First-Year Council Notes: Wednesday, February 11, 2026

1:00 - 2:00 p.m. via Zoom

Membership of First-Year Council for 2025-2026

(listed alphabetically)

Rotating Members

  • Carly Asher-August, COB (member through 2028)
  • Dr. Jamie Atkinson, COE (member through 2028)
  • Dr. Toby Dogwiler, CNAS (member through 2027)
  • Mike Foster, RCASH (member through 2028)
  • Scott Handley, Honors College (member through 2027)
  • Rob Moore, Student Affairs (member through 2027)
  • Dr. Sarah Murray, CHHS (member through 2028)
  • Tracy Stout, LIBR (member through 2028)
  • Dr. Christi Sudbrock, COA (member through 2028)
  • Carsyn Vincent, Student Representative, Management and Leadership

Ex-Officio Members

  • Dr. Kelly Wood, Associate Vice Provost, Student Success (standing member)
  • Dr. Tracey Glaessgen, Associate Director, Center for Academic Success and Transition (standing member)

Council Charge:

To advise the Executive Director and Associate Director, Center for Academic Success and Transition on initiatives involving the first-year experience (FYE) at Missouri State University. These initiatives include, but are not limited to:  1) developing overarching goals for the first-year seminar course, 2) ensuring the course is designed to increase academic skill building, public affairs awareness, and campus connections, 3) evaluating the effectiveness of the first-year seminar course and recommending changes based upon assessment data, and 4) serving as a liaison with other departments/colleges/student affairs as part of a larger effort to inform and address issues involving first-year students.

Agenda

  1. Convene meeting—
    Members in attendance: Jamie Atkinson, Mike Foster, Scott Handley, Rob Moore, Sarah Murray, Tracy Stout, Carsyn Vincent, Tracey Glaessgen

  2. Welcome to Carsyn, student rep

  3. Updates/Discussion
    1. GEP 101 Updates
      • Core Assignment - Artificial Intelligence (AI) incorporated into Information Literacy assignment  
        Tracy, Tracey, and Jessica Bennett (library professor) and Jack Baumgart (success coach) have collaborated to incorporate the use of AI into the brainstorming process for a topic related to the Information Literacy assignment. Jessica is working on creating a new video to share with instructors.

      • Early alert indicators during first three weeks (establish consistent benchmarks)
        Tracey is in discussion to incorporate the first two to three assignments as an early alert feature within ATLAS for fall. Nothing final has been decided. Will continue to update FYC.

      • End-of-course instructor feedback
        • Based upon feedback from fall 2024, the instructor course shell was streamlined. Instructor feedback from fall 2025 indicated that the revised shell was very well received.

        • Community-engaged learning activity received overwhelming favorable responses from instructors who liked the interactive nature and use of class time. Instructors shared that their students also enjoyed the opportunity to do a small group activity and found it to serve as an introduction to Springfield.

        • Instructors also shared some ideas for rotating workshop topics. FYP will continue to partner with the Honors College to invite UCH 110 instructors to attend the workshops.
      • Course evals
        Shared the following course evaluation summary from fall 2025 with previous semesters to provide context:
        Selected Questions Mean 2020 Mean 2021 Mean 2022 Mean 2023 Mean 2024 Mean 2025
        Course helped me develop skills related to student success 4.36  4.33  4.40  4.31  4.35  4.42
        Knowledge and skills in this class that helped me with learning activities in my other classes 4.17  4.02  4.21  4.05  4.15  4.24
        Online materials (e.g., readings, videos and resources) were helpful 4.01  3.75  3.89  3.78  3.83  4.01
        Course helpful in my transition to college life. 4.14  3.89  4.11  3.98  4.06  4.17
        Instructor is effective teacher 4.59  4.53  4.62  4.54  4.57  4.65
        Resources for academic support 4.41  4.55  4.56  4.52  4.54  4.60
        All Survey Item Totals 4.37  4.32  4.41  4.33  4.37  4.45

Tracey also shared her individual course evaluations for additional context of all the Likert-statements that are covered. 

      • Recruitment--GEP 101 Instructors and Peer Leaders
        Instructor applications—March 11, first date of consideration
        Peer Leader applications—March 11 deadline

    2. Center for Academic Success and Transition
      • Success Coaching
        Please continue to recommend success coaching and peer mentoring to your students.  We work with first-year students to upper class students to graduate students from all different areas of academic interest.

    3. Other discussion items?
      • The topic of possibly having midterm grades posted for GEP 101 was discussed, and Mike offered to reach out to the Office of the Registrar and Chief Academic Strategy Officer to inquire. We will report any updates at March’s FYC meeting.

Next meeting—Tues. March 24 from 1:30-2:30 p.m. via zoom (invites already sent)