Common Ground

Since its founding in 1836, Alfred University has been well-known for being fully inclusive of all people. It was the first institution in the nation to offer women full access to the whole curriculum, and was among the first to admit Native American and African American students.

Common Ground, as its name implies, provides true common ground between students regardless of their academic interests, and complements our other first-year experience programs which are unique to their respective colleges and schools.

Common Ground integrates our new students into the Alfred University community through discussions in which students will hear the stories of their peers from different backgrounds, interrogate their assumptions about other people or places, get more comfortable talking about sensitive topics like race, gender, sexual orientation, and socioeconomic class, and articulate the values that they will live by as citizens of the Alfred community.

These discussions will give administrators, faculty, and staff a chance to learn about our incoming class, too. The perspectives of all of our students at Alfred matter, and we want to start learning from each other as soon as our newest community members join us.