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	Photo by Rohanna Green
	FYE faculty display their plaque and the $2,000 check they received as winners of the 2002 League for Innovation Award. In front from left, is CIS faculty Patri Mays and counseling faculty Marianne Auten. In the back from left is anthropology faculty Jan Downey and English faculty Renee Cornell. FYE faculty not pictured include English faculty Lynn McClelland, psychology faculty Donna Rebadow, director of Student Life and Service Learning, Anne Eller and biology faculty David Harbster.
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On April 2, the League For Innovation awarded the 2002 Dr. Paul M. Pair Innovation Award to PVCC for its First Year Experience Program.

The League For Innovation award recognizes educational innovations developed by community college faculties throughout MCCCD. Thirteen nominations were submitted to the League For Innovation this year. The First Year Experience Program was the PVCC nomination.

Innovations were evaluated for their quality, efficiency, effectiveness, learning, creativity, timeliness, collaboration and how well the programs could be reproduced at other campuses. Even though the award winner was selected before the reception, the colleges were not told in advance.

The college received a plaque and $2,000 for winning the award. The plaque is on display in PVCC's A-Building. The money will go towards funding the FYE program.

The FYE is designed to help new PVCC students stay in school. Since its initiation in Fall 2002, 90 percent of students in the FYE program have completed their first year of college.

The FYE program was the result of nine months of intense planning and meetings beginning in January 2000. English faculty Renee Cornell and health and exercise science faculty Cindy Shoenhair began assembling the program with the goal to increase student retention by giving students more personal attention from instructors and counselors, as well as, more contact with other students.

Since Shoenhair passed away last October, Cornell has been the sole FYE coordinator. "The program was Cindy's dream," says Cornell. "She was the program's inspiration."

The FYE program is a block of three-to-four cooperative courses. Instructors work together to offer meaningful assignments, blending objectives of their respective disciplines. The program is limited to 25 students, who share all the classes in their block. This gives students a chance to work together as a team.

The FYE program draws support from the Learning Support Center, Advisement, and the Service Learning program. The FYE also offers peer mentoring in which student mentors give advice to other students.

Two FYE blocks will be offered at PVCC in the Fall 2002 semester.

Last updated: May 8, 2002
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