A wealth of longitudinal data at Mizzou demonstrates that FIGs play a critical role in situating our incoming freshmen into robust communities of faculty, staff, students, and community members. Last year alone, our FIG students were retained at a campus-leading rate of nearly 93%! At the heart of that success lies the FIG teaching team.
Every FIG is led by one faculty/staff member (called a Co-Facilitator) and an undergraduate student (called a Peer Learning Advisor). These teaching teams work together to design a dynamic and engaging semester-long experience for their FIG students, which they deliver through a weekly, one-credit hour, S/U course. In most cases, FIG seminars offer a mix of critical information on navigating the major and the institution, guest presentations from industry leaders, advisors and academics, as well as community engagement, lab tours and the like.
Each teaching team has wide latitude in how their FIG seminar is structured and in determining who is responsible for delivering content on any given week, arranging guest speakers, tours, etc. In most cases, a co-fac can be expected to spend 1-3 hours per week during the fall semester on mentoring their Peer Learning Advising and/or leading the class.
If you are interested in creating a FIG, please reach out to Dr. Jerry Frank at frankje@missouri.edu to get the ball rolling.