About CEHD Reads

The Department of Postsecondary Teaching and Learning (PSTL) and the College of Education and Human Development (CEHD) are building a year of education and events around the shared question:

Can one person make a difference?

As part of this process, the college community is joining our first-year students in reading A Lesson Before Dying, by Ernest Gaines, which pushes readers to consider what kind of impact is possible in the face of demoralizing circumstances.

Please join us in reading A Lesson Before Dying, which earned the National Book Critics Circle Award, and join our college for a number of related events.

We are eager to share the ways that we, as a college, make a difference through transformational research, top-quality education, and partnerships with our community beyond campus.

CEHD’s First Year Experience Program

The College of Education and Human Development offers a two-semester curriculum focused on the social, academic, and institutional needs of first-year students. This program builds intentional pathways to college by introducing students to ways of thinking in different academic disciplines, strategies for collaborating with others, and resources for discovering their own strengths. These transition tools are integrated into first-year curriculum, built around a First Year Inquiry course and Learning Communities.

First Year Inquiry

First Year Inquiry (FYI) is an innovative, team-taught class that engages first-year students in meaningful learning and scholarship by engaging them in exploring the common question “Can one person make a difference?” from the perspectives of faculty members representing three different disciplines. The class combines both intellectual and personal development components that invite students to question themselves and the world around them and to see themselves as agents of change.

Learning Communities

All first-year CEHD students enroll in Learning Communities in the spring. These are classes from different disciplines that are intentionally integrated around a theme, teaching approach, shared goal, or final project. Here, students continue honing the academic and interpersonal skills developed in the fall, and continue to grapple with ways that they can make a difference in their own and other people’s futures.