As the spring semester arrives, freshmen are headed into the second semester of the new Salon and Liberal Studies program implemented at Baker University.
So far Interim Assistant Dean for Liberal Studies Erin Joyce believes both programs have been running smoothly and students are benefitting from them.
“I think so far, so good,” Joyce said. “I’ve heard good things and I’ve gotten good feedback on it.”
Changes were made last year to extend the former one-semester course to a yearlong course in order to provide continued support and guidance to students during the spring semester.
“We changed SN 101, which is kind of like FY 101. We extended the course for an entire year because we found that often first-year students have some issues beyond the first semester,” Joyce said. “For example, we have students who don’t do as well as they had hoped first semester and really need to play catch up spring semester, but there’s no FY type of guidance for them to do that.”
Freshman Kalijah Sweeney said the SN course she took was beneficial to her because the topic was relevant to her personal interests.
“You got to actually choose which classes you want that suits your personality and what you want to do connected with your major,” Sweeney said. “The one I took was personal finance, and it really helped me on my finance and budgeting.”
The fall semester SN course consisted of the instructor’s chosen topic, an introduction to the new LS program, including pre-enrollment and advising issues, as well as an ID guide with college life information.
The amount of information to be covered in the first semester was an issue some instructors were concerned about.
“I think the one issue is that there’s a lot of things to do,” Joyce said. “It’s a lot to get done in a one-credit course. So, I don’t know, that might be something that we examine in the future.”
Joyce said the new LS program, which changed the general education requirements from a “cafeteria menu” style to a core model consisting of LS courses from freshman to senior year, created an increase in student engagement.
“So far, we’ve collected some data on these classes, and we’re seeing that students are a little bit more engaged in the discussions,” Joyce said. “The fact that these LS courses have a theme and you get to pick the theme that you like, students really seem to like that.”
Freshman Lauren Dunkak is one student who enjoyed her LS class and found the course to be engaging and rewarding.
“We did different exercises. We studied gender stereotyping and we also did a lot of leadership stuff,” Dunkak said. “It was just really fun … exploring different options we wouldn’t have thought of if we hadn’t taken the class.”
