UAlbany First-Year Experience Director Wins Award for Work Supporting Incoming Students

By Bethany Bump

ALBANY, N.Y. (Feb. 16, 2023) — Linda Krzykowski, executive director of the First-Year Experience and Student Engagement at the University at Albany, has been honored with a prestigious national award for her work developing and implementing programs for first-year and other incoming students at UAlbany.

Krzykowski was awarded the Outstanding First-Year Student Advocates Award earlier this month by the National Resource Center for The First-Year Experience and Students in Transition, an organization based out of the University of South Carolina that provides internationally recognized leadership in scholarship, policy and practices that support students transitioning into, through and out of higher education.

“Dr. Krzykowski is a tireless advocate for first-year students and has spearheaded important and impactful programs that have created lasting change to the UAlbany landscape in relation to first-year students,” said JoAnne Malatesta, vice provost for Academic Innovation and Student Success and dean of undergraduate education at UAlbany, in a letter nominating Krzykowski for the award.

The award is given to educators who are involved in high-impact practices that improve the educational experience of first-year students, and required a letter of nomination and support from colleagues and students, along with supporting documentation describing the individual’s efforts and impact on first-year students.

First-Year Experience at UAlbany

Krzykowski was instrumental in the development of the First-Year Experience (FYE) program at UAlbany, which encompasses small classes, teaching and mentoring for first-time, full-time students and new transfers that helps set them up for success as they navigate higher education and the UAlbany campus in particular.

Her work began in 2009 when the University first created a task force to examine the potential of an FYE program, and she was asked to create an Office of Student Engagement that could assist. She quickly engaged the campus community to establish strong academic pathways for first-year students coupled with residential experiences and co-curricular opportunities.

In 2010 she started the first Living-Learning Community (L-LC) on campus, a program which groups first-year students who share similar interests on the same residence hall floor and establishes weekly meetings and activities with faculty mentors and students for them to attend. Today, there are 22 such communities serving nearly 500 incoming students annually.

Krzykowski also collaborated with faculty and leadership in the WCI program to ensure that a new first-year seminar in Writing and Critical Inquiry became a core component of FYE programming. Over the next several years she worked to secure funding for and developed a robust portfolio of 0-3 credit seminars designed to equip students with the skills needed to transition and be successful at the University.

These efforts were rewarded in 2021 with funding to support a full FYE program that provided targeted and specific transitional programming for every incoming student. 

Today, there are over 160 small FYE classes for new students being taught by more than 120 faculty and staff, including Krzykowski herself.

“Throughout all of this development Linda has been keenly aware of the importance of diversifying the FYE opportunities to meet the unique needs of all of our students and to provide pathways that are responsive and supportive of their transitional experience,” Malatesta said. “This includes recognition that while transfer students are not in their first year of collegiate study, they are in their first year at UAlbany.”

Krzykowski also worked to develop an assessment plan that would allow the University to review and measure the program’s impact.

Data indicate that students participating in an FYE program or course have significantly higher retention and graduation rates than those who don’t. Students in an L-LC program, for example, show a retention increase of 7% compared to non-participants. Students in a 1-credit seminar have shown a 3% increase and students in a 3-credit seminar have shown an 8% increase.

Earlier this month, Krzykowski attended the Annual Conference on the First-Year Experience to accept her award and took a moment to thank faculty involved with the program.

“We talk about the courage of students starting new journeys at colleges and universities,” she said. “But I think our FYE faculty have to be courageous as well. They have to have courage to be available to their first-year students. They have to have courage to be vulnerable. They have to have courage to try a different type of teaching and, in most cases, they are saying yes to teaching an extra class during times when we are all busy. It has truly been a privilege to support them and to partner with all our school, colleges, and divisions at UAlbany.”