The First Year Student Experience (FYE) course will be reimagined into Flashes 101 for the upcoming fall semester on all campuses.

Eboni Pringle, senior associate vice president for Student Access and Support and dean of University College, said the Flashes 101 course will teach new students about the Kent community.

“We focus on building a community within the course and helping students to understand how they fit in to the community here at the university and can contribute to the community here at the university as a whole,” she said. “The previous course was centered around building a community within a college and a small group of students only and not really focused on how they may connect to the greater community at large.”

With the new focus on community, students now have the option to choose whether they want to be part of their college’s section or a general section of Flashes 101.

“We’re also going to have a small number of sections organized around learning communities,” said Liz Piatt, associate dean of Student Access and Completion. “For example, the Honors College will probably have some sections for Honors students.”

Pringle said student feedback was the reason for the change.

“When we spoke with students the whole time that we were redeveloping this course, we heard different thoughts from students,” she said. “We heard that some students really wanted to take the course with other students just like them, and then other students said, ‘No, I want to meet with other students.’”

Pringle said students were a vital part of the process and they presented their ideas for redeveloping the course.

“One of our major stakeholders that we engaged were students,” she said. “They’re the ones who are going to most benefit from the course, and as a community we’re going to benefit from the course.”

Previously, those who instructed the course were those who were available. Pringle said students wanted instructors that were interested in teaching the course rather than whoever was available.

According to Pringle, the search for instructors interested in teaching the course is still ongoing.

Pringle said another challenging factor for redeveloping the course was the lack of funding.

“We also did not have a funding mechanism for the course to be able to support instructor development or curriculum development, course development, assessment,” she said. “Thinking about all these different elements that we will no longer have room for in the course and we didn’t have a budget.”

Besides the new community focus, according to Piatt, the learning objectives have changed.

“The learning objectives have changed and focus on helping students develop a connection with other students, communities around campus, with the broader Kent State community,” she said. “All the learning objectives focus on those things so the content all ties to those learning objectives.”

According to Piatt, all of the major related learning objectives will now occur outside of the new course.

Other than finding a place in Kent’s community, students will now be able to learn new skills from Flashes 101.

“A major thing is learning how to advocate for themselves and others,” Pringle said. “That’s what you do when you’re in a community, you look out for each other, pass along what you know, you mentor other people.”

Piatt said the opportunity for mentorship is one benefit of the Flashes 101 course.

“We’re really hopeful that students will have a really good connection with somebody at the university who they know they can count on, call on, and after the course is over be that point of contact if they have issues navigating the institution,” she said.

Adriana Gasiewski is a reporter. Contact her at [email protected].