Over the past decades, Vincent Tinto, Edmund Thile, Francis Ianni, and others all link mentoring to better academic performance, improved social adjustment, enhanced academic experiences, and greater rates of degree completion. Even more specifically, Jean E. Rhodes, Renée Spencer, Thomas E. Keller, Belle Liang, and Gil Noam describe three…

Part I, "Searching for the Right Way to Begin Class," described the various iterations of beginning class rituals the author used over the years. Those rituals began with a prayer to the Holy Spirit as was required at the Catholic women's college Marymount in Tarrytown, New York, where he first taught out of graduate school in 1965. That…

Day in and day out the author invests her energy in keeping students safe by reducing alcohol consumption on campus, developing innovative alcohol and drug educational programming, collecting and analyzing data to better understand the drinking culture of the campus, and scouring the literature for best practices and evidence-based success. Day in…

As English as Second Language (ESL) students move past their first college year toward degree completion, they may find themselves struggling on their own. This article describes one community college's approach to supporting ESL students throughout their academic career. English as a Second Language Across the Curriculum (ESLAC) provides…

Buffalo State College's search for a text for its common first-year reading program ended not in the selection of a book but in the creation of a multimedia CD. The CD guides discussion in first-year classrooms throughout the year, resulting in a meaningful intellectual experience for the school's diverse mix of students, faculty, and staff. The…

The relationship between college students and their parents is far closer than it was when most of today's educators were in school. Tapping into the upside and managing the potential drawbacks of highly involved parents is taking on great importance on an increasing number of campuses. Whether people call them "helicopter parents" or…

In this article, the author recounts his experience teaching MU-241, Music Harmony and Counterpoint, which is a capstone course for the music electronics program--a two-year associate of arts and sciences degree--at Queensborough Community College, City University of New York. The class, a difficult one, combines harmony, counterpoint, and piano,…

As an administrator of a program intended to help retain students at Syracuse University, the author found herself in an ironic position this past August. She was presenting a workshop to parents of incoming first-year students about what they could expect from their sons and daughters during the first semester of college. It was ironic because…