Productive partnerships: cross-departmental connections in a tertiary context

Abstract

This chapter describes the development of productive and collegial relationships in a cross-departmental capacity-building project. The MMTP built on a first year experience program-the FYI Program (using the acronym that could stand for First Year Infusion or For Your Information)that we had designed, and had been conducting within our Faculty of Education for 1 year. Even though the program had involved a fairly small number of students, we were convinced that it had the potential to assist the 1 st year students in their transition into university study. It also provided a positive faculty response to student retention and progression issues (for further details, see Noble & Henderson, 2008). We used the Associate Fellowship to extend this first year program, and to promote the approach we used through the development of a professional development toolkit.