After months of planning, Babson College gets ready to welcome the class of 2013 on Friday, August 28th 2009.  The program is filled with great opportunities for new students to get to each other as well as faculty, staff and returning students.   In addition, there are workshops, entertainers, and speakers that will make transition to Babson an experience to remember.   Please check the new orientation schedule, the transfer orientation schedule, and the family schedule, for the complete list of events.

Generally speaking you only have the opportunity to experience one college orientation.  This program is a chance to establish friendships that will last a lifetime. 

I would like to officially welcome the Babson class of 2013, and remember: to  “Explore. Connect.  Make it Happen.”

It is amazing how much you time you have to reflect while bouncing down the Hudson River. It is even more amazing to me that I have time to think about how rafting is related to my work with first year college students. One of my summer vacation adventures this summer was to raft with some family and friends down the Hudson River.How does this relate to the First Year Experience? Here goes:

Having the members of your boat work together as a team makes a difference.
Safely and successfully navigating class three white water rapids requires all occupants of the raft to work together. Similarly, students need to work together to help each other throughout the up and downs of the first year of college. Attempting to do it alone is significantly more difficult.

Listening to an experienced guide is important.
Having an experienced guide (in our case, 28 years of experience), instills confidence that you can tackle the white water. The guide also provides a sense of comfort that if you run into a difficult spot on the river, they will be able to get you through the situation. In the first year of college, there many experienced guides available for students. These guides (peer mentors, faculty advisors, class deans, FYS instructors, resident assistants) can provide guidance through many personal and academic challenges that students may face. The key is to listen to these guides at the appropriate times and avoid the difficult places if possible.

The river is unpredictable and ever changing.
Every day the river is different, water levels rise and fall, rocks that were not visible one day are suddenly there the next. You cannot control the whims of nature and nor should you think you can. The first year of college is unpredictable as well. Students should allow themselves to be nimble enough to bounce through the occasional obstacles that are thrown their way.

It is important to enjoy the ride.
A rafting experience should be enjoyable. It is an opportunity to be challenged physically while embracing the wonders of nature. You should take the time to look around when the waters are calm and appreciate what you are fortunate enough to be experiencing. The first year of college is an amazing ride that will go by quickly. You should embrace the moment and all the great opportunities you have, before you know it, you are pulling that raft out of the water and all that is left is the pictures and the stories.

How useful is Twitter? A while back I blogged about how I plan to delve into the world of Twitter to see how it can be integrated into my work with first year programs at Babson College.  The summer seems like a good time to provide a progress report.  

After some experimenting with my own account, the DeanRMajor twitter account was launched in March 2009 and promoted on the New Student Website.  The account has amassed a respectable following.  One of the first experiments with the @DeanRMajor account was to “tweet” our annual student FME presentations in April.  This was learning experience, but I think it was a successful first attempt at using Twitter to reach a broader audience.  I used the hash tag #BabsonFME while tweeting the presentations.   When classes resume in the fall, I will continue to identify appropriate events to Tweet in the first year program at Babson.

I have been having conversations about how to use twitter in the classroom.   There has been some experimentation going on at other institutions such as the University of Texas, along with some great dialogue with our CITG (Curriculum Innovation and Technology, @mjmcport) department on emerging best practices.   I will use what I have learned this summer and try to integrate this into my First Year Seminar class in the fall.

Some other observations on Twitter:

• Students are adopting Twitter at a somewhat measured pace, there are some power users and early adopters, but I think there are many more still trying determine the value before jumping in too deep.
• Faculty and Staff are also moving into Twitter with caution.  There are concerns (as with Facebook) about appropriate boundaries with students. 
• The Babson alumni that I am following are typiclly active users of Twitter, and it has been great to be able to use this tool as a way to keep connected with them. 
• The applications, TweetDeck and Twhirl, are enormously helpful in managing the flow of information on Twitter.
• It does take time to appreciate the power of Twitter; it can be easy to dismiss if you only take a cursory look at the application.  If you stick with it, the potential really becomes evident. A simple example would be the “Saved Searches”, it is really fascinating to see how often, and it what context Babson College is mentioned on Twitter.  

I asked a current Babson student, @jmondo (via Twitter of course) to comment on his experience with Twitter and his response was “Some of the most insightful news, business advice, and reasons to get out of bed I find on Twitter.”   

In an educational environment, I think Twitter has great potential.  The Babson community is generally very willing to test new ideas.  I am excited to see how the community embraces this rapidly evolving social media tool this fall.  

The Dean of the Undergraduate School, Dennis Hanno, participated in both community service projects with the students as also provided opening/closing remarks for each of the days.  

I attended the Babson session on Saturday and there was great enthusiasm from all those who attended.  The reports from the staff and faculty who attended the New York session were equally favorable.

These events are just a taste of what is to come for Class of 2013; I look forward to meeting the rest of the class in just two short months!

The summer reading committee selected the book Three Cups of Tea, by David Oliver Relin and Greg Mortenson to be read by our entering students this summer.  I  just finished the book last week and I believe it was a great choice for our students.  We plan to discuss this book with the entering students as part of an activity at the conclusion of New Student Orientation on August 31st 2009. 

The book was inspiring and informative.  I feel better educated about a region of the world that I was not very familiar with.  I also developed a great respect for the patience, determination and ingenuity that Greg Mortenson possessed in order to accomplish his goals of raising money and building the many schools.  I was also impressed that the book did not hesitate to outline the mistakes that were made along the way and how Greg was able to learn from them. 

For the remainder of the summer, I will consider how to incorporate the ideas and lessons from this book into the first year at Babson.  I am looking forward to some great discussion on this book and hearing from the author David Oliver Relin on August 31^st. 

This is a question that can certainly generate many different responses.  At Babson we challenge our new students to wrestle with this very question during the first few weeks of classes as part of our First Year Seminar.

One answer may be the following: “An immersion into an intellectual and social environment that raises your level of insights and appreciation, and awareness in a wide array of disciplines.”  Another answer maybe “College is about asking good questions, not just waiting for good answers.”

The answer can far more complex than the ones stated above, and it is important for students to recognize and reflect on what the college experience is all about.  If you have an answer to this question please post a reply to our Twitter site at http://twitter.com/DeanRMajor.

I look forward to engaging the class of 2013 in this question along with many others in the fall semester.

Summertime has arrived at Babson, with Commencement festivities behind us and summer classes well underway.   Our attention turns to the many activities necessary to welcome the class of 2013.  The first of these is our Family Days the weekend of June 27-28th 2009.  We started these events last summer and they were a great success.  I look forward to meeting many families and these events.  Another big undertaking is the scheduling of our new students which will begin in the month of June. This starts with students completing a schedule survey to help us understand the individual needs of each student.  Additionally, New Student Orientation will continue to be refined to make it the best possible experience when students arrive on August 28th 2009.

You can follow me all summer long at my Twitter account.  I look forward for interacting with you on this constantly evolving social media tool.

Enjoy the summer everyone!

I had an interesting conversation with a first year student a week or so ago.  We were discussing how her first year at Babson has gone, and she was honest with me and told me that at the end of the first semester she was wondering if Babson was the right place for her.  When she contemplated transferring, she decided that she could not leave because she had acquired so many Babson t-shirts that she would have come up with a whole new wardrobe. 

I had to challenge the notion that she stayed at Babson because of the t-shirts, she laughed and said that really the t-shirts had actually reinforced the sense of community at Babson that she come to appreciate.  However, she did admit that she was psyched about how many t-shirts she has obtained! Who would have thought the cumulative impact of T-shirts could help a student come to understand the significance of a college community.

I must admit, I often wondered if it was necessary to have a T-shirt at so many college events.  It is nice to see that in this one case, a student thought beyond the laundry.

Just another day on a college campus….

Final Exams. If you walk around campus during finals it looks like no one actually goes to Babson College. Unless you walk into the library. The normally bustling first floor is silent, but filled with students. All the computer stations are filled, all the tables, covered with books. Every room is booked with study groups. People are finishing group projects, take home exams, or studying for an exam they have to take this week. I have one left. I handed in my International Law final paper last week, finished my Philosophy take home exam last night, completed my group Strategy case analysis for Monday, and I have to do my Consumer Behavior exam early due to the NCAA tournament we’ve qualified for! I’ll be done Thursday by 3pm! goodbye Junior Year…

Except of course for lacrosse! We will play home on Wednesday against Farmingdale State at 7PM! They’re coming from Long Island, and in the hopes we win on Wednesday, we will move on the the Sweet Sixteen to play Salisbury in Maryland on Saturday! It will be an exciting time for sure!

Now all we need is for the sun to come back out and it will really be summer time!

I had my last Tuesday/Thursday classes today. It was amazing to walk to class this morning in shorts and a tank top in this 90 degree weather knowing I wouldn’t have to make this 8am walk again for another 3 months. (and even then I opted out of 8ams for next semester!!) People have been outside all weekend enjoying the weather, playing in the charity Cradles for Crayons volleyball tournaments, barbequing and playing with Dean Hanno’s well made donation of the Cornhole boards (sand bag toss game, maybe you’ve seen them at concert tailgates?) are everywhere to be found! Everyone is dressed in their business attire for final presentations, free of our scarves and coats that we sported not too long ago.

Congrats to Men’s Baseball for the NEWMAC title! We’ll play in the Lacrosse NEWMAC semi’s on Saturday on our turf! Hoping to capture our third championship in a row!

I made the mistake of going to portal through the main babson webpage today. When I did, the commencement announcement screamed at me. I cannot believe graduation is looming so soon for so many of my friends. It’s bitter sweet really, because I am ready for summer, ready for finals to be over and the work to be done! But some of my best friends, people that I have never known Babson without, are about to leave me here. Reminds you that you have to enjoy all the good times as they come!