{"id":154416,"date":"2023-06-07T05:22:00","date_gmt":"2023-06-07T09:22:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/?p=154416"},"modified":"2026-05-22T10:58:47","modified_gmt":"2026-05-22T14:58:47","slug":"bates-college-honored-for-excellence-of-its-first-year-experience-program","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/2023\/06\/07\/bates-college-honored-for-excellence-of-its-first-year-experience-program\/","title":{"rendered":"ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College honored for excellence of its First-Year Experience program"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

When members of the Class of 2027 arrive at ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ in August, they will be brought into the ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ fold by one of the nation\u2019s leading first-year programs. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Revamped in 2020, the ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ First-Year Experience was recently honored by NASPA, a leading national association for student affairs professionals, for successfully delivering a \u201cholistic and cohesive experience for new students throughout their entire first year.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Move-In
Linnea Selendy \u201923 (left) of New York City and Eva Wu \u201925 of Shenzhen, China, greet arriving members of the Class of 2026 and their families on Aug. 31, 2022, outside Commons. (Phyllis Graber Jensen\/ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ College) \u00a0<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The Collaboration Award, presented by the Orientation, Transition, and Retention Knowledge Community of NASPA, notes that the ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ FYE is now a \u201cpremier model that is fueled by a deep collaboration between academic affairs and student affairs.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The award is a \u201ctremendous honor,\u201d says Professor of Politics Stephen Engel, who, as an associate dean of the faculty focusing on student academic support and experience, co-led the  <\/strong>team that redesigned the ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ FYE program for its debut in 2020.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The revised program, led by Engel, Associate Dean and Director of Operations Blake Reilly, and fellow Student Affairs professionals<\/a>, represents a shift in how ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ introduces students to the community. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

“What matters most to all of us is that our students have a positive and enriching first year at ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½.\u201d<\/p>\nJimmy Riley<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Rather than the traditional fire-hose of information delivered over the course of just a few days before classes, the new program has a more measured cadence that continues throughout the year. As a result, students are better able to process and retain all the new names, faces, and information, while also getting the big picture about ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ community values<\/a>, from equity and inclusion to health and well-being.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ FYE program reflects the \u201cvalues that animate our community as much as it has also been a means for our students to get to know the people, programs, and policies that sustain our community,\u201d said Engel.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"Jimmy
Jimmy Riley, director of residence life and community standards and member of the ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ First-Year Experience team.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

And it works, Engel added, because of buy-in from the entire ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ enterprise. \u201cThe work to support the transition to ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ would be utterly impossible without the engagement of our entire community,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNo single office manages the program,\u201d said Jimmy Riley, director of residence life and community standards, who traveled with ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ colleagues in April to accept the award during the 2023 NASPA annual conference in Boston.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt lives as an ongoing strategic partnership among several community stakeholders, including folks from academic affairs and student affairs. What matters most to all of us is that our students have a positive and enriching first year at ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Revamped in 2020, the ÀÖ²¥´«Ã½ program that introduces first-year students to the college was honored by a leading national association for student affairs professionals.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":148,"featured_media":154864,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_hide_ai_chatbot":false,"_ai_chatbot_style":"","associated_faculty":[],"_Page_Specific_Css":"","_bates_restrict_mod":false,"bates_author_byline_override":"Freddie Wright","_estimated-read-time":"3 minutes","_post-template":"\/usr\/local\/webserver\/webpve\/htdocs\/new-www.bates.edu\/wp-content\/themes\/b\/news\/single-big-header-image.php","_header-color":"#000000","_photo-credit":"Phyllis Graber Jensen","_header-effect":"zoomIn","override_related_with_tag":"","_table_of_contents_display":false,"_table_of_contents_location":"","_table_of_contents_disableSticky":false,"_is_featured":false,"footnotes":"","_bates_seo_meta_description":"","_bates_seo_block_robots":false,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_id":0,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_twitter_id":0,"_bates_seo_share_title":"","_bates_seo_canonical_overwrite":"","_bates_seo_twitter_template":""},"categories":[11011,130,11012,11009],"tags":[11255,12331,8169],"class_list":["post-154416","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-awards","category-collaboration","category-student-life","category-the-college","tag-blake-reilly","tag-first-year-experience","tag-stephen-engel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154416","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/148"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=154416"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154416\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":156779,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154416\/revisions\/156779"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/154864"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=154416"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=154416"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=154416"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}