A university task force met yesterday to begin compiling a report for the University Faculty Senate about first-year seminars at Penn State, citing a lack of standardization as the force behind the creation of report.

There has been "some grumbling about ... varying standards as to what's expected [from the seminars]," said Andy Lau, a member of the Task Force to Review the First-Year Seminar Requirement and coordinator for first-year seminars in the College of Engineering. The task force consists of faculty members.

The group's recommendations to the Senate will include some university-wide guidelines for the seminars, but specifics are still up in the air, said Valerie Stratton, the head of the task force.

A finalized report is expected by the middle of next semester.

Penn State began requiring all freshmen to take the seminars beginning in fall 1999.

"There was always a plan to come back and review them three years later," Lau said.

Academic Assembly President D. Joshua Troxell said the university currently allows each college to set its own standards for the seminars.

Assembly member Kevin D'Ausilio, vice president for the Council of Commonwealth Student Governments, said some first-year seminars are "absolutely useless," and described the courses as "hit or miss," due to a lack of standardization.

Lau said the task force is also discussing the number of credits students should receive for the seminars.

Troxell said surveys from previous years suggest that students prefer three-credit first-year seminars over the one-credit counterparts.

Horst Von Dorpowski, assistant dean for the College of Education, said that as he looked at research, there was a correlation between student retention of material from the seminar and the increasing number of credits received for the course.

University guidelines dictate that a seminar either introduce a student to the content of a specific major and college or introduce them to student resources such as the library or computer system, Troxell said.

The original legislation requiring first-year seminars says seminars must have some tie-in with an academic topic, Stratton said.

George Soung, an Academic Assembly representative for the Schreyer Honors College, saw potential benefits in seminars that introduce students to on-campus resources.

"I have no clue how to use the library," he said.

Ron Filippelli, associate dean for the College of Liberal Arts, said his college's goals for first-year seminars are to "introduce [students] to the thought process and methodology that humanists and social scientists use," although improving student life and introducing students to university resources are also by-products.

Sarah Zydney, an Academic Assembly general member, said her first-year seminar introduced her to the library system, which helped to orient her to what is available to Penn State students.

The university's enrollment cap of 20 students per seminar has been described as benificial.

"I'm still friends with some of the people [from my seminar]," Amy Baginski (sophomore-recreation and park management) said.

But other assembly members voiced reservations about the seminars.

Members Colleen Stimpson and Melissa Ciurlino both used the term "waste of time" to describe first-year seminars.

Ciurlino, a general member of the assembly, described the seminars as a "regurgitation of FTCAP [First-Year Testing, Counseling Advising Program] over a long semester."

"I'm here to get my degree and get out," said Stimpson, a representative from the College of Education.