Dear Parents & Families,
The pace of events continues as we head into the home stretch of the fall semester. We hope you will be able to join us for The Sacred Journey: The Beloved Community on November 4, and that you will encourage your student to be a part of this emerging St. Mary’s College tradition. There are also a variety of performances coming up, particularly in the Nancy R. & Norton T. Dodge Performing Arts Center, which will soon have its own web page.
November also brings Giving Tuesday. Giving Tuesday started in 2012 as a global day of giving fueled by the power of social media and collaboration. Review the results of the 2021 Campaign that greatly benefitted our students and look for more information on Giving Tuesday 2022 on our website and in the mail!
This issue also brings us helpful articles from the Offices of Student Financial Assistance (OSFA) and Student Success Services (OS3).
The Sacred Journey: The Beloved Community
Two years ago, we dedicated the Commemorative to Enslaved Peoples of Southern Maryland. In its short existence, the Commemorative has garnered multiple national awards, not just for its visual impact, but for what it represents and how it has become an active part of our campus culture. Last year, we initiated a celebration of the Commemorative and what it embodies. This year, we continue the evolving tradition of the Sacred Journey. Join us on Friday, November 4 at 4:30 p.m. as we once again give voice to the voiceless. We hope your student will participate, too.
Performances in November
Instructor of Music Brian Ganz will be giving another PianoTalk titled “Beethoven and the Dawn of Tonal Ambiguity” on Thursday, November 3. SMCM’s PING vocal ensemble, directed by Professor Larry Vote, will be in concert on Wednesday, November 9 with an encore performance on Sunday, November 13. A faculty recital by Bryan Bourne (trombone) and Karen Johnson (flute), with staff accompanist Robert Hayes, is scheduled for Saturday, November 12. Finally, a student recital takes place on Friday, November 18.
Giving Tuesday
Celebrated on the Tuesday following Thanksgiving and the widely recognized shopping events Black Friday and Cyber Monday, Giving Tuesday has become a key event for St. Mary’s College of Maryland to fund projects and initiatives for students. Thanks to the generosity of the College community, we shattered our goal in 2021 and hope to reach even greater heights in 2022. Are you ready to BE COUNTED to help us meet our goal of 2,000 donors?
FAFSA Now Open
The 2023-2024 Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) is now open for students who plan to attend SMCM during the 2023-24 school year. The FAFSA can be completed by visiting studentaid.gov. The SMCM school code is: 002095. Maryland residents should complete the FAFSA by March 1 in order to be considered for any state grants or scholarships.
Tips for Student Academic Success
By Kathy Langan Pusecker, Executive Director of Enrollment for Student Success
Happy Fall Y’all! As we are now one third into the semester, our students are expected to fully engage with their work and our faculty. Below we provide a list of expectations from our exceptional faculty with their suggestions for students to be successful.
In addition, we want to remind you about the Seahawk Family Liaison. You can connect with the Liaison from the Office of Student Success Services, Joanne Goldwater, by emailing families@smcm.edu or calling the office at (240) 895-4388. Our goal is to make sure that you are empowered to help your student be successful and connect you and your student to the campus or local resources that you need.
Below we provide a list of suggestions we've heard from some of our faculty as well as from the teaching experiences of the OS3 staff which we hope will help your student be academically successful.
Top 10 Tips from the Office of Student Success Services
10. Come to class. If they miss class, then it’s on the student to catch up. The two excused absences should only be used in an emergency.
9. Read the syllabus. It has lots of important information, like when assignments are due.
8. Your student should come to their instructor’s office hours not just to ask questions, but to connect with them. Faculty like knowing their students and can guide them into selecting majors, focusing their research, and can provide letters of recommendation only when they know them.
7. Prepare for class. That means doing all the reading and taking notes before they show up. Notes should include what they do not understand about the readings.
6. Ask questions. If they don’t ask, instructors assume everyone is fine and we will keep moving forward. If students ask questions, the other students also learn. We are a community of learners at SMCM.
5. Do their best. If an instructor assigns a draft and a student puts in very little effort, then there’s not much to provide feedback on. If they want A's, they need to put in A effort.
4. Behave like they are getting paid to be here. Show up on time, work hard, turn in high quality work. Being a student is their full-time job for the time being.
3. Study in small chunks. Trying to digest everything at the last minute is a recipe for failure.
2. Take risks academically. Try something new. Explore new subjects and topic areas. They might be surprised at the variety of things they can learn.
1. Take good notes (see below for helpful information).
Notetaking
How students organize their knowledge impacts how they learn and their ability to show what they know. So, OS3 recommends a specific three-part strategy for creating “good” notes.
Part I: Students should focus on reading before a lecture, they should write what they don’t know, words that are new to them, and focus on the topic of the upcoming lecture. They should also answer any questions posted at the end of a chapter. Those have a way of showing up on tests and quizzes.
Part II: This occurs during lecture. Students should try to capture the story of this class period. Notes during the lecture are often enhanced by sketching the story, the problem or the process.
Part III: This occurs after class. The professional coaches in OS3 say this is where students get the greatest return on their investment. In this stage, students combine their lecture, lab, and/or textbook notes with the class period notes. The new notes are shorter and more concise. It is important to recognize that the reorganization process should occur as close to the class period as possible. This process reduces overall study time for exams and pushes new learning into longer term memory. This then allows students to remember what they learned.
Adapted from How Learning Works: Seven Research-Based Principles for Smart Teaching. Susan A. Ambrose, Michael W. Bridges, Michele DiPietro, Marsha C. Lovett, Marie K. Norman, with a Foreword by Richard E. Mayer. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2010.