Nearly all of us are familiar with the difficulties that came with our first giant lecture courses at Washington University. Although we graduated from high schools of various sizes, I have yet to meet anyone who started college ready to thrive in a classroom with 300 other students, where the professor might go the whole semester without making eye contact with you in class and office hours are always swarmed.

When she isn’t spending time with her eight grandchildren, traveling with her husband, or hosting dinners for Danforth Scholars at her home, Sharon Stahl is running the First Year Center and helping to lead the College of Arts & Sciences at Washington University.