Dean Michael Salmon Receives National Award for His Work in Easing Transition for First-Year Students

Among his many accomplishments, Dean Salmon has been credited with initiating and coordinating the college’s First Year Peer Leadership program for over a decade. This program invites highly qualified upper-class students to facilitate a series of Learning Community Workshops (LCW 101) for incoming students. This fall, working collaboratively with colleagues from Student Affairs, Dean Salmon was also responsible for spearheading the creation of an innovative activity-based addition to the LCW program, called Griffin Games 2012, which was designed to encourage first year student to explore the college and city, while earning points on behalf of their Learning Community. In addition, over the last three years, Dean Salmon has worked with Professor Naccarato, Chair of the Humanities Division, to design and co-direct a new Liberal Studies Program, which helps students who haven’t decided on an academic major figure out their next move.

“First-year student success depends not so much on academic aptitude as it does on having a seamless transition into the college community,” says Dean Salmon. “If this is overlooked, you can see some very good students stumble. We tend to think it’s easy to move from high school to college, but it’s not.” 

First-time-to-college students aren’t the only group Dean Salmon is concerned about welcoming to the college. This fall, he instituted a Transfer Community Workshop (TCW 101), to assist transfer students who often face some of the same transition problems as first years. In addition, he has began the practice of assigning all incoming international students to a designated academic advisor within the Office of Academic Advisement.

Presenting the awards in partnership with Cengage Learning, the National Resource Center will honor Dean Salmon and its other Outstanding Advocates at its Annual Conference on the First-Year Experience in February 2013. 

“It is an honor to represent the College with this award,” says Dean Salmon. “It’s also a great pleasure to work with a wonderful and dedicated team of First Year Peer Leaders, as well with my staff in the Office of Academic Advisement. They are all outstanding First Year Advocates.

Published: December 18, 2012