Minnesota State University Moorhead is participating in the Foundations of Excellence® in the First College Year, a project of the Policy Center on the First Year of College. The project is a comprehensive, guided self-study and improvement process for the first year that will allow MSUM to identify institutional strengths and needs for improvement related to the first year of undergraduate education.
The Policy Center on the First Year of College, located in Brevard, North Carolina, was established in 1999 with a grant from The Pew Charitable Trusts and is currently supported by the Lumina Foundation for Education. The Policy Center initiated the Foundations of Excellence® project in 2003. The project involved the development of an aspirational model for the entirety of the beginning college experience from initial contact with potential students through admissions, orientation, and all first-year curricular and co-curricular experiences.
In describing the importance of this project, John N. Gardner, executive director of the Policy Center, said, "While much is known about how a campus can improve new student learning and retention, this information has never been synthesized or translated into aspirational standards that are reflective of best practice. The absence of clear standards has powerful educational and financial consequences. This project brings together a number of highly credible researchers, reformers, and practitioners, who are creating the blueprint that for too long has been missing."
The Foundations of Excellence® model is comprised of four key components.
- Foundational Dimensions.® The nine Foundational Dimensions are defining characteristics of institutional effectiveness in promoting learning and success for all new students. "Learning and success" include content mastery and academic skill building, higher order cognitive skill development, psychosocial development, persistence, and degree completion.
- Current Practices Inventory. The CPI is a broad audit of current practices, policies, and assessment efforts that most impact new students.
- Performance Indicators. Since the Dimensions are broad constructs, a set of Performance Indicators focuses the campus self-study on elements of greatest importance in achieving institutional excellence in the first year.
- Action Plan. The self-study intentionally focused on the development of a campus action plan that acknowledges the campus's strengths that need to be protected and nurtured, and specific recommendations for changes that will address a campus's weaknesses.
The model was piloted in 2003-2004 by 24 public and private four-year institutions and in the spring of 2005, the Policy Center worked with 81 two-year campuses to develop a parallel model for two-year higher education. Ten two-year campuses piloted that model in 2005-2006. Since its inception in 2003, over 300 institutions have been involved in the Foundations of Excellence® process.
MSUM is one of 13 four-year institutions and 13 two-year institutions in the 2007-2008 cohort, named "National Select Institutions" that will work with the Policy Center and its technology support and educational survey partner, Educational Benchmarking Inc. (EBI). The 26 institutions were selected based upon a comprehensive application and interview process with members of the Policy Center. After measuring effectiveness in recruiting, admitting, orienting, supporting, advising, and teaching new students, member institutions will then be able to make programmatic improvements that will increase student learning, success, and persistence.
A unique feature of this year's cohort is a partnership between MSUM and Minnesota State Community and Technical Colleges-Moorhead campus where we will coordinate efforts to more intentionally align our institutions approach to the first year.