While all of us know that class attendance is crucial to academic success, what should you do after you've attended class? After each class, you should take a few moments to:

1. Write down in your own words the main ideas of the class lecture or discussion. To help you identify the main ideas or themes, ask yourself what came up more than once in class. Instructors generally make sure that the main ideas are repeated more than once. Alternatively, ask yourself, if you were the instructor, what exam questions would you ask from today's class?
2. Write down the things that you're still confused about. What did you find confusing? What didn't you understand?
3. Take your list of main ideas and issues of confusion and discuss them with one or two of your classmates. Did they identify the same main ideas? Are they confused about the same issues? Can they help you answer your questions?
4. If after talking with your classmates, you can't agree on the main ideas or resolve your collective list of questions or confusion, go talk to your professor. Go as a group and share your list of questions.
5. Revise your list of main ideas. Use the revised list when you prepare and review for exams.

Hurricane Katrina has caused horrible damage to many areas in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama.  Some of you may have friends or relatives that were impacted and some of you may not know anyone personally affected.  As humans, we are saddened to see so many people hurt to the degree that they have been. Unfortunately, disasters will take place throughout your college career.  Some may be personal and others may be quite global.  Regrettably, the damage caused by Katrina is not the first disaster that has occurred nor will it be the last.  At a different time, this message could have been about the tsunami in Southeast Asia, fires in California, terrorist attacks in New York and Washington, or one of the other horrendous tragedies that have taken place in recent times. 

In watching, reading, or hearing about the aftermath of Katrina, we can easily feel overwhelmed, angry, sad, and helpless. To deal with these feelings, find others to talk with and share these experiences.  We live in a time when it is easy to experience the world in a very isolated manner.  Most of you are now living away from home and do not have relatives and high school friends to see on a daily basis to talk about these experiences.  You may not know the people you live with right now. In times when the world's issues seem overwhelming, one way to help feel better is to connect with those in your community.  Talk to your Student Advisor, your roommate or suitemates, the person sitting next to you in class, your professors, and/or people with whom you share meals.  The more you connect, share, and listen, the easier it is to process horrible events.  Plus, when a more personal disaster occurs in your life, such as a death in the family, the ending of a relationship, or a poor grade in a class, the network of people that you can lean on will be there to help you get through things.

As you attend to the events that are taking place after Hurricane Katrina, please be concerned about others but also make sure that you take care of yourself by not keeping your emotions and thoughts bottled up inside.  Please reach out and share.  Sharing will allow you to be more successful and make connections here at Truman that will help you throughout your college career.

Throughout the academic year, the Kohlenberg--Lyceum Series brings cultural events to Truman and the Kirksville community. The first Lyceum event of the 2005-2006 academic year is the Kansas City Symphony at 7:30 pm in Baldwin Auditorium on Tuesday, September 13. Students can get tickets for Lyceum Events at the SAB Office (across from the University Bookstore in the Student Union) or at the Center for Student Involvement on the lower level of the Student Union. Lyceum events are free for Truman students.

You can learn about other events occurring on campus by reading the "This Week on Campus" portion of TruView. You can learn about events in the future by clicking on the calendar option under Truman Resources.

"Each year I meet, one-on-one, with several new students to discuss each student's goals at college, his or her background, and a 'study plan' -- what courses the student will take in this first year, and how those may lead to future courses. Then we come to the part of our conversation that I look forward to most.

"I ask, 'So, now that we have had this conversation, what do you see as your job for this term?' Just about all students answer that their job is to work hard and to do well in college. I ask what else they might set as a goal. Their responses often emphasize participating in campus activities. Again, I press them to say more about their goal for the semester."

"By now, most students look puzzled; they wonder what I am getting at. And then I share with them the single most important bit of advice I can possibly give to new advisees: 'Your job is to get to know one faculty member reasonably well this semester, and also to have that faculty member get to know you reasonably well.'

"I point out that achieving that goal may require some effort and planning. Yet think of the benefits, I remind each new student. Even if you only succeed half the time, that means in your eight semesters in college you will get to know four professors. And they will get to know you. I tell each student that I am convinced that they will be far better off, and will have a far richer experience, if they follow that advice."

--Richard J. Light, author of Making the Most of College: Students Speak Their Minds