About FYS

"Drake University is a community of learners."
Drake 2010: A Strategic Vision

A First Year Seminar:

  • Aims to establish a sense of community among members
  • Encourages active participation by students in the class.
  • Helps integrate first-year students into an academic culture.
  • Sharpens students' writing and verbal communication skills.
  • Focuses on a topic, approach or theme.
  • Focuses on critical thinking and ways of knowing as well as content.
  • Invites connections among several areas of study or disciplines.
  • Is limited to 20 students.


First Year Seminar Writing:
The First Year Seminar should offer a writing-intensive experience for students.  Typically, this will involve a series of short writing assignments beginning early in the term and totaling at least 20 pages in length.  The instructor should provide substantive feedback and students should be allowed an opportunity for correction and revision on at least some assignments.

First Year Seminar Critical Thinking:
The First Year Seminar should engage critical thinking.  The Drake Curriculum revisions adopted last spring by the Faculty Senate expanded and clarified the goal of developing critical thinking skills.  Quoting portions of the revisions:

The Drake Curriculum makes a particular intentional effort to guide students to acquire the skills for rational analysis and argumentation that is purposeful, rigorous, self-reflective, and based on a careful consideration of evidence.  Students will learn to:

  • clearly define a question or problem.
  • gather information that is relevant to that problem.
  • rigorously identify assumptions and preconceptions, including their own, that influence analysis of that problem.
  • organize and prioritize the information to develop a rational argument that states a clear claim or thesis, provides reasons for holding that claim, provides relevant evidence to support each reason, and considers alternative explanations in reaching a conclusion. 
  • communicate that reasoned argument effectively in speech, writing, or other medium as appropriated.
  • realize that results are tentative and open to revision.

 

A Note about Learning Communities and Debating Democracy:

The FYS section listed below is connected to a Learning Community.  Learning Communities have two distinctive features: 1. Students enrolled in a Learning Community live together in an on-campus residence hall.  2. In addition to the designated FYS, students are enrolled in a second linked course that is designed to complement their FYS section (in most cases, the linked course may be counted towards requirements in the Drake Curriculum and/or particular majors).  Learning Communities help to connect students both socially and intellectually.

FYS 025 - Perspectives on American Character and Society

In addition, FYS 016 - Debating Democracy - will feature a unique format.  This class will center on role-playing simulations in which students recreate historical episodes of democratic deliberation at crucial moments in history.