Dear CBA Freshmen,
 My name is Alan Cafferkey and Dean Rapaccioli has chosen me to be your new Freshman Dean. I am extremely honored to have this opportunity and I look forward to working with each of you to ensure that your freshman year is as productive and fulfilling as possible. With that goal in mind, I'd like to go over a few things in regards to midterm grades and tutoring: In each of your classes you will have a midterm exam sometime during October 16th – 23rd. Your midterm grades (the average of your exam and the rest of your grades up until that point) will then be distributed to you shortly thereafter. While these grades are obviously not your final grades – and nor will they be a part of your official transcript – they can offer a good indication of what your final grade will ultimately be if the current level of effort you're putting into the course remains the same. Appropriately, many students view these grades as a "wake-up call." They see they are not doing well in a class or two, and then redouble their efforts in response. As I said, this is the appropriate response: recognize a problem, analyze it, fix it, and then move on. However, if, at this early point in the semester – a week before your midterms tests even start – you already know that you're not doing as well as you'd hope in a particular class, then you don't have to wait until after you've received your midterm grades to tackle your problems. If you have an issue in any class, there are plenty of resources available here at Fordham to help you improve your situation.
1) No matter what class you're in, your professors are required to offer time to you outside of class in the form of office hours. Please take advantage of these times. No one knows better what you have to do to pass than your professors, so therefore, they are your best resource to improve your grades. And don't go just to visit – go with specific questions. Have your homework, quizzes, papers, or tests in hand, and ask your professor to go over them with you. Also, do not be afraid to ask questions during class; if you didn't understand something the professor just went over, chances are others in the class missed the information as well.
2) After your professors, the best resources available to you are Fordham's various tutoring centers. For example, if you are having a problem with your writing, then you need to visit Fordham's Writing Center – regularly. Bring a draft of a paper, as well as a copy of the assignment, and see what critiques the tutors offer. If you're having a problem getting out of the draft stage of a paper, you can also go to just discuss ideas and develop an outline. The Writing Center is located in Dealy Hall, Rm E-533.
If you are having a problem in Math, then you need to visit Fordham Math Help Room – regularly. You can go over your upcoming homework, or you can bring your old homework, quizzes, and tests and have someone explain to you exactly what you were supposed to do. The Math Help Center is located in JMH, Rm 410.
If you are having problems in other subjects, here is a listing of other tutoring centers:
Economics – Dealy Hall, Rm E-545
Modern Languages – Faber Hall, Rm 551
3) Finally, as CBA students, you have an additional option available to you that other Fordham students do not: The CBA Study Center. There you can get tutoring from CBA upperclassmen who are Boyle Scholars and/or members of Beta Alpha Psi, our Accounting, Finance, and Information Systems Society.
The CBA Study Center is located in Room 354. Please contact Mr. Brian Dunn, Director of Honors Opportunities, (bdunn@fordham.edu , Faber Hall room 358) with questions about the study center.
I do have one final bit of advice regarding any of these tutoring centers: find the tutor that's right for you. If you do not immediately establish a rapport with your first tutor, or you feel they haven't helped you as much as you'd like to be helped, do not take that as an indication that you should not go back to the particular tutoring center; just visit a different tutor the next time.
Either way, you've all been accepted to Fordham for a reason, so I know that you are all more than capable of the challenges that have been (and will continue to be) put before you. There's an old cliché that you should "work smart, not hard." While there's a certain amount of truth to that in certain situations, I'll offer you this, instead: to succeed in college, you need to work smart and hard. Enjoy you time in college. Have fun! But never put the academics to the side. Take advantage of all the help that's offered to you and study as much as you can.
Take care,
Alan Cafferkey
Assistant Dean, Advisor to the Freshman Class
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