First Year Experience

“A renowned traveler was only renowned if he left good stories behind” (Kehlmann 205).

This quote comes from Measuring the World by Daniel Kehlmann, the 2011 summer reading for new Franklin students. Kehlmann tells the story of two intellectuals and travelers on the cusp of the nineteenth century: Alexander von Humboldt, who traveled the world measuring peaks and applying the scientific method, and Carl Friedrich Gauss, who traveled metaphorically in his exploration of mathematics and space. Their two lives serve as points of departure for reflection on discovery and knowledge.

We chose this book because it speaks to the foundation of the Franklin experience and to many of the themes we cover in the First Year Experience. For example, what does it mean to travel and how do we talk about it?  How can students discover and understand new places and new knowledge in the twenty-first century? How are geographical, scientific, economic, and political borders redrawn, maintained, or dissolved in our ever-changing global world? And finally, how can you as a college student write your own story and make a difference? Measuring the World provides a common point of reference for first year students as they begin to answer these questions.

All new first-year students participate in Crossing Borders, the First-Year Experience at Franklin, which introduces students to the College and intends to help them to make the transition from secondary school to university life, while beginning to answer many of the questions posed above. The program is an integrated mix of programs from across the College and represents the foundation of our liberal arts experience, emphasizing our multi-cultural and international academic learning environment. The First Year Experience includes the following components:

New Student Orientation
Each year New Student Orientation offers an introduction to campus resources and to Lugano. Activities span the week prior to classes and culminate with the traditional trip to Valle Verzasca. For more information, please see Orientation.

First Year Seminars
First Year Seminars are semester-long, full-credit courses taught in a particular academic discipline. The First Year Seminars reflect the specific research interests of the Franklin faculty. New students enroll in a seminar that corresponds to their own area of interest. Fall 2011 topics include: Renaissance Venice, Leadership, the Graphic Novel, Global Social Movements, French Studies, History of Tourism, Italian Studies, Climate Change, the Mathematics of Inequality and Sustainable Development. The common theme of border crossings links each seminar. Each seminar features an academic mentor, an upper-level student selected to work closely with both students and the professor.

Academic Mentors (AMs)
The First Year Experience provides academic assistance for first year students, while allowing an opportunity for upper-division students to develop their teaching and leadership skills. Academic Mentors work together under the coordination of the Director of the Learning Center with their individual classes.

Co-curricular Activities and Residential Life Programming
Tutte le strade is a program of co-curricular activities for the entire campus community that includes regular events scheduled throughout the term. These events extend the orientation period and range from the intellectual to the experiential. The 2011 schedule includes visits to local festivals, movies, hikes, and special guest lectures.
Through this program selected upper-division students known as Peer Mentors (PMs) create programs in collaboration with dedicated Resident Assistants (RAs) aimed at fostering intercultural and social development in the first year.

Academic Advising
Each student will be assigned an Academic Advisor, a faculty member who will assist the student in developing plans in tune with his or her personal academic, career, and life goals. Normally, your Academic Advisor is also your First Year Seminar professor.

Academic Support Services
Assignments in the First Year Seminars will introduce the student to academic resources, such as the library, information technology (IT), and the Writing and Learning Resource Centers.