Characteristics of Successful Freshman Seminars
Experience over the past twenty years has provided strong evidence that the most successful FSems have the following characteristics:
- they are taught by tenured or tenure track faculty who have a genuine interest in engaging with undergraduate students and who are willing to connect with students on issues not directly related to the course materials;
- they explore subjects that are meaningful and accessible to first-year students;
- they are designed to encourage discussion and writing;
- they take place in an in-person classroom setting;
- and they give students real coaching in developing skills that will help them be successful in college (analysis, research, speaking in class, contacting the professor, using the library, writing). These skills are consciously honed and not just implicit in class assignments.
FSems are not survey courses and should not strive for “coverage.” They should not have a comprehensive final examination. Enrollment limits should be set no higher than 18, and University policies regarding Expected Student Academic Work per Credit and Instructional Time per Course Credit must be followed.
Submission Process
First Steps
All 2023-2024 FSems have been deactivated in Coursedog effective Summer 2024 in order to prevent the course catalog from showing FSems that will not be taught in 2024-25. Please reactivate and update only those courses that will be taught in the coming academic year. You will need to generate new course proposals for new Freshman Seminars.
FSem Attribute
All Freshman Seminars (FSems) should have the FSem attribute checked in Coursedog to make these courses easily identifiable and searchable in the online course catalog. The attribute is located in the “Course Type” tab and the radial button for “Yes” should be checked.
Prerequisites
FSems must include the enforced prerequisite, “001475 - Freshman and FRFY for Freshman Seminar Courses” in the Coursedog proposals. This prerequisite is entered in the Equivalencies tab under “Enforced Prerequisites.”
Using this prerequisite code ensures that FSems remain accessible only to first-year students, while not inadvertently denying access to first-year students who entered the U of M with enough AP/PSEO credits to technically be considered sophomores. It also allows for full-year registration of FSems, meaning that freshmen can sign up in the fall for a spring FSem if they already know they want to take it.
Include Faculty Information
Faculty information is collected from FSem Coursedog submissions in order to create the Freshman Seminar promotional material that gets distributed to incoming students during Orientation. Please include the following information in the Coursedog: Course Proposal Summary - Ongoing proposal information:
- Semester the course will be offered
- Faculty instructor name
- Home department of the faculty member teaching the seminar
- Three-sentence biography of faculty member teaching the seminar
It is not necessary to label each item, so a typical entry might look like this:
Fall 2024
Leslie Schiff
Microbiology
Leslie Schiff is a virologist and Professor of Microbiology and Immunology. When she isn’t grading papers or watching one of her son’s swim meets, she enjoys playing with her German Shepherd, Gunnar, and debating with colleagues about the extraordinary merits of the University curriculum. Leslie loves working with undergraduates, and enjoys handing out plush viruses when students take the risk to answer a question in her class.
Submission Deadlines
Students primarily search for Freshman Seminars during orientation for both Fall and Spring semesters. The deadlines below are set to maximize the visibility and enrollment of these courses.
All FSems being proposed for Liberal Education (LE) or Writing Intensive (WI) designation for 2024-25 must be submitted to the Provost level in Coursedog by January 24, 2024.
Freshman Seminars proposed for LE or WI must meet the criteria and be approved by the Council on Liberal Education (CLE). The LE and WI criteria can be found at http://asr.umn.edu/training-and-support/course-proposal-guidelines. The criteria should be clearly integrated throughout the course content as evidenced in the syllabus, and the syllabus should include a statement describing for students how the course meets an LE requirement.
All non LE/WI FSems that will be offered for 2024-25 must be submitted to the Provost level in Coursedog by May 1, 2024. FSems submitted by this time (including those submitted earlier for WI) will be included in the Freshman Seminar promotional material to be distributed to all first-year students during summer 2024 Orientation. The 2022-23 Freshman Seminar Brochure is available for your reference at https://ote.umn.edu/freshman-seminars.
Frequently Asked Questions
We need to use more course numbers now since each Freshman Seminar requires its own unique number. How should courses be numbered?
Departments may use any 1xxx course numbers available within their departments. FSems are now identifiable by the Freshman Seminar attribute in Coursedog, and are not required to include the words “Freshman Seminar” in the title.
New regular courses usually require Campus Curriculum Committee (CCC) review. Do brand new Freshman Seminars have to be reviewed by the CCC?
No. FSems are one of a few types of courses exempt from CCC review.
If a Freshman Seminar has been previously approved for LE/WI, does it need to be recertified?
No, if an FSem has previously been approved for LE/WI, it does not need to be recertified. Simply include the current syllabus in the Syllabus section. Because FSems are now regular courses, that documentation stays in Coursedog and no longer requires annual approval.
Do I need to submit a course syllabus?
Only if the FSEM is being newly proposed for LE/WI. New LE/WI FSems must submit a syllabus that clearly integrates the LE/WI criteria in the course curriculum and includes a statement for students describing how the course meets an LE/WI requirement.
If the FSems has been taught previously, we recommend including a previous syllabus (if you have one) in Coursedog as a best practice.
New non-LE/WI FSems are encouraged to include reading lists, weekly topics, or other available information if a syllabus has not yet been finalized.
Can graduate or adjunct instructors teach Freshman Seminars?
Freshman Seminars are an opportunity for first year students to interact with faculty in a small class setting. FSems should not be taught by graduate or adjunct instructors.
Do all spring Freshman Seminars still need to be available for full-year registration?
Yes. We advertise to students that they can register for spring FSems when they come to orientation in the summer. When spring FSems are scheduled in PeopleSoft, schedulers must actively add the “available for full-year enrollment” attribute.
Won’t all of these courses clog up the online course catalog and make it confusing to determine which will be available each semester?
OUE will continue to deactivate all Freshman Seminars after each academic year, so departments don’t need to worry about a course rolling over automatically in the course schedule or showing up erroneously in the online catalog. Departments can easily reactivate FSems as needed for subsequent semesters. If an FSem is canceled, departments should notify OUE by emailing [email protected].
Can freshman seminars be taught with remote or hybrid modalities?
No, freshman seminars should be courses taught in a physical classroom.
Collegiate Freshman Seminar Obligation
Formal collegiate FSem obligations were established based on allocated faculty positions when the FSem program was founded. Here are the individual collegiate credit obligations:
| College | FS Credit Obligation |
|---|---|
| CBS | 12 |
| CCAPS | 0 |
| CDES | 12 |
| CEHD | 12 |
| CFANS | 12 |
| CLA | 135 |
| CSE | 56 |
| CSOM | 0 |
| Nursing | 0 |
| VET | 0 |
Thank you again for your contributions to the success of our first-year students and for providing them with an exceptional first-year experience in these high-impact Freshman Seminar courses.