September 1999 - Discussed Service Day and some of the Service Projects for the fall. Andrew will be invited to speak to the freshmen block sessions. Took a deep breath after rescheduling all rooms for the meetings of the block sessions (the nighttime cavern could not be used as the soda machines, etc. made it difficult to hear and the furniture could not be moved easily.) Discussed final arrangements for the computer orientation sessions. Gail will introduce the Lead Instructor to the students at each session and then the Lead Instructor will introduce Mark. There will be approximately 22 computer orientation sessions. Mark Poore intends to lead all of them.

Planned Academic Advisor Meetings for the 16th and 17th of September. Also planned for the meeting with Dr. Paul Fidler of the University of South Carolina, who would be consulting with us about CCLS outcomes assessment. Had a meeting with Residential Area Coordinators to prepare for Living in the Campus Community Session. Also worked on arrangements for International Learning block session. Bill will coordinate the invitations of speakers (students and faculty, who have studies abroad). Reviewed CIG Block Schedule Proposal. The Friday afternoon time period could be quite helpful. We need to make guidelines for what counts and does not count clearer for next year.

October 1999 - Discussed Paul Fidler's visit. It was very helpful. Also, Dorothy Fidler provided excellent ideas and information to use in our planning for nontraditional students for next year. Decided to expand the number of outcomes to include various constituencies. Also, discussed and considered how to handle missed class sessions. We decided to offer a make-up for each session, since there had been some confusion on the part of students as to where to go for their CCLS session. (It is hard for new freshman to follow a syllabus and see that some weeks they meet individually with their advisor, other times as a small advising group and other times as a large advising group. In addition we had the initial room change for the large advising group sessions.) The advisor has the final word on how to handle missed sessions, including missing the make-up session!

Discussed Living in the Campus Community session. This block session became more interactive after the first group met. We need to increasingly engage students in the learning process. Made final arrangements for the October Block Sessions (International Learning and Experiential Learning Opportunities). Planned for Nuts and Bolts of Pre-Registration Session. Evaluated the two October sessions. A lot of excellent information was presented at the International Learning sessions. At each session there were students, who had been either on a May travel trip or on a semester/year abroad program. Faculty, who had led May travel trips also spoke. Jon Crawford presented information on the various programs available for students. Some slides, videos of the countries were shown. It was very informative - some students were still not very engaged despite very good presentations.

Presenters for the Experiential Learning session were encouraged to make their presentation as experiential as possible - involving the student, however the presentations - although quite good - were primarily presentations. As part of the focus on Experiential Learning, we did some joint planning with Bill Hill for an afternoon session and a luncheon to tell Freshmen and other students about the Washington Semester. It went very well. About 30 freshmen chose to attend. Students, who had been in the program stood up after the luncheon and told about their experiences and answered questions.

The physical arrangement of our regular meeting places for CCLS really inhibits the active involvement we would like to have for students in CCLS. We need to have a different physical location for next year - more informal and perhaps with food again! The advising group meeting around the table (as we did during the Pilot Program) over lunch is missed. The large advising group was, of course, designed to accommodate advisors not planning to have weekly meetings with their advisees, as well as to provide information to a larger group from people with expertise in a particular area. We need to rethink that model.

November 1999 - Wrote and reviewed thank you notes to presenters of the various block sessions held in October. The Nuts & Bolts sessions went fairly well, since students were motivated to know how to register for their classes for the following semester. Some advisors chose to conduct this session themselves. Others choose to have the Learning Center staff present these sessions. Many students did not bring with them the pre-registration schedule. We need to find a way to have students come prepared for the CCLS sessions.

Getting students to know when and where they should go to various events is a problem. Gail is sending out weekly e-mails on Mondays and has developed a CCLS calendar posted on the Web site to help keep everyone informed. Discussed last large advising group session on Studying for Final Exams, which will be presented by students in the Honors Program in panel of 3 or 4 students. Continued work on finalizing CCLS outcomes objectives.

December 1999 - Reviewed questions for the CCLS 1999 Fall Evaluation for Dan Larsen. Also discussed that advisor evaluations will not be shared with advisors until the end of the academic year, since the focus this year is on evaluating the program. (There was concern by some advisors that the seeing of advisor evaluations could potentially affect how an advisor would respond to students and therefore impact the results of the program.) Also, FPC was working on a new way for advisor evaluation. It was decided that no advising evaluations would go to Chairs during this year of program implementation and determination of how advising would be included in the promotion and tenure ratings of faculty.

Discussed Studying for Final Exams sessions. The students gave excellent hints and ideas and were informal in their discussion with other students, which was very positive. It was still hard, however, to engage students in the large advising groups. Students are hesitant to ask a question in such a large group (40-60 students). Also, when smaller groups were formed, there was not always a faculty member or Maroon Corps member present and so the small groups could get off track. Perhaps we should have asked the Honors Students to be a facilitator of the small groups, when they were used. The responsibility of the Lead Instructor was primarily to take attendance and to introduce the speaker. Perhaps we need to also broaden the responsibility of that individual. The compensation for being a Lead Instructor is very modest - $250. Perhaps we need to also evaluate it. Also, discussed again the need for smaller block session groups and to make the sessions more interactive. This is in line with feedback received from the faculty at the third advisor meeting.