OVERVIEW
Freshman Seminars at The University of Alabama seek to engage first-year students in meaningful relationships with their peers, faculty, and/or the campus community. Seminars should be designed to engage students in intellectual discourse in small classes taught by faculty, who have a deep subject matter knowledge and passion for a topic. Freshman Seminars feature special topics that often take an interdisciplinary approach to subject material. Seminars should be designed to fulfill a core curriculum requirement while enhancing students’ academic and social development in addition to fostering critical thinking skills, independent research, expository writing, and in many cases, field experience.
Freshman Seminars provide an opportunity for faculty members to engage with a small group of students (limited to no more than 20 students) in the context of a subject that is personally and professionally meaningful. The structure of the freshman seminar allows for flexibility in instructional methods.
PURPOSE
The purpose of the Freshman Seminar is to emphasize the development of intellectual abilities in a small classroom setting. Connecting freshmen to The University of Alabama through Freshman Seminars enhances the overall academic mission of the University by providing a quality education to our students and increasing faculty-student engagement. The seminars, quite simply, provide a mechanism for freshmen to get to know our faculty and for our faculty to share their excitement and enthusiasm in studying a favorite topic.