First-Year Experience

Along with other members of the Penguin Random House Common Reads Advisory Board, Paula Patch, associate director of the Common Reading Program and First-Year Foundations in the Elon Core Curriculum and associate teaching professor of English, facilitated a half-day workshop on launching and sustaining a Common Reading program at the annual Conference on the First-Year Experience in Seattle in February.

Award-winning author Alejandra Campoverdi turned the 2025-26 Common Reading Lecture into a conversation, taking questions from Elon students about her life of “extreme contradictions" detailed in her memoir "First-Gen."

Saffie Hollingsworth '27 has created a board game to help first-year students navigate university.

A contingent of faculty and staff leaders within Elon's First-Year Experience Advisory Committee attended the national First-Year Experience conference in New Orleans, Louisiana to share Elon's #1 ranked First-Year Experience work.

Adventures in Leadership sessions focus on the successful transition of incoming first-year students through community building, finding resources and having conversations about college life at Elon.

The Engage program at Elon provides an opportunity for incoming students to spend a week on campus before their first semester, learning more about the university and volunteering in the local community.

The project was prompted by a common love of dogs among the students in the Elon 1010 class of Senior Lecturer April Post.

The author of "I Never Thought of It That Way: How to Have Fearlessly Curious Conversations in Dangerously Divided Times" will speak to the Elon community and host workshops on Thursday, Sept. 21 and Friday, Sept 22.

Elon continues to be the leader in the “Programs to Look For” feature as the only college or university in the country ranked in the top 20 in all eight categories of academic programs linked to student success and positive learning outcomes.

The website for New Student Programs at Elon provide students and their families with an overview of events and helpful tips as the academic year prepares to begin.