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		The Sophomore Year Experience: Utilizing Resources to Support the Second Year Residential Student Submitted by Amanda DuBois, Community Development Educator, New York University As I made my way down Burrill Avenue toward Woodward Hall, I felt the excitement growing and the anxiety begin to set in. Will I make new friends this year? I hope that there will be a good group of people in my residence hall. What will my classes be like? What’s the best way to approach my writing professor if I have difficulty? Should I plan to visit home over the next long weekend? Excitement, loneliness, anxiety, and homesickness; these are all characteristics of the first year college experience. However, second-year students often face similar issues. As students transition from the first to second year, it is important to recognize the desire for not only a continued learning experience, but also an ongoing sense of support from peers, faculty and administrators. At New York University, students expressed dissatisfaction with their experience as sophomores on campus. Often times, second year residents were living in the residence halls on the outskirts of campus. Because the campus is in essence Greenwich Village and the city of New York, some residence halls are located as far south as lower Manhattan and as far as 22 blocks north of the Village. Many students felt that they were given so much attention during their first year, through the First Year Residential Experience (FYRE), that they were in a sense “dropped” or forgotten after their freshman year. The programmatic offerings were not up to the standards that they were used to. The level of involvement greatly decreased, as their academic requirements became even more demanding. Resident Assistants provided feedback on the issues that they believed our sophomore students were facing. Many were moving from a traditional-style residence hall to apartments with a kitchen and little to no cooking skills. There was no sense of area or class pride like in the FYRE program. Residents were now living with friends as opposed to an assigned roommate. This created a need for problem solving and self -advocacy skill development. Recognizing that there was a need to support sophomores, NYU decided to pursue the creation of such a program. Members of the Department of Residential Education attended the Sophomore Summit at Colgate University. At this summit, administrators and faculty from institutions around the country provided information and feedback about programs that have been implemented at their college or university. Conversations took place regarding a variety of ideas that need development when thinking about the sophomore experience. One of the main themes that arose from the summit was to start small and utilize the resources already available to you. NYU’s Residential Education Department was able to identify a variety of resources currently in place that could be tailored to meet the needs of our sophomore population. The housing department approved a change to the lottery system giving sophomores preference when selecting a building with the assumption that most students would choose Union Square, the prime real estate area for upperclassmen at NYU. Once the new lottery system was in place it was important to make sure that residents would truly feel as though there was a purposefully created experience just for them. Administrators in the sophomore cluster of halls began identifying programs in existence that could be tailored for our second-year students. Each residence hall already utilized Boyer’s First Six Week principles to facilitate a successful beginning to the academic year. At NYU, a large part of the first six-week experience involves conversations facilitated as part of our, “Bridging Academic and Social Experiences” (BASE) program. Through BASE, Resident Assistants (RAs) have a one-on-one conversation with every resident under their advisement. By the sixth week of the semester, each resident has had an individual conversation with his or her RA. This tool is useful and can be adapted to ask specific questions that relate to the sophomore experience that residents are asked to answer. The RAs are then asked to create a community plan for their residents for the remainder of the year and create a rough outline of programs. They use two existing NYU resources to accomplish this: The Operational Calendar and RA Programming Manual. The calendar displays when major theme weeks are taking place area-wide and notes important university dates for that specific population, and the manual includes rationale and programming ideas for residents. Recognizing that these resources were available, NYU Residential Education staff members examined themes in our sophomore population. There is little research completed to date on the sophomore experience, so staff relied on informal feedback from our students and the research done at various other institutions to create a program. In examining all that was available, three major themes emerged. Fostering a sense of independence for our students becomes necessary as our residents move from traditional style residence halls to those with full kitchens that do not require the purchase of a meal plan. Questions may arise related to healthy cooking, smart shopping and making cleaning arrangements with roommates for those who do not have a meal plan. It is demonstrated that just one change in lifestyle can have a large impact on a student’s experience in areas such as wellness, problem solving, and dining and financial responsibility. Enhancing education beyond the classroom is essential to the development of our students. By providing educational programs that support the guiding principles of the department and programs in which students have expressed interest in, the mission of the institution as well as the students are supported. Through involving faculty, peer educators and staff members in department-wide initiatives, topics such as study abroad, career development and leadership can be examined. A sense of community seems to be something that students want to continue after their first year. During their freshman year, residents live in traditional residence halls where the doors are open and it’s easy to meet people and make friends. Sophomore year, students can now live with those friends, keep their apartment doors closed and become comfortable with not getting to know their neighbors as they did during their first year. Mary Stuart Hunter and Jimmie Gahagan address this lack of community in the article, “The Second-Year Experience; Turning Attention to the Academy’s Middle Children”. They describe the Sophomore Slump as being something in which students experience a lack of motivation, feel disconnected and flounder academically. It is NYU’s hope that by focusing on these three main areas of development for sophomores, we can address many of the needs that our second year students have. Now that these main focus areas were determined, it was time to learn how institutions were implementing their programs and what successes and challenges were taking place. Hunter and Gahagan recommend modifying existing programs and services designed to support student learning and engagement for sophomore students, and also the creation of institutional traditions such as sophomore retreats, ring ceremonies, second-year summits or other special sophomore events. Part of the mission of the “Sophomore Year Initiatives” program at Beloit College in Wisconsin is to educate faculty, staff, and parents on the unique developmental needs of sophomore students. Letters are sent to parents and sophomore students. Workshop training is done with Sophomore advisors on the program which entails dinner with the student’s original First Year Initiative group and advisor, the sophomore retreat and a major declaration fair, in which students could declare their major or minor and speak with faculty members. Retention rates greatly increased in students who attended the sophomore retreat. Colgate University, host of the Sophomore Summit, has “The Sophomore Year Experience”, a program that is part of Colgate’s Residential Education Initiative. This has been in place for three years now in hopes that by the end of the sophomore year, students will have learned the necessary skills to be informed and capable of becoming leaders of a democratic society. Dean Raj Bellani has led a team in crafting and refining this project since 2003. The National Resource Center for the First-Year Experience and Students in Transition is an excellent resource for anyone looking to initiate a second-year experience program. NYU was able to gather information from the Center’s website along with reaching out to other institutions to begin our own program. A common theme at institutions, such as Emory and Colorado College was the importance of branding your program. The “Second Year at Emory” and “The Sophomore Jump” at Colorado are perfect examples of the importance of branding your program so that your students can associate various initiatives as part of it. Once information was obtained and sorted through, NYU Residential Education was able to identify programs that could work at well on campus. The traditions mentioned in the article by Hunter and Gahagan could be adapted at NYU in terms of creating theme week programming, Union Square Olympics and NYU Rocks the Vote. Providing a sophomore to-do list would help develop important skills for our students to become successful, much like the students at Colgate. Much of what Beloit College does through it’s Sophomore Year Initiatives program has encouraged us to send letters to parents and families over the summer, look at organizing a sophomore retreat, and collaborate even more with other departments across campus. Finally, it was time to brand our program such as Emory and Colorado College has done. “MORE, The Sophomore Year Residential Experience at NYU” has become a visible part of the community in Residential Education. More colleges and universities are beginning to take notice of the need for a sophomore experience. The National Center for The First-Year Experience and Students in Transition has a host of resources to help learn about what other institutions are doing. There are benefits and challenges to each program. While not all colleges and universities are alike, schools can take portions of multiple programs and adapt them to create a successful program on campus. Ultimately, there are some key suggestions for the implementation of a sophomore program on your campus. Identify the needs of your population. Determine the services that already exist on your campus to enhance or support the creation of a second-year experience. Learn about what other institutions are doing on their campus that can be adapted for use at your institution. Finally, create a brand for the program and get to work! About the Author Amanda Dubois is a Community Development Educator in the Department of Residential Education at New York University. She has co-developed “ ‘MORE - The Sophomore Year Residential Experience at NYU”. Amanda received her Bachelor’s Degree in Social Work from Bridgewater State College in Massachusetts and her Master’s Degree in Higher Education Administration at New York University. Currently she works with sophomores on a daily basis in the residence halls supporting the academic, social and wellness aspects of campus life at NYU. Amanda is an active member of the Northeast Association for College and University Housing Officers, serving as the Eastern New York District Coordinator and a member of the program committee. She also chairs the committee for Resident International Student Engagement (RISE) at NYU and sits on the University-wide community service committee. She has presented at various conferences and information sessions on the Sophomore Experience nationwide.