The freshman seminar course has allowed me to significantly think about my freshman year experience. Thinking about my freshman year triggered the thought process of the things that made my transition easier and steps that I could have taken to lead me where I am today faster and easier. My thought process of these elements made me realize that my year would have been harder overall without the Living Learning Community called Project Renaissance. Therefore, this paper will analyze the positive effects of the University at Albany’s Project Renaissance program as part of the Freshman Experience.
Academically I have not only been a part of the Living Learning community for one year, but I fostered a community conducive to this program as well. I have been a Residential Assistant for two of the three years that I have participated in this program. This close look at the Project Renaissance community has allowed me to see facets of the program that many people do not see. This realization and understanding of what the Project Renaissance community does for students gave me the ambition to take a closer look in what the program has to offer. Therefore, this analysis will first explain the academic effects that the program has on the Project Renaissance Living Learning Community. Secondly, the social and emotional effects of the program will be discussed. Third and last, the correlation between the participation in the community and the retention at the university will be talked about.
As written on the University at Albany webpage about the history of the program, “Project Renaissance grew out of the faculty-led program that established the University’s Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning in 1994. Those same faculty members began to consider a program for first-year students that would offer them the best possible orientation to a research university. The end result was Project Renaissance and its first 200 students in fall 1996,” (www.albany.edu/projren/info). The small number of two hundred students has almost doubled since the fall of 1996 to around three hundred seventy-five students. These students participate in different tracks that they are able to choose, loosely depending on their major. These tracks include: Arts and Humanities, Pre-Business/ Economics, Pre-Health, Pre-Law, Psychology/Sociology, or the General Program of studies (for those undecided on a major path).
One large appeal of the Project Renaissance program is the many General Education requirements it covers. Not only does it cover the lower level Writing Intensive requirement, it fulfills the Oral Discourse and Information Literacy credits as well. “In terms more familiar to Composition Studies, the college students developed greater rhetoric sensitivity, expanded their genre awareness, and acquired some of the conventions of academic discourse” (Mastrangelo 4). Although a large amount of General Education credits that are fulfilled, the project Renaissance program does so much more for the student than just covering credits.
The educational effects of the Project Renaissance program are astronomical to a student. The students that participate in the Project Renaissance program start developing their writing styles from early on. The students taking on the writing discourse, freshman year, allows them to learn how to compose essays earlier then the average student. “Together the college students, disciplinary faculty, and preceptors witnessed that even in the more educationally advanced college students, literacy is still an evolving ability at multiple levels. From the perspective of college writing helped energize the college students’ work on more academic writing projects, pushing their writing and thinking to more complex levels”(Mastrangelo 10). Students also take advantage of the research techniques that the program shows them through the assignments that are given. We wanted them to understand the distinction between the passive acquisition of literacy and the active process of learning, as well as the different ways in which these concepts are valued. We wanted our students to appreciate the role that literacy plays in oppressing and liberating individuals [Stuckey]. Powerful literacy, as our students came to see, involves both acquisition and learning [Gee 542]” (Mastrangelo 10). Knowing how to work in groups is one of the most beneficial aspects of the program. When students learn how to work successfully in groups, it not only beneficial for their educational future, but for the work force later on in life. Teacher of the program, Dr. Michele Forte says, “I would say that because of all of the general education requirements we cover, we teach basic, good skill sets that will help for the rest of their time at UA. “
The Living Learning Community gives students a chance to live together and engage socially. The students take one or more classes together, and are able to collaboratively study for exams in groups from their floor rather than seeking them out themselves. The engagement and interaction that these students participate in together allows them to succeed as a group. This method works for both introverted people and extroverted individuals so by people giving students set people that they could talk to, people that they do not have to find on their own to reach out to. According to Rollins College’s study on first year students, “Data from the First- Year Initiative (F.Y.I.), a survey administrated through Educational Benchmarking Incorporated, provided clear and convincing evidence that living-learning communities at Rollins are improving student engagement within and outside the classroom. Specifically, our data indicates that we are able to improve different models of student engagement by focusing on these areas” (Eck, Edge and Stephenson 2).
While the Project Renaissance program has both social and academic effects on the students that it fosters, the program is designed to create a smaller college experience in such a large University. This smaller class atmosphere demands the students to interact on a regular basis. This interaction creates friendships and the ability to work well in groups. The interaction also gives these students a set group of friends, which makes the transition from high school to college much easier on them. A study about the Project Renaissance program done by Westchester University indicated that the University at Albany stated, “Our goals included assisting students in grounding disciplinary knowledge’s in lived experience and encouraging students to see themselves as effective actors in a social context that extends beyond their individual lives” (Mastrangelo 2). The students that are placed in the same tracks and live with each other freshman year also tend to have more in common with the people they live with then just their classes. This allows them to bond, which in turn eases the stress of finding a new roommate sophomore year.
Another important social effect of the Project-Renaissance program is the relationship that the students develop with the teachers. With their relaxed, approachable personalities the teachers in the Project Renaissance program make it easy for the students to come to them. The office hours that the teachers hold in the residence halls allow the students to literally roll out of bed and go to talk to their teacher in their hallway. “It may indeed be the case that these more intensive models, with deep faculty involvement, are more effective in enhancing students’ experience and improving student outcomes” (Stasson 585). This system gives the students an extra support system in knowing that their teachers care to talk to them. This makes the transition from high school to college that much easier. As former student Ashley Nicoletti explained,
“The teachers of the Project Renaissance program really care about their students. I think that students prefer going to the teachers of these classes because they have so few students that they could spend the necessary time on each student individually. The teachers also become like a support system because they get to know each of us very well. I loved going to my teacher’s office hours because it made them genuinely happy when I showed up. I specifically remember one time that I was very sick and couldn’t come into class. My suitemate told my teachers that I really wasn’t feeling well. Right after the class ended, I received an email from my teachers asking me how I was feeling and told me to take my time with the work. Where else would you find a teacher like that?”
In addition to the academic and social benefits of the program, the Project Renaissance Living Learning Community advances the University’s retention rate. The program allows the students to want to come back to the university because of the relationships that they made through the Project Renaissance program. The University at Albany’s website indicates that students who participate in the Project Renaissance program have a 98% retention rate for their sophomore year (www.albany.edu/projren/info). In other words, 98% of the students of the Project Renaissance return to the University sophomore, which is a significant amount. Upon looking at other first year living learning communities, I have come to the realization that most of these programs have rather high retention rates. There is something about the program that makes the students want to come back to further their education and studies. To the average person, this makes the program appear extremely successful. Teacher of the Project Renaissance program Dr. Forte says, “The students are successful because of the small class size, the individual attention and the living learning aspect of the course.”
However, looking further into the success and retention rates of the first year Project Renaissance program, Leslie Saint-Vil, the Project Renaissance Program Coordinator said,
“It is very hard to measure the success of students because success has a large window of different things. There is something about the Project Renaissance program that gives students a push in the right direction. It allows them to become more sociable and make new friends. I only see and hear about the success of these students when they come and speak to me, otherwise I would have no way of knowing whether they do better as a whole or not. I do get numbers once and a while though. I do know that the lowest retention rate that was recorded is 87%, which isn’t a bad number at all.”
Despite what Leslie Saint- Vil said about the success rates of the students that participate in the program, with retention rates of returning sophomores as high as 98%, it is evident about the program that makes it successful.
It is also no surprise that a large portion of students that live together in the living learning community, live together all four years of their college career. The reason for this is that most of them have the same majors and are just so used to being around each other that they become immediate friends. Dr. Forte explains, “The students do stick together, some for all four years and some for not as long. The living learning community forces these students to be together so often, that are forced to get along or else class would be chaotic.”
Overall, the Project Renaissance program enhances the first year experience for almost 400 students a year. The education that the program provides allows students to become familiar with the college atmosphere and provides skills that are necessary throughout all four years of college. The social and emotional aspects makes the transition from high school to college that much easier with the forced interaction that the students have.
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