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Sophomore Dialogues
Engaging Sophomore Students with Deliberative Dialogues: A Pilot Project to Enhance Liberal Learning
At liberal arts colleges, second-year student encounter a variety of opportunities and challenges as they seek to achieve academic, personal, and career goals. Sophomores express both excitement and doubt about choosing a major, and students are eager to carry out research and creative projects and begin thinking about study abroad, internships, and service learning experiences. Some second-year students become frustrated with this learning experience and disengage in their college learning. Those students who enter a "sophomore slump" become less motivated to pursue their studies and may even leave college.
Skidmore College along with Colorado College, Connecticut College, and St. Lawrence University have been awarded grant from the Teagle Foundation of $100,000 to develop a multi-institutional sophomore project. Our four colleges seek to address sophomore issues at liberal arts colleges by developing frameworks for small group dialogues that will enhance sophomore engagement and learning in the liberal arts. These dialogue projects will bring students closely together with faculty and staff to discuss the goals of a liberal arts education, how to draw on that education to explore personal identity and examine ethics and values, and how to commit to a liberal learning approach as a critical means of discovering one's place in the world.
Sophomore Programs at Partner Schools
Engaging Sophomore Students with Deliberative Dialogues: A Pilot Project to Enhance Liberal Learning
At liberal arts colleges, second-year student encounter a variety of opportunities and challenges as they seek to achieve academic, personal, and career goals. Sophomores express both excitement and doubt about choosing a major, and students are eager to carry out research and creative projects and begin thinking about study abroad, internships, and service learning experiences. Some second-year students become frustrated with this learning experience and disengage in their college learning. Those students who enter a "sophomore slump" become less motivated to pursue their studies and may even leave college.
Skidmore College along with Colorado College, Connecticut College, and St. Lawrence University have been awarded grant from the Teagle Foundation of $100,000 to develop a multi-institutional sophomore project. Our four colleges seek to address sophomore issues at liberal arts colleges by developing frameworks for small group dialogues that will enhance sophomore engagement and learning in the liberal arts. These dialogue projects will bring students closely together with faculty and staff to discuss the goals of a liberal arts education, how to draw on that education to explore personal identity and examine ethics and values, and how to commit to a liberal learning approach as a critical means of discovering one's place in the world.
Sophomore Programs at Partner Schools- Office of First-Year and Sophomore Studies and Advising, Colorado College
- Office of the Dean of Studies, Connecticut College
- Academic Advising, St. Lawrence University
- Office of the Dean of Studies, Skidmore College
