UTB’s first freshman class: We love it!

By MEL HUFF The Brownsville Herald The first freshman class at the University of Texas at Brownsville is part of a plan by the university to improve retention rates, and the students seem to like it. This fall, UTB became the Rio Grande Valley’s second four-year university. The other is UT Pan American in Edinburg.

The 55 UTB freshmen, who are enrolled in music, engineering technology and education programs, had to meet more rigorous entrance requirements than the 1,124 freshmen enrolled in Texas Southmost College.

UTB freshmen majoring in music had to pass the reading and writing portions of the TAAS, a department audition and a music theory placement exam. Entering UTB engineering technology majors had to pass the math section of the TAAS, plus both the reading or writing section and take pre-calculus or calculus in high school. UTB education majors had to pass all parts of the TAAS.

As a community college, TSC has an open admissions policy. Ninety percent of its freshmen have to take "developmental education," or remedial courses, said Raymond Rodrigues, provost and vice president for academic affairs.

But only 20 percent of students in developmental education graduate from a four-year program, Rodrigues said. The retention rate "is not very high anywhere across the state," he noted. TSC ranks in the middle of Texas community colleges in that respect.

Rodrigues said one of the reasons for creating different requirements and a different program for the UTB freshmen was "to see if being able to select students and take them through in cohorts would help with retention."

Although music, engineering technology and education programs are open to both TSC and UTB students, only UTB students are offered "the University Plan."

Students in the plan have space reserved for them in all their classes so they don’t run the risk of finding that a required course is full. They take classes together as a group, or cohort, so they get to know each other easily. Required courses such as English are geared to their interests. Music students, for example, take special English classes whose composition topics relate to music, Rodrigues said.

"I like it. It’s nice that a lot of people care for us," said freshman music major April Spreeman. "You know what’s really good is they have supplemental instruction. It helps. If you don’t understand what the teacher’s telling you, you go to this tutoring session and they help you out."

University officials also are enthusiastic.

"I’m very excited about (the UTB plan)," said Terry Tomlin, chairman of the school’s music department. "I think it has great potential." He stressed, however, that "there’s no diminishment of quality" in classes taken by TSC students. Many music classes, for instance, UTB and TSC students take music classes together.

Rodrigues said the music, education and engineering technology departments volunteered for the pilot project. The departments are so diverse, Tomlin observed, that "if it works for us, it will probably work campus-wide."

UTB freshmen Mark Rodriguez and Leticia Pedraza, both music majors, like the fact they’ll get to know their peers during the next four years and that they won’t have to struggle to sign up for a particular class.

"What’s good is that they already have a schedule for us," Rodriguez said. "The classes are already reserved for us. We don’t have to wait to see if there’s room for us."

Pedraza added, "What’s really good is you have all these classes with the same people. You get to know them."

Having two different programs enables UTB/TSC to meet the needs of different types of students, said Wayne Wells, chairman of the engineering technology department.

The UTB program is intended for full-time students. For part-time or non-traditional students, "the road’s open to them. The University Plan makes it a fast-track," he said.