Students Encouraged to Complete Core Curriculum Before Junior Year
by Dr. Bill Fleming, Executive Director of the Student Advising and Mentoring (SAM) Center

Parents, did you know that your student is required to take certain courses while in college?  At every state university in Texas, all students are required to take a wide range of courses which are part of the basic core curriculum mandated by the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board. 

Along with these classes, the Coordinating Board requires that all state colleges and universities offer at least six additional hours in these areas at their discretion and can also require up to six hours of university discretionary courses.  Sam Houston State University requires that your student complete an additional 9 semester hours. Below is a list of courses that all students must complete. 

Your student may ask you why they are required to complete the core curriculum.  These courses are offered on the freshman and sophomore levels and are designed to give students a broad background in various disciplines to enhance their college experience and expand their knowledge in diverse academic areas.

Students are encouraged to complete these courses before taking advanced classes associated with their majors and minors because these courses can help them in their advanced studies depending on the major they have chosen.  Advisors strongly suggest students complete the core curriculum by the end of the sophomore year because they will then be able to focus completely on their majors and minors as they work toward completion of their degrees.     

At SHSU, the staff at the Student Advising and Mentoring (SAM) Center are here to support your students.  They provide year-around academic advising and mentoring and can help your student decide which core classes are right for them.  For more information about the SAM Center, click on www.shsu.edu/~sam_www.

Community Service Kicked Up a Notch
by Keri L. Rogers, Ph. D., Director of First-Year Experience and Associate Dean, College of Arts & Sciences

During the fall semester, over 500 students in the SAM 136 course participated in one of several service learning projects.  What is service learning?  Service learning is community service with a well-defined educational aspect.  After the community service is completed, students process what they did, how it benefited the community, and what they learned from the experience.  The SAM 136 students could be found dredging the Sam Houston Museum pond, working with students at an elementary school with the Harriet Beecher Stowe Project, assisting staff at the Rita B. Huff Animal Shelter, decorating the city of Huntsville for the holidays and registering fellow SHSU students to vote.  When the students were asked what they thought about service learning, we found extremely positive results.  Below we have highlighted some of these.  Be assured that our future leaders are very community-minded. 

The majority of our students reported that the service-learning experiences had left them with:

• a strong sense of benefiting the community,
• a greater overall sense of community needs,
• a greater sense of personal responsibility to serve community needs,
• new and different ways in which they may become involved in their communities,
• the likelihood to volunteer or participate in their communities,
• the feeling that they, as individuals, can make a difference in their communities,
• enhanced leadership skills, and
• a comfort in working with cultures other than their own.