Memorandum: Freshman Seminar Update and Thank You

To: UT Community
From: Todd Diacon, Vice Provost for Academic Operations
Re: Freshman Seminar Update and Thank You
Date: May 3, 2007

When my son was a child his favorite song was "Three, is a Magic Number." Well, as of today my favorite number is 75, for that is the number of freshman seminars scheduled for the fall semester. This astonishes me. In January the freshman seminar was but an idea Provost Holub brought with him from UC-Berkeley, where the program improved the first year experience of students. Today this idea is a reality at Tennessee, and seminar professors are now leaders in improving first year undergraduate education on campus.

Our senior research analyst Linda Broyles is the real force behind FYS129, and she will continue to administer the program and answer your queries. I suspect that her perpetual good mood and kind manner led many of you to propose a course. Stay tuned for her periodic updates. In the fall we will celebrate the program with a public lecture by a national expert on undergraduate education.

The freshman seminars will be offered in both semesters each year. This means that faculty who could not offer a course this fall will have another opportunity to do so during the spring. We hope that many of our fall instructors will also return for the spring semester. Each 129 seminar offered earns a $1,500 research grant for the professor.

In the meantime, I want to thank all of you who have volunteered to teach in this program. We have come a long way in the effort to improve the first year experience of our Tennessee students. I understand that all of you are busy, productive teachers and scholars already, and that nevertheless you are willing to engage in yet more effort to improve our university. Your support is greatly appreciated, and it will result in a better University of Tennessee for all of us.