Session Results: Non-Traditional/First Generation Students (Nancy Peterson)

INTERESTS: non-traditional students, first-generation college students.

SUMMARY RESULTS: We basically worked towards a list of things we'd like students to be able to do when they finish FYC, though we identified some tension between what WE might want and what we know our institutions want. What we ended up with overall was one descriptive category that seemed to subsume all the other pressing issues.

That is, RHETORICAL EFFECTIVENESS/AWARENESS (this encompasses usage/language control issues, the ability to summarize, analyze, synthesize, and evaluate ideas IN WRITING to fit various contexts for different audiences and purposes, the ability to ask questions and to put a frame on one's world in the context of a larger community)

We didn't really focus much on the processes of writing or the goals of group work, mostly because we ran out of time. I will say, however, that every one of us feels tremendously responsible for and concerned about our student clientele: underprepared, often economically disadvantaged, with few to none role models about what it means to be 'college educated.' I hope I'm accurately capturing the group sentiment when I state that many of us are concerned about what will happen to students like ours (underprepared, non-traditional, etc.) if assessment criteria are too narrow or end up exclusively tied to gatekeeping.

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