Freshman Seminars

Contact Nanette Hanks (nhanks@umn.edu, 4-4801) for more information about CLA freshman seminars.

Introduction

Freshman seminars allow our incoming students to experience the best that CLA has to offer. Students learn the values and objectives of a liberal arts education by engaging with faculty and one another in a small, dynamic environment.

Faculty members are able to share the excitement of their academic disciplines by focusing on an innovative topic in a collaborative seminar setting. As one student wrote regarding a recent seminar, "I was in close contact with a college professor—a priceless experience." Freshman seminars offer students a first opportunity to engage in scholarly inquiry and to mature into the critical, creative thinkers and engaged citizens we want them to be.

Guidelines for Faculty and Staff

Given enrollment patterns and potential educational impact, we prefer that the seminars be offered in fall rather than in spring. Seminars are offered for three credits and capped at 20 students, and they are considered a regular part of a faculty member’s instructional workload. They carry the departmental designator, which means students will readily identify your unit as the curricular home.

Freshman seminars can meet one of the liberal education theme requirements (Cultural Diversity, International Perspectives, Environment, and Citizenship and Public Ethics), and they can also be writing intensive. They cannot be used to fulfill any of the liberal education core requirements. All freshman seminars proposed to meet theme or the writing intensive requirements must be approved by the college and the Council on Liberal Education. Even if a seminar has been approved in previous years, it must be resubmitted for approval each time it is offered. Seminars that are not proposed for theme requirements are approved at the college level.

As you prepare your seminar description, please keep the audience in mind. Freshmen are generally 18 years old and research shows that they will choose a course with a title that contains familiar words even without reading the complete course description. If a title is too long or complicated, students will move on to another course. At the University of Minnesota, we know that students are also drawn to faculty biographies that contain personal information such as hobbies or talents, or that display a sense of humor. I encourage you to create the titles, descriptions and biographies carefully.

Proposals are due in the office of the Associate Dean for Undergraduate Programs by January 23, 2008. All seminar proposals must include a sample syllabus. Proposal and syllabus may be sent as an e-mail attachment to Nanette Hanks (nhanks@umn.edu).

Administrative Units

Administrative Resources

Freshman Seminars

Introduction

Guidelines for Faculty and Staff

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