The Dean's A-List
How do you make the most of your first-year experience? What activities have the greatest potential to motivate, stretch, and inspire you as a new student? What should first-year students do to be fully engaged in campus life, discern their unique calling, and prepare themselves to be agents of change in today’s world? The Dean’s A-List is a set of must-do activities designed to help first-year students begin a yearlong process of contemplation and self-discovery guaranteed to result in personal growth and transformation. Those completing these activities will receive special recognition and have the chance to win cash ePortfolio prizes at the end of the academic year. Stay tuned for announcements. Email fys@nd.edu with any questions about the Dean's A-List.
This ePortfolio template page serves as a place for you to plan, reflect, and record evidence of your progress toward completing the Dean's A-List. In the spaces below, please describe or supply evidence (written reflections, web links, digital pictures, videos, etc) that you have completed the activities in the Dean's A-List. Feel free to delete these template instructions and to customize the pages to best display your work.
1. ePortfolio — A Must-Have
Develop an electronic portfolio to archive your résumé, samples of your best work, highlights from your journey through the First Year Experience at Notre Dame, and personal meditations as you complete items on The Dean’s A-List. For help in getting started, contact your First Year Advisor.
Suggested Activities:
Learn more about ePortfolio and check out some great examples in our gallery.
Don’t just build one, personalize it. Use our Customization Guide to make it your own and take your ePortfolio to the next level.
2. Have a Life-Changing Conversation
Schedule a thirty-minute meeting with a faculty member outside of class to talk about your dreams and future aspirations. Ask her/him to tell you their Notre Dame story. Suggested Activities:
See our FAQ: How to write a good reflection
3. Make Time for Discernment
Share your dreams with your First Year Advisor. Schedule a meeting with a counselor at the Career Center. Share your plans for the future, even if they are not yet fully developed. Talk about opportunities for learning beyond the classroom through internships and other activities. Develop a résumé and place it in your ePortfolio. Suggested Activities:
See our FAQ: How to Add a Resume to My ePortfolio
4. Wander the Stacks — Discover a World of Learning
Visit and wander the stacks in each of our on-campus libraries. Let serendipity fuel your wanderings. Pick up random books and periodicals. Scan them for a few moments. If something catches your eyes or makes you think, make note of it mentally. Keep a record of these discoveries in your e-Portfolio.
Suggested Activities:
Take a picture or video with your phone and upload here
See FAQ:How to Make a Word Cloud Using Wordle
5. Immerse Yourself in the Arts
Take a tour of the Snite Museum of Art. Experience each of the following genres through events at the DeBartolo Center for the Performing Arts: Cinema — drama, comedy, documentary; plays; concerts — folk, classical, and jazz. Learn to draw, paint, or do sculpture. Cultivate your musical talents.
Suggested Activities:
See FAQ:How to Web2.0 Mash Up/Embed/Link Ideas
Share some samples of your artisitics/musical abilities
6. Take an Elective to Help You Think and Explore
Use at least one of your elective class slots to take a course that helps you think more deeply about something you know or to explore a completely unfamiliar subject. Round out your education by choosing classes that give you a diverse set of skills in the sciences, technology, ethics, and emerging new fields such as sustainability in order to navigate the world of today and tomorrow.
Suggested Activities:
Upload some of your best work from the course on your “Academic Showcase” tab of your ePortfolio
7. Participate in NDignite Events
NDignite events allow you to meet new friends and faculty, talk about important issues and events, and think about the future. Select one or more events from a list of cultural, enrichment, intellectual, or learning opportunities and begin to make the most of your college experience.
Suggested Activities:
Take pictures and reflect
8. Send Handwritten Thank-You Letters to Three People Who Have Made Your Life Better
Some say with the predominance of online communication — especially texting — that handwriting is fast becoming a lost art form and written correspondence completely passé. While it might be a little old-fashioned, handwritten notes remain an important way to convey information with a uniquely personal touch today. Think about three individuals who have touched you in some special way. Honor them by sending a handwritten thank-you note. Be specific in describing your gratitude for all they have done.
Suggested Activities:
Take pic of your handwritten note and upload. See: FAQ:How to Add Media and Files
9. Set Aside 30 Minutes Each Week to Dream
Dreams are the real currency of colleges and universities, yet a typical day can become so incredibly full with academic and social activities that we forget to set aside time to plant and cultivate them. Find a contemplative spot: perhaps a dorm chapel, the basilica, the Grotto, our Lakes, or even the Labyrinth at St. Mary’s College. Give yourself 30 minutes each week there to consider your future aspirations.
Suggested Activities:
See FAQ:How to Web2.0 Mash Up/Embed/Link Ideas
10. Attend a Lecture or Public Forum Sponsored by the University
The lectures, colloquia, and forums sponsored on campus throughout the year provide you with an opportunity to learn an incredible amount about the arts, humanities, sciences, and commerce outside of the classroom. Make it a point to explore the University calendar and bulletin boards around campus to identify some of these events. Attend several each semester.
Suggested Activities:
Do a Vlog reflection (using Youtube capture tool)
11. Begin to Learn a New Language — Really, Really Well
We live in a world of many cultures, peoples, and languages, a world in which communication is more important than ever. Proficiency in multiple languages is fast becoming a necessity for responsible global citizenship. Make it a point to assess your proficiency in languages with which you are already familiar. Enhance this learning through coursework and opportunities to hone your skills through speaking and reading. Utilize the resources of our Center for the Study of Languages and Cultures. Explore study-abroad opportunities that allow you to gain and maintain fluency and to deepen your appreciation of the extraordinary world in which we live.
Suggested Activities:
See FAQ:How to Make an Audio Recording for your ePortfolio
Not taking a foreign language? How about your computer programing language? Show your skills will screenshots and screencasts. FAQ:How to Take Screenshots and FAQ:How Make a Screencast Video of my Computer
12. Build the Three “Cs” — Community, Compassion, and Cultural Competence
These three “Cs” are, for a Notre Dame student, as pivotal as what many still refer to as the so-called three “Rs”: reading, writing, and arithmetic.
You build community by becoming a good classmate; developing a deep respect and appreciation of others; valuing those differences that make each of unique; developing an appreciation for our common humanity; building lasting friendships; reaching out to, assisting, and standing in solidarity with those in need. We even build community by taking good care of ourselves and asking for help when we most need it.
We cultivate compassion by opening ourselves to those with whom we live in our community and sharing — at the most basic level — their joys and sorrows.
As for cultural competence, it comes through sustained compassionate encounter with others; through learning experiences that expose us to other cultural experiences and foster compassionate engagement with all members of our global community. Make a conscious effort to foster community and compassion in your daily actions. Develop cultural competence through learning opportunities within and beyond the classroom. Suggested Activities: