Denise Rode
Denise L. Rode, NIU’s director of First- and Second-Year Experience, has been appointed to a four-year term on the advisory board of the National Resource Center on the First-Year Experience and Students in Transition.
The mission of the National Resource Center is to “support and advance efforts to improve student learning and transitions into and through higher education,” says Jennifer R. Keup, the center’s director.
Advisory board members are responsible for providing suggestions and guidance on current and future activities of the National Resource Center, chartered in 1986 and based at the University of South Carolina.
Examples of the center’s accomplishments to date include:
- an established, blind-refereed journal (The Journal of the The First-Year Experience and Students in Transition);
- more than 50 special topics monographs and publications;
- more than 100 regional, national, and international conferences;
- eight national surveys on first-year seminars; and
- annual campaigns to recognize outstanding first-year advocates and first-year seminar instructors.
Rode has been actively involved with the National Resource Center’s programs and was selected as a 2011 Outstanding First-Year Advocate by the National Resource Center in collaboration with Cengage Learning. She was a co-founder of the Midwest First-Year Conference in 2008.
The 2013 Midwest First-Year Conference will take place Friday, Sept. 27, at Elgin Community College, with NIU as a co-host.
