure of higher education today. This brief guide offers parents and families an overview of the college experience, especially in the first year, and suggests strategies for helping their students succeed. A glossary of key terms is included. Grounded in the student success research and practice literature, the guide is ideal for use in orientation programs, recruitment events, and family weekends.

$2.00 each when purchased in multiple copy pack of 100.

Published in partnership with NACADA, The Global Community for Academic Advising

As the focus on college completion and gainful employment intensifies, the stakes for students entering higher education and the institutions that serve them have never been higher. Yet, new students and their families may not understand the value of an educational plan for helping them stay on track and achieve their goals. They may have even less knowledge about how to create one. This brief guide focuses on the role of academic advisors in helping students chart a course for success and suggests how parents and family members can be partners in the journey. A glossary of key terms and list of frequently asked questions help demystify the college experience and highlight the many purposes of the academic advising relationship. A particularly useful resource for the families of first-generation college students and ideal for distribution at recruitment events, orientation, or parent and family programs.

$2.00 each when purchased in multiple copy pack of 100.

Surveys of employers continually highlight the need for better communication skills among recent college graduates. Yet writing instruction in higher education serves far more than a transactional purpose. Writing facilitates learning, helps students gain skills in analysis and synthesis, and supports a range of other personal and intellectual developmental outcomes also important to employers. To that end, Writing in the Senior Capstone offers the rationale and practical guidance for infusing writing into culminating academic experiences for college seniors. Recognizing that writing-intensive capstones already exist on many campuses, the authors also offer a range of strategies and activities to support the development of independent senior projects, while honing students’ thinking, writing, and presentation skills. A valuable resource for any educator seeking to improve the writing and critical thinking skills of college seniors.

Increasing pressures on colleges and universities to ensure degree completion and job placement as measures of success make it imperative that the path to graduation is clear and that seniors receive the support needed to earn a degree and make a successful transition to life beyond college. This new edited collection describes today’s college seniors and offers strategies for supporting them to graduation through high-impact educational initiatives. Contributors also address issues related to career development; workplace transitions; and opportunities for integration, reflection, closure, and ongoing engagement as students leave college. Educators charged with improving the end-of-college experience will find this an invaluable resource.

Designed for students and educational professionals researching students' movement into and through higher education, Crafting and Conducting Research on Student Transitions is a concise resource, describing both qualitative and quantitative methods. The authors walk readers through the process of selecting a topic, designing a study, and disseminating the research results on explorations of the college student experience from the first college year to beyond graduation. Ideal for use in graduate programs or professional writing groups and by educators who wish to contribute to this growing subspecialty of the higher education literature.

Published in partnership with NACADA, The Global Community for Academic Advising

This updated edition offers an easy-to-read overview of a critically important educational program. Written by a college faculty member and a veteran academic advisor, the guide describes the role of the academic advisor, outlines the advising process, and highlights important academic issues facing new college students. The second edition includes a new section on first-generation college students and an expanded discussion of career counseling.

$2.00 each when purchased in sets of 100. Click here to purchase 100-copy set.

Published in partnership with NODA, the Association for Orientation, Transition, and Retention in Higher Education

Designed to help parents understand the nature of the college transition and offer tips to make that transition a successful one for not only the first-year college student but for their families as well, the guide is an ideal resource for orientation programs, parents' weekends, and other parent programs.

$2.00 each when purchased in sets of 100.

Educators have long been concerned with retaining students and helping them succeed, but their focus has been primarily on first-year students. Recently, this focus has widened to include a frequently invisible population -- second-year students. Shedding Light on Sophomores: An Exploration of the Second College Year turns our attention to this often-forgotten student population. This volume draws on campus-based and national research to describe the second college year and the initiatives designed to support it. Campus case studies offer a more detailed look at programs designed to help sophomores succeed, and a concluding chapter offers recommendations for the development of a range of initiatives in the second college year. Shedding Light on Sophomores offers a rich resource for any educator who cares about the status of second-year students and is committed to designing programs and services to support them.

Common reading programs are becoming a ubiquitous component of first-year experience initiatives. Sometimes controversial, these programs are designed to provide students an introduction to the intellectual expectations of college in an often-informal gathering of college faculty and peers. Yet, truly dynamic and successful programs move beyond book discussion groups to include students, faculty, staff, and the larger community in a wide range of social and intellectual activities. Laufgraben gathers examples from programs across the country to offer a concise and practical guide to planning, promoting, and assessing common reading initiatives.

Student Development in the First College Year provides a detailed overview of some of the most commonly referenced theories of learning and development in the college years. What sets this primer apart from other treatments of student development theory is its careful attention to the first college year and the wide range of educational environments in which learning and development take place. The primer includes a discussion of moving from theory to educational practice and strategies for assessing developmental outcomes.