Up close and personal

As second-year students face the daunting prospect of selecting a major, they often find themselves with few opportunities to enroll in small seminars. First-years have USEMs, COLAs and ENWR*, and third- and fourth-years are required to enroll in seminars for their majors, but second-years don’t have as many opportunities to get to know faculty members in a seminar setting.

A new second-year seminar program is aimed at changing that, beginning this semester. Funded by the Parents Committee, the program promises to expose a larger number of second-year students to small classes where they can delve more deeply into disciplines in preparation for declaring a major. The more intimate classroom environment will also allow them to build a closer faculty support network, according to Lori Schuyler, assistant dean of Arts & Sciences.

“The best way to ensure that students have the best experiences in the College is to promote meaningful student-faculty interaction,” Schuyler says. “Typically, students find their academic mentors in the classroom. These seminars will grant the students the opportunity to find the right faculty member to inspire them and guide them during their time at the University.”

Faculty members in the program opt to teach the second-year seminar in addition to their normal semester teaching load and are compensated with a modest research account. Students can develop a continued relationship with their professors and even select them as their faculty advisors.

Enrolled in Rachel Most’s archaeology seminar, Unearthing the Past, Rachel Fried (Psychology ’09) says she appreciates the opportunity to engage in a subject she enjoys on a deeper level.

“I was interested in the second-year seminar program because U.Va. is such a big school, and I was drawn to the fact that [the program] offered a small, intimate setting and covered really exciting and interesting topics,” Fried says. “A lot of second-year students don’t know how to get to know their professors in large classes, and having these opportunities makes the University feel smaller.”

Students in the program have the opportunity to choose from eight three-credit courses focusing on such subjects as anthropology, studio art, biology, environmental sciences, American politics, comparative politics and comparative literature. Each class meets once a week for about two and a half hours, and enrollment is capped at 18 students.

*University Seminars, College Advising Seminars, and Expository and Creative Writing