The Third-Annual FOCUS on the FIRST-YEAR: A Regional Conference on the First-Year College Experience
The Focus on the First Year Conference at Southern connects colleagues across institutions, fostering collaboration through engaging presentations and discussions.
The Changing Landscape of Higher Education: Decolonizing Approaches for Teaching and Supporting First-Year Students
Date: Monday, May 19, 2025
Time: Approximately 9:00 am - 4:00 p.m.
Location: Southern Connecticut State University
Daphney Alston, Southern Connecticut State University
Naa Opoku, University of Connecticut Hartford
In this keynote, Daphney and Naa will explore decolonizing approaches to teaching and supporting first-year students. Through real talk, lived experience, and professional expertise, they will challenge us to rethink how we show up for the next generation.
The conference is co-sponsored by the First-Year Experience, College of Arts & Sciences, Office of Faculty Development, and the Division of Student Affairs at Southern Connecticut State University.
Call for Proposals
We seek proposals from area colleagues on research, practice, and policy on the first-year student experience in higher education. We invite proposals from faculty, administrative faculty, administrators, and student leaders. Sessions will be 45 minutes, including a question and answer. We encourage engaging, active-learning style presentations.
Proposal Due Date: March 31, 2025
Proposals are simple – 250 words or less
Register for the Conference
Join us for a day of engaging presentations and discussions with area colleagues. Small breakfast, lunch, and lots of coffee will be served!
Pay Conference Fee
Originally funded in 2023 by a Faculty Development Grant, we must now charge a small fee ($25) for all participants (except students) to sustain the conference costs. Light breakfast, coffee, and lunch will be provided! Please submit your conference fee AND register for the conference (two steps). Students may skip this part and register for the conference for free.
Location and Directions
The entire conference is located in Engleman Hall (EN), our main classroom building on campus. All conference participants can park in the main faculty/staff parking lot (P-2) on Fitch Street, located across the street from Pine Rock Avenue. For GPS, use the address "385 Fitch Street, New Haven, CT", and it will direct you to this location. If you simply type in "SCSU:, it will take you to another lot.
About the Conference
In 2023, the First Year Experience (FYE) crew at Southern sought a way to connect with local FYE colleagues at Connecticut colleges and universities. We were in touch with some friends, but we knew there were many more out there who were building or re-imagining FYE programs, and we wanted to hear from them.
So, we did what all good educators do: we asked for money to host them by writing a Faculty Development Grant. Luckily, it was granted, and we sent out emails. To our surprise, we ended up welcoming over 70 colleagues from 20 Connecticut colleges and universities, as well as friends from Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New York, and New Jersey.
We were able to offer 16 exciting presentations and workshops from colleagues at seven different institutions, including public and private universities, as well as the community college, on topics that included in and out-of-classroom experiences, practices, initiatives, and ideas related to supporting and educating first-year students.
The diversity of our presenters and attendees reflected the core of our FYE program at Southern, which we built intending to find a way to include everyone who wanted to be included, including faculty and student affairs professionals, enrollment management administrators, and Academic Advisors, as well as students and others.
For us, the experience was powerful. We learned a lot, laughed some, and truly enjoyed every conversation. For this reason, we knew we had to make this an annual thing.
We also learned, in 2023, that the conference organizers were spending nearly all of their time attempting to use the Hi-flex technology so that some colleagues could attend remotely, and that, even after all the time spent, it was glitchy. For this reason, we decided to move fully on-ground for 2024. I guess you could say that, like our first-year students, we just want to be face-to-face again while learning from each other.
Last Year's Conference (2024)
A Regional Conference on the First-Year College Experience
Monday, May 13, 2024, 9 a.m. - 4 p.m.
Conference Program
Keynote Speaker
Jillian Kinzie
Associate Director
Center for Postsecondary Research and the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) Institute
Indiana University School of Education
Presenting insights from the recent Re-imagining the First-Year of College Initiative and the latest research in student success and particularly as it relates to the first year of college. Jillian is also a co-editor of Radical Re-Imagining for Student Success in Higher Education (2023), as well as the author and editor of numerous publications on student success. The Conference will also feature concurrent presentations and workshops from regional colleagues.
Contact
For more information or questions, feel free to contact us!
Nicole Henderson
Director, FYE
Professor of English
Hendersonn1@southernct.edu
Dyan Robinson
Associate Director of FYE
Robinsond6@southernct.edu
Andrew Parzyck
Assistant Professor of Communication, Media and Screen Studies
Parzycka1@southernct.edu