Engaging Sophomores: Attending to the Needs of Second-Year Students

The last quarter of 20 th century saw much attention, significant resources, and considerable efforts focused on improving students' first year of college. But students who were beneficiaries of such targeted efforts found upon their return for their second year of college that many of support programs that had helped them transition to college were no longer available to them now that they were sophomores. Educators who took time to examine these concerns soon learned that an unacceptably high number of second-year students do not return for their junior year. Nascent interest in year has gained momentum during past several years; it behooves admissions officers and registrars to understand overarching issues regarding students' sophomore-year experience. This article seeks to raise consciousness of this important topic by defining year, summarizing current research, providing a rationale for campus-based initiatives, identifying current practices, suggesting strategies for enhancing second year, and describing challenges and opportunities inherent in initiatives. Educators who work to improve undergraduate satisfaction and success on their campuses must consider special needs and characteristics of all students, including the academy's middle children (Gahagan and Hunter 2006). Any attempt to conduct campus-based research on year must begin with a definition: what is year? This is no easy task. Categorizing any undergraduate these days is difficult. It is possible to define sophomores as students who have completed a certain number of credit hours. However, sophomores thus defined are likely to comprise a wide variety of students, including first-year students who matriculate with substantial advanced placement credits, students in their third year of study who have struggled academically and so have not earned enough credits to achieve junior status, and transfer students in their first semester on a given Also problematic is fact that term sophomore is not commonly used on many community college campuses. After struggling with definition on our own campus, a University of South Carolina Task Force defined sophomores as first-time, full-time students who have progressed into their second year on campus. Although perhaps not an inclusive definition, it met needs for our research. (Each campus must purposefully and intentionally consider how to define sophomore before engaging in any assessment or research relating to this group.) RATIONALE FOR DEVELOPING SOPHOMORE-YEAR INITIATIVES Institutions develop second-year programs for a variety of reasons, including addressing concerns about student persistence, increasing student satisfaction, and encouraging student learning. According to data from Consortium for Student Retention Data Exchange, While 80. 6 percent of freshmen who enrolled in 2003 came back as sophomores following year, only 70.7 percent of those students were still enrolled at their original institutions as juniors (Lipka 2006). These data have significant implications for all institutions in terms of funding, accountability, and student learning. Student satisfaction also can be an area of concern in second college year. Recent results from Noel-Levitz Student Satisfaction Inventory found that sophomores were most dissatisfied population on University of South Carolina Areas of increased dissatisfaction related to availability of student parking, course registration, and academic advising. It is important to understand how university systems such as course registration and academic advising can help or hinder second-year students. Institutions of higher learning have an obligation to extend efforts in support of students' first-year experience. First-year programs have been widely institutionalized on thousands of campuses across country. …

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