In Fall 2014, 3652 first year students enrolled at the University of Memphis. Forty-two percent of these students were first generation. In other words, forty-two percent of incoming University of Memphis students come from a family in which neither parent has a four year college degree.

First generation students often experience challenges along the road to graduation. For example, they are more likely to work while attending school, be financially independent from their parents, and attend college on a part-time basis.  First generation students are also more likely to begin at a community college and take remedial classes. Since they don’t have a parent to model the experience of finishing a college degree, first generation students may struggle with self-doubt about whether they are college material. Although families of first generation students often want to be supportive, they may have their own struggles which demand the student’s attention or fail to understand college life. National surveys have indicated that first generation students are 20-35% less likely to graduate from college than continuing generation students (Aud, et al., 2012).

Recognizing that first generation students face a unique set of challenges, the University of Memphis has teamed up with the Suder Foundation to provide a series of programs to first generation students. Established in 2011, the First Scholars program is the longest running of these programs. First Scholars gives twenty first-time, full-time freshman a combination of financial support and programming in a supportive community each year. Building off of the success of First Scholars, the University of Memphis is launching three new initiatives: 1) The Tiger Success Institute offering workshops to first generation students about how to be successful in college: www.memphis.edu/careerservices/tsi-intro.php; 2) the Professional Development program offering training to faculty, staff, and advisors; and 3) the First Scholars Living Learning Community that will be opening in Fall 2015 in the new Centennial Hall.

The First Scholars program has demonstrated that the right support can significantly boost first generation students’ chances of success. There are many ways that faculty, staff, and advisors can support first generation students. For example, they can 1) create a welcoming environment in the classroom; 2) encourage students to ask questions and seek help when they don’t understand; 3) make students aware of psycho-social resources on campus such as tutoring, coaching or counseling; and 4) talk openly with students about their family background and college experience. Faculty, staff, and advisors can also become more involved by serving as a mentor to a first scholar. To get more information or sign up to be a mentor, contact firstscholars@memphis.edu. To get more information on training for faculty, staff, and students, contact the Provost’s Fellow at ktschffz@memphis.edu. More information can also be obtained at www.memphis.edu/firstscholars.

Dr. Mohamed Laradji, professor in the Department of Physics, has recently been elected fellow of the American Physical Society (APS). Founded in 1899, the APS is the largest organization of physicists in the world.  The organization awards the fellowship each year to no more than half a percent of its membership. The prestigious fellowship is given for significant contributions to the physics enterprise and signifies recognition by one’s professional peers of the importance and impact of a body of scholarly work. More information on this prestigious award is found on the American Physical Society website http://www.aps.org/programs/honors/fellowships.

Dr. Laradji is the first University of Memphis faculty member to receive this honor. He was recognized, “for his pioneering and seminal contributions to applications of computational techniques in elucidating physics of the biomembranes, complex fluids, and polymers.” Dr. Laradji has more than fifty publications and his work has been funded by the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, the Research Corporation, and the American Chemical Society Petroleum Research Fund. He joined the University of Memphis in 2002 after completing his PhD at McGill University, serving as postdoctoral research associate at the University of Georgia and the University of Toronto, and serving as assistant professor at the University of Prince Edward Island. In 2011, he was recognized by the College of Arts & Sciences with the Distinguished Research Award.

Dr. Laradji hopes that this honor will bring increased recognition to physics research at the University of Memphis and the opportunities at University of Memphis for physics graduate students to work with top researchers in the field.  The University of Memphis Provost’s Office congratulates Dr. Laradji and appreciates the contribution that he and his colleagues are making to the field.

The School of Communication Sciences and Disorders has been featured in a special issue of the Journal of the American Academy of Audiology. According to Dr. Lisa Lucks Mendel, “the research presented [in the issue] represents the collaborative efforts of our faculty, research associates, and Ph.D. and Au.D. students. This collaborative spirit supports the advancement of cutting edge knowledge in the hearing sciences that has resulted in more than 170 publications by faculty and students in the past 20 years” (2014, p. 714).

The six articles in the special issue present research from four auditory laboratories at the University of Memphis: the Auditory Cognitive Neuroscience Laboratory, the Hearing Aid Research Laboratory, the Hearing Science Laboratory, and the Speech Perception Assessment Laboratory. Even though the articles were submitted together as a special issue, they each underwent a rigorous peer review process prior to publication. Research in the School of Communication Sciences and Disorders is funded by a State of Tennessee Center of Excellence, the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, the Department of Veterans Affairs, the National Deafness Foundation, the American Hearing Research Foundation, the GRAMMY Foundation, the American Academy of Audiology Foundation, the American Speech-Hearing-Language Foundation, the US and Tennessee Departments of Education, and other private foundations.

It is very rare for the Journal of the American Academy of Audiology to feature a program in a special edition, and the University of Memphis is proud to have received this honor. The University is featured in volume 25 number 8 published in September 2014. Nine faculty, research associates, students, and alumni contributed to the six articles in the issue.

Dr. Maurice Mendel, Dean of the School of Communication Sciences and Disorders, explains that the school has had a long history of cutting edge research in audiology. He expects that this legacy will continue into the future with the opening of the new Community Health Building on South Campus. For the first time in 43 years, the School will be located in one building. The new location will be beneficial to students, faculty, and community members.

Lucks Mendel, L. (2014). Auditory research at the University of Memphis: Faculty and students working together. Journal of the American Academy of Audiology, 25 (8), 714.