Students are already getting acquainted online

CC helped welcome the Class of 2008 last fall with an ice cream social at Castle Court.

CC is preparing to welcome some 490 new students from as far away as the Philippines and as close as New London on Aug. 27.

The students have diverse social backgrounds, talents and interests. One has traveled around the world with her family, another builds guitars, and several have raised thousands of dollars for nonprofit causes. Two are glassblowers and one collects glass art. There’s also an Australian bush drummer, an Irish whistle player, a step-dancer and a nationally ranked figure skater.

Roughly 12 percent of the new students are in the first generation of their family to attend college, while 25 have a relative who previously attended CC. Many are valedictorians of their high school classes; two have been homeless. Some 40 percent are men.

The admission data continue to place CC among the best colleges in the United States.

The students are already chatting with each other on message boards set up by CC. Some have arranged “get-acquainted” gatherings with other first-year students in their areas. Freshmen also are using the boards to ask CC staff and students about room assignments, e-mail accounts and courses.

For the first time this year, the College is offering seminars to teach first-year students the critical-thinking skills they need to succeed in college and beyond. Those skills include the ability to synthesize information, formulate arguments, write clearly, speak well and participate in classroom discussions.

Seminar topics range from sports to spirituality and from energy production to English historical fiction. CC’s Center for Teaching & Learning offered a series of workshops recently to help instructors plan their courses and better understand the idiosyncratic needs of first-semester freshmen.

“They can now engage in a lot of ‘what-if’ thinking,” Michelle R. Dunlap, associate professor of human development, said during one of the workshops. She said students are just starting to realize that everything doesn’t fit neatly into one theory or one box.

“Life is full of inconsistencies. People are full of inconsistencies,” Dunlap said. That can be a revelation for young students who are eager to pigeonhole things according to preconceived notions, Dunlap said.

The seminars are part of ongoing revisions to the College’s general education requirements.