The Policy Center on the First Year of College is working with CIC on a new initiative that focuses on the quality of experiences that institutions provide to first-year students.
    The project, directed by John Gardner, a nationally known expert on first-year experience programs, will develop and test a set of “Hallmarks of Excellence in the First College Year.”
    “The program’s intent is to allow participating institutions to assess and make improvements in their own programs, while contributing to a national set of standards and benchmarks of excellence, particularly for independent colleges and universities,” said CIC President Richard Ekman in a letter sent to CIC chief academic officers in February. “The quality of the first-year experience for students is a significant determinant of success in college—and, from the institution’s perspective, also of retention and graduation—and this project promises, for the first time, a comprehensive way for all CIC institutions to understand their strengths and weaknesses in this area,” he said.
    This spring, the Policy Center will work with all interested CIC institutions to refine a proposed set of “hallmarks”—characteristics of effectiveness in institutions that genuinely help first-year students to learn and succeed. In the early summer, up to ten CIC institutions interested in more in-depth work will be able to join a consortium that is testing the application of these hallmarks during the 2003-2004 academic year. Next year, those ten CIC institutions will also receive campus visits by national experts on first-year programs and in instructional strategies, and members of institutional task groups will be invited to two project meetings.
    The Policy Center is housed at Brevard College (NC), and the Atlantic Philanthropies and Lumina Foundation for Education are providing financial support.
    To participate, Ekman said that each institution must designate a small task group that can review the institution’s first-year efforts and help to revise the draft hallmarks proposed by the Policy Center. Institutions must be willing to provide a thorough testing of the hallmarks, through an audit of campus practices, review of existing institutional data, and use of the National Survey of Student Engagement. The Policy Center is also collaborating with the American Association of State Colleges and Universities to recruit a parallel group of public institutions. More information about this program can be found on a CIC section of the Policy Center’s website. Institutions can sign up for the program by contacting John Gardner, either by e-mail (gardner@brevard.edu) or by phone at (828) 966-5309.

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Last updated: March 2003
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