Introducing ‘A Moc’s First Year’: New first-year experience program aims to create a sense of community and connection to Chattanooga

If you’re a first-year student at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, Dr. Delight Yokley wants to help you find your place.

Yokley, UTC’s first assistant provost for Student Success, began her journey at UTC in September 2023.

She was brought to UTC to direct “A Moc’s First Year,” a program developed as part of the University’s Quality Enhancement Plan. It was designed not only to bring first-year students to campus, but to help them build community.

“I think I was drawn to this group of students because I like students in transition—students who are trying to figure it out and understand what they’re supposed to do,” she said. “There’s something special about a group of students who are excited to experience college.”

The program’s goal, she said, is to retain students by creating a welcoming environment so they choose to stay and finish their degrees.

“Sometimes you go to a state institution and you can get kind of lost,” Yokley said. “But one of the things ‘A Moc’s First Year’ really says is you don’t have to get lost. There are communities for you.

“Your goal is to get a four-year degree. If you come and you find your place, you stay.”

With this program officially launching in fall 2024, freshman students can take two or more linked classes to explore their major or learn about something they find interesting, allowing them to form a “learning community.”

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Click here to learn more about “A Moc’s First Year”

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In their learning communities, students will have faculty members who will help them make campus connections and explore Chattanooga.

“It’s not hard-hitting; you shouldn’t be writing a ton of papers,” Yokley said. “You really should be having a conversation around something fun and interesting that allows for community to be built.”

Yokley said that coming to college as a new student can be intimidating and sometimes isolating at first, which is why UTC wants to help students get a great start to their college experiences.

“When students feel like they belong, they stay where they are,” she explained. “The approach of learning communities really helps students say, ‘Let me find my place here.’”

Not only are friendships meaningful, but so are relationships with faculty.

“Faculty opens up your understanding of how to navigate your institution and how to be successful in the classroom,” she said.

Dr. Amy Brock-Hon, the Robert Lake Wilson Professor of Geology at UTC, will teach “MOCS Explore Chattanooga,” which combines two geology classes and a lab.

To understand geology, you must “get out there,” she said.

“Our lab is the earth,” said Brock-Hon, who plans to hold class outdoors in places like the Cumberland Plateau and Lookout Mountain.

Whether students are new to Chattanooga or have lived here their whole lives, Brock-Hon wants students to learn about the city.

“In all the times I’ve been teaching and as a student myself, I understand the power of going somewhere different—even if it’s not far away—with a group of people and making connections with them,” she said.

Visiting Lecturer Lisa Bellino’s “Let’s Ballet the World” will intertwine cultural anthropology with ballet.

If you’re not a dancer, don’t worry, said Bellino, who is also an adult ballet instructor. This class is for any first-year student, regardless of experience or body type.

“Dance feels very inaccessible to most people, especially ballet,” Bellino said. “I love ballet so much. I love all the wonderful things it’s done in my life, so I hate that it feels inaccessible to people. Just as Delight and I were talking about creating these opportunities for freshmen to feel like they belong, I was like, ‘That’s dance.’

“That community of people where we’re all trying something for the first time and we’re all going to laugh at ourselves and have that opportunity to be vulnerable with each other … I think that shows strength and vulnerability, which is just something all of us are trying to learn somewhere.”

For this fall’s introduction of “A Moc’s First Year,” Yokley said there will be enough spots for about 1,200 students, and she hopes to grow the program until every first-year student can participate.

Yokley wants students to meet, establish meaningful relationships and feel confident as new UTC students.

“Their first semester,” she said, “they’re finding their connections, building some roots and digging deep so that when the second year comes, they’re like, ‘Yep, I’m coming right back here.’”

“A Moc’s First Year” Fall 2024 Catalog

Gary W. Rollins College of Business

• BUS 1410: Business Success – four communities (A.J. Davis and Elizabeth Bell)
• Rollins Scholars 1410 (Jaclyn Wooten-York)

College of Arts and Sciences

• A College Survival Guide (Jenn Stewart)
• AdvanceU: Leadership and Transitioning to College (Danny Grzesik)
• CAS Explorers: Exploring Majors in the Scenic City (Ashley Manning-Berg)
• Experiencing Chattanooga’s Live Entertainment (Chad Harriss)
• First-Year Foundations Art (Katie Hargrave, Coordinator)
• Life Out Loud: First-Year Intercultural Awareness and Competence (Hilary Browder-Terry and Brandee Strickland)
• MEDIC FYE: A Healthy Start to a Healthcare Profession (David Giles)
• MOCS Explore Chattanooga (Amy Brock-Hon)
• Mocs in STEM (Emily Alonge)
• Music Row (Jordan Hicks)
• Puzzle and Problem Solving Through Recreational Mathematics (Matthew Villanueva)
• Religion in Chattanooga (Donna Ray)
• Social Media’s Influence on Us (Nicki Norris)
• Stress Management and Resilience Skills for Surviving College (Kristen Black)
• Sustainable Mocs (Sarah Farnsley)
• Talking Across the Political Divide (Michelle Deardorff)
• The Cuisines of Latin America (Niky Tejero)
• The History of Chattanooga (Susan Eckelmann)
• The Science of Cooking (Luis Sanchez Diaz)
• Let’s Ballet the World (Lisa Bellino)
• We Are the Drama (Steve Ray)
• Writers in the Wild (Alex Quinlan)

College of Engineering and Computer Science

• CECS First Year Experience: Mechanical Engineering (Kayla Boyles)
• CECS First Year Experience: Computer Engineering (Roland Howell)
• CECS First Year Experience: Chemical Engineering (Mackenzie Clark)
• CECS First Year Experience: Civil Engineering (Zakia Tasmin)
• CECS First Year Experience: Electrical Engineering and Mechatronics (Jack Perry)
• CECS First Year Experience: Computer Science (Bill Worden)
• CECS First Year Experience: Construction Management and Engineering Technology Management (Khalid Tantawi)
• CECS RLC – two communities (Irene Hillman)

College of Health, Education and Professional Studies

• CHEPS General: Exploring Health, Education and Professional Studies (Mary Marr)
• College and Care: Initiating Your Nursing Story (Tessa Mullinax-Baker)
• Educate to Elevate: Unleashing the Power of Teaching (Kim Wingate)
• Going the Distance in HHP: Developing Skills for College Success (Liz Hathaway)

Honors College

• Brock Scholars: Freshman Honors Studies – four communities (Linda Frost)

Access and Engagement, EMSA, and Community

• First Gen Mocs (Crystal Edenfield)
• Gateway Scholars (Ashley Leverett, Mandy McAllister and Anna Liu)
• MOCS in the City (Meaningful Opportunities to Collaborate in Service) (Bryant Fairley and Amy Hitchcock)
• Multicultural Affairs G.U.I.D.E to Graduation (Tara Mathis)
• The International Student Experience (Kelsey Simoni)

Learn More

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A Moc’s First Year

Dr. Delight Yokley named assistant provost for Student Success

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