What Are the Goals of Freshman Connections?
From the beginning of the program Freshman Connections has adopted the goals of the University Core Curriculum.  Those can be found at the "Core Curriculum" link to the left.  More specifically, Freshman Connections seeks to accelerate the process for new students to learn and succeed at Ball State.  Using both program-wide and team-based planning, Freshman Connections seeks to deepen the contact new students have with faculty, staff, and fellow students in order to improve learning and persistence to graduation.

How Many Learning Teams Are There Each Fall?
In recent years, 10 Learning Teams have comprised Freshman Connections.  Nine of these ten teams are built around residence hall units, either in the same building or units near one another on campus.  The tenth team is designated for commuters, about 15% of a typical entering class.

How Is a Student Placed in One of Those Learning Teams?
On the second day of summer orientation, students sign up for selected University Core Curriculum courses available only for those students assigned to a particular residence unit or for those who choose to commute to campus.  Students are able to sign up for one, two, or even three UCC courses depending on class space available.

Can You Give Me an Example of a Learning Team?
Sure.  For instance, 300 of 3500 first-year students might be assigned to Woodworth Hall where eight Core Curriculum courses are assigned.  A large HIST 150 class might have 100 of its 224 students living together in Woodworth Hall.  Or, 100 might be taking ENG 103 with four faculty members who work together to establish shared activities that support ideas covered in class.  Or, 100 students might be taking both the HIST 150 and the ENG 103 class, again with faculty working with residence hall staff to connect ideas from the classroom to activities outside the classroom.  

Do Freshman Connections Classes Add to My Required Hours at Ball State?
No.  All FC classes are also UCC classes (i.e., classes you need to take for your Core Curriculum hours) or classes you need to take for your major.  Core Curriculum courses share common goals on which Learning Teams base their activities during the semester.

What Programs Does Freshman Connections Sponsor?
Each team builds their own programming for their own unit using basic requirements designed by the team captains.  Freshman Connections overall sponsors the Freshman Common Reader (see other sections of the Freshman Connections website for details), and builds a series of fall semester events (speakers, panel discussions, movies, receptions) around the book selected.  Some events are co-sponsored by such other community and university organizations as Indiana Public Radio.

Can You Describe Further What Students Gain from Freshman Connections?
The purpose of Freshman Connections is to help new students more quickly and more fully integrate into our learning community at Ball State.  Our central purpose is learning.  In a recent summary report on student engagement and retention in postsecondary education, "interaction with faculty positively affected reading comprehension, critical thinking, openness to diversity, and internal attribution of academic success, [while] interaction with peers has a positive effect on mathematics knowledge, openness to diversity, learning for self-understanding, and preference for higher-order cognitive tasks."   Specifically, "below-average students . . .  experienced some small additional benefits" from the same interactions, a result that has been shown in research completed on campus for the Lumina Foundation.  From the start, Freshman Connections has taken the approach that with increased learning (i.e., inside/outside of class, between students and faculty members, and among students themselves), increased persistence, retention, and graduation rates follow.

How Do I Find Out More?
Easy.  You can either browse Freshman Connections' website (http://www.bsu.edu/freshmanconnections) for information on current teams, programming, and structure, or email your question or request to freshmanconn@bsu.edu.