First-Year Experience

Conversations with Professors

Faculty:  Volunteer for Conversations with Professors on Sunday, August 16, 2009

Student Volunteers

About Conversations with Professors
This program, which debuted in 2007, is designed to promote a conversation between a faculty member and a group of students in his or her college about the roles of students and faculty in the university setting.  It is an ideal opportunity for faculty members to help new students understand their roles as student learners and to express faculty expectations for student engagement.  Georgia Southern does a great job moving students into the residence hall.  We need to help them move more smoothly into the classroom, to let them know that Georgia Southern faculty have expectations that all students should meet in order to be successful.

Last year we had 105 faculty who volunteered, and evaluations from faculty about their Conversations experience were very positive.  On a 1-10 scale with 10 being the highest score, the mean faculty rating of their overall experience with the program was an 8.5; the median was a 9. 

Conversation Objectives
Because the Conversations are only 75 minutes long, the specific goals are modest.  When leaving their Conversations with Professors session, students should:

• Understand how to approach the first week of classes, such as the importance of:
  • The syllabus and knowing how to read one;
  • Settling on a course schedule no later than the last day of drop/add (August 20 this Fall semester) and preferably well before then;
• Appreciate some basic tenets of the student-faculty relationship, such as:

  • Most faculty care deeply that students learn the material in their classes and will go to great lengths to help them master the material, provided that they demonstrate that they are willing to apply themselves and work hard; and,

  • Like students, individual faculty members differ in their rules and expectations.  It's the student's responsibility to know what each of their professors expects (see that syllabus!).

More important than these specific goals may be the larger one of setting a strong academic tone early in the semester, and there are many different ways to promote this tone.  Because faculty often indicated that student questions were the most important aspect to their Conversations in 2008, we strongly encourage faculty to incorporate opportunities for students to ask questions into their sessions. 

Student "Conversations Assistants" (CAs)
Faculty in each Conversation will have a student "Conversations Assistant" (CA).  CAs are integral parts of the Conversations experience for several reasons.  They will handle the administrative tasks of taking roll, for instance.  But more substantively, their presence in the Conversation is meant to model the types of productive relationships faculty and students should develop.  Accordingly, faculty members are encouraged to identify a student with whom they have a good relationship and ask if he or she would be willing to assist in the program.  Faculty survey respondents were overwhelmingly positive about the experience working with an assistant.  For example: 

• Yes, the assistant's presence enhanced the value of the sessions considerably. His was an important second institutional voice in the conversation with students, and this "voice" talked about its own college experiences, and offered the students experiential advice; naturally, the students were all eyes and ears.
• Yes, she enhanced the value. I think it gave me legitimacy with the students.
• Assistant added plenty. She was able to give the new students a perspective that I could never have given. She started here as a freshman and is now a senior, so she's been through what they will go through here.

Logistics
The main session of Conversations with Professors will take place on Sunday, August 16, from 3:30 until 4:45 p.m.  We will also hold smaller sessions on June 21 and January 10 for new students starting in Term B and Spring.  Students will be assigned to a section and enrolled at summer the SOAR session by their academic college.  Faculty who volunteer to assist will will be assigned to a section of students composed of students in his or her college.  Sections will cap at between 20-30.

Resources, Brainstorming Sessions for Faculty

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