First Year Experience (FYE)

Western's History with FYE

Fall 2005 began Western's new mandatory First Year Experience program for all new incoming freshmen. Designed to help new freshmen successfully transition to collegiate life, the program was unique among most FYE programs nationwide in that it took advantage of already pre-existing courses, rather than add additional courses to an already extensive General Education and degree program curriculum.

Added to the traditional offering of these courses, only freshmen were allowed to enroll, class size was limited to no more than 20 students, and faculty were encouraged to take advantage of a co-curricular component that not only exposed students to learning outside of the classroom, but also was designed to stimulate classroom discussion and enhance faculty-student interaction.

Each semester, from Fall 2005 through Spring 2008, all students enrolled in FYE courses, as well as their instructors and peer mentors, were asked to complete online evaluations to help measure the strengths and weaknesses of the developing program so that improvement needs can be addressed. The results of these surveys during the first three years of Wesstern's FYE program are provided on a semester by semester and trend basis as an archive of the program's progress through its initial 3-year period.

FYE All Semesters Index