UB Freshmen, Sophomores Receive Free Books for Learning Seminars
January 22, 2016
Contact: University Relations
Phone: 410.837.5739
About 150 students in the University of Baltimore's first-year and sophomore seminars will receive free textbooks as an opportunity to encourage academic success and active participation in class discussion and other activities. The book giveaway, for the textbook Keys to College Success and the popular non-fiction work The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, is the result of an arrangement by UB and its Barnes & Noble bookstore.
The books will be presented to students at the start of their first classes for the spring semester, beginning the week of Jan. 25. Henceforth, these titles will be given to students enrolled in the seminars at the beginning of each semester.
"This book giveaway collaboration is a tangible way to demonstrate to our students that UB is absolutely invested in their success," said Shelia Higgs Burkhalter, UB's vice president for Student Affairs. "We say it often, but the books will be a visible reminder that we care, every time they open them."
Burkhalter said that Enrollment Management worked with Student Affairs, the Yale Gordon College of Arts and Sciences and individual professors to arrange for the delivery of these books at no cost to students. Typically, a college bookstore arranges for a specific number of credits to students as part of its contract with a campus. In this case, the University determined that a more focused approach to this arrangement could enhance students’ classroom experience and, in effect, "get them started on the right foot."
The free books are an essential part of two courses required of every UB student: the First-Year Seminar and the Sophomore Seminar. For the former, all students take a class that encourages them to develop learning skills to apply to all of their college studies. In the seminar, students develop a four-year plan for college, including their educational goals and personal and professional aspirations. For the latter seminar, all sophomores acquire techniques for taking on the increased demands as they progress through their college years, choose a major and become more actively involved in their academic pursuits. In this second year of college life, critical thinking skills are honed and the student fully grasps the concept of taking on challenging, intellectually invigorating material.
Keys to College Success is a popular, highly respected work that shows students how to map out their path to a degree in a field for which they can demonstrate both a passion and a proficiency. It is renowned for its sensible, step-by-step approach to problem solving and skills development, and its emphasis on student ownership of the process of learning and progressing.
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks is a critically acclaimed account of the life of a woman whose genetic profile was used for medical research at the dawn of the field of DNA studies. It is a sophisticated, subtle work that inspires readers to ask questions, broaden their curiosity into seemingly disparate topics such as history and politics, and to consider how one life can touch many others.
Under the new arrangement with Barnes & Noble, UB will present these titles or other, similar works (depending on the professors' syllabi) for the two seminars at the beginning of every fall and spring semester, at no cost to the student.
Learn more about the First-Year Seminar.
Learn more about the Sophomore Seminar.
The University of Baltimore is a member of the University System of Maryland and comprises the College of Public Affairs, the Merrick School of Business, the UB School of Law and the Yale Gordon College of Arts and Sciences.