utmONE in a million

Kimberley Wright

For 700 first-year students at the University of Toronto Mississauga, settling into campus life begins as soon as they unpack their bags in the residence hall. But for UTM's booming commuter population-approximately two-thirds of new students will walk, bike, drive, or take public transit to school-finding new friends and forging connections on campus can be tricky.

utmONE, an innovative new program designed to shepherd commuting students throughout their entire first year, aims to change that, according to Jacqueline Goodman, utmONE Development Officer. New student orientation tends to be a three-day event at the beginning of the year and then it ends, Goodman says. utmONE extends the orientation process to help commuters make that intitial transition and to maximize their success throughout their entire time at UTM.

Commuter students face challenges that residence-dwellers may not. Often, they juggle school with work and family responsibilities, and they may feel isolated from the rest of the campus community. Many students travel hours to get here, they attend classes and then leave, Goodman says. They miss out on relationship-building with peers and professors, and they may not be aware of resources and services available on campus.

utmONE launches in September 2011, to bridge the gap between traditional orientation activities and a commuter's school-life, once classes begin. The program divides students into academic streams and clusters of 25 people, so that students meet and socialize with other first-years taking the same courses.

During the fall term, seasoned, upper-year students act as mentors to deliver a weekly seminar on topics such as reading strategies, critical thinking, library resources savvy, and note-taking and test-taking skills. In the winter term, students pick workshops from a catalogue of topics that best fits their needs and interests. Throughout it all, the utmONE mentors, who are or have been commuters themselves, offer a shoulder to lean on and provide the inside student scoop on how to be successful with both academic and student life.

utmONE and its sister programs, rezONE and genONE, are partners when it comes to improving the first-year experience at UTM. rezONE, a transition program targeted to first-year residence students, began in 2005. That model led to the unique genONE in 2010, with content specifically geared to students who are the first generation of their family to attend post-secondary education in Canada.

Dale Mullings, UTM's Director of Residence and Student Life, says that rezONE and genONE mimic successful first-year experience programs commonly delivered at U.S. colleges and universities, and have already had a positive impact on UTM students. At the end of their fourth year, our first rezONE class finished with significantly more credits than those students who did not participate, Mullings says. Further, the students who completed rezONE achieved a significantly higher CPGA at the end of their fourth year than those who did not.

Goodman and the utmONE team are using the remaining summer weeks to train the utmONE mentors, polish the content for the academic workshops, and promote the unique program face-to-face with incoming students and their parents. Seventy percent of new students attend our Office of the Registrar's seminar, so we will advertize it there, as well as during the summer Headstart program and through the UTM Hotlinks newsletter, Goodman says. We hope to complete enrollment by August 31.

This year, utmONE will accommodate 450 commuter students, with plans to eventually expand to all first-year commuters as word-of-mouth referrals and awareness of the program spreads. Potentially, we could go in the direction of offering this as a required course with an associated credit, Goodman says. 

utmONE, rezONE and genONE aim to produce highly engaged undergraduates with a vibrant social network both inside and outside of UTM classrooms. Hopefully, this fall when a utmONE participant walks into a lecture hall filled with hundreds of people, they will already know someone, Goodman says. They will have met them in this special academic community that we have built.