The Endeavor Foundation Supports First Year Seminar Program

Wesleyan’s First Year Seminar Program (FYS) is benefiting from a three-year, $225,000 grant from The Endeavor Foundation of New York. The FYS program is part of a comprehensive effort to realize the potential of the first year of college to be academically transformative. With the Foundation’s support, Wesleyan will expand and enhance the program. This fall 43 FYS courses were offered to students; 10 FYS will be offered in the spring.

“The FYS program is a key part of our structure to support development of multiple student competencies, in this case in the area of writing, and to tie competency-building to different stages of students’ intellectual development,” said Vice President for Academic Affairs Joyce Jacobsen. “On behalf of the university, I would like to thank The Endeavor Foundation for its generous support for our FYS program.”

The Endeavor Foundation’ generosity will enable Wesleyan to build a program that will be a model of pedagogical innovation and collaboration across disciplines.

Grant funds will be used to provide faculty stipends to develop and teach new FYS courses, and to provide opportunities for students to demonstrate their knowledge and the work they have done in the seminars in public presentations. Program funds are also available for faculty to collaborate with or bring to campus scholars and practitioners who are working in fields related to the seminar topic. The grant has already supported visitors at Wesleyan, including Cheryl Rose, DMV, deputy director at U.S. Arctic Research Commission in Anchorage, Alaska who visited the philosophy class, “What do Animals Think;” and Kevin Rothrock, project director at Global Voices Online, who visited the government class, “Writing the World.”

Ellen Nerenberg, the Hollis Professor of Romance Languages and Literatures and Dean of the Arts and Humanities, is steering the FYS Program.

“Wesleyan also is considering focusing living-learning groups around a select set of the FYS courses next year,” Nerenberg said.

Founded in 1952 by Christian A. Johnson, The Endeavor Foundation is dedicated to efforts that foster independent thought, ethical understanding, deep appreciation of the arts and reverence for the natural world. The Endeavor Foundation pursues this objective primarily by supporting and catalyzing excellence in liberal arts education and related fields, and has supported the curricular and pedagogical development of a significant number of liberal arts colleges in the United States.