ABSTRACT
In response to that challenge, the campus-wide First Year Inquiry Program and the First Year Seminar Program in the College of Humanities and Social Sciences were initiated at NCSU to provide structure and support to students’ growing ability to inquire, to think critically, and to take responsibility for their own learning. Every educational initiative begins with real people and quite often, an interesting story. In response, the Faculty Senate assembled the Committee on Undergraduate Student Success (CUSS) that worked for the next two years on defining indices of student success. Inquiry-guided learning experiences for first-year students continue to evolve at NCSU. The cognitive psychologist Ausubel and his colleagues wrote about the importance of meaning and problem solving in the construction of human learning. True and lasting learning is developmental and proceeds by stages leading the students to self-motivated and independent learning.
