Winter/Spring 2003 - The Council of Independent Colleges

PROJECT NEWSFirst-Year Programs Are Focus of New InitiativeThe Policy Center on the First Yearof College is working with CIC ona new initiative that focuses on thequality of experiences that institutionsprovide to first-year students.The project, directed by JohnGardner, a nationally known expert onfirst-year experience programs, willdevelop and test a set of “Hallmarks ofExcellence in the First College Year.”“The program’s intent is to allow participatinginstitutions to assess and makeimprovements in their own programs,while contributing to a national set ofstandards and benchmarks of excellence,particularly for independent colleges anduniversities,” said CIC PresidentRichard Ekman in a letter sent to CICchief academic officers in February. “Thequality of the first-year experience forstudents is a significant determinant ofsuccess in college—and, from the institution’sperspective, also of retentionand graduation—and this projectpromises, for the first time, a comprehensiveway for all CIC institutions tounderstand their strengths and weaknessesin this area,” he said.This spring, the Policy Center willwork with all interested CIC institutionsto refine a proposed set of “hallmarks”—characteristics of effectiveness in institutionsthat genuinely help first-year studentsto learn and succeed. In the earlysummer, up to ten CIC institutionsinterested in more in-depth work will beable to join a consortium that is testingthe application of these hallmarks duringthe 2003-2004 academic year. Nextyear, those ten CIC institutions will alsoreceive campus visits by national expertson first-year programs and in instructionalstrategies, and members of institutionaltask groups will be invited to twoproject meetings.The Policy Center is housed atBrevard College (NC), and theAtlantic Philanthropies and LuminaFoundation for Education are providingfinancial support.To participate, Ekman said that eachinstitution must designate a small taskgroup that can review the institution’sfirst-year efforts and help to revise thedraft hallmarks proposed by the PolicyCenter. Institutions must be willing toprovide a thorough testing of the hallmarks,through an audit of campus practices,review of existing institutionaldata, and use of the National Survey ofStudent Engagement. The Policy Centeris also collaborating with the AmericanAssociation of State Colleges andUniversities to recruit a parallel group ofpublic institutions. More informationabout this program can be found on aCIC section of the Policy Center’s websiteat www.brevard.edu/firstyearhallmarks/cic/index.htm.Institutions can signup for the program by contacting JohnGardner, either by e-mail (gardner@brevard.edu)or by phone at (828) 966-5309.Ninth Davies-Jackson Scholar NamedAsenior from St. Peter’s College(NJ) has been selected to receivethe Davies-Jackson Scholarship, administeredby CIC’s Consortium for theAdvancement of Private HigherEducation. The ninth recipient of theScholarship, Rose Holandez will studysocial and political sciences at St. John’sCollege of Cambridge University inGreat Britain.Holandez is the second student fromSt. Peter’s College to compete successfullyfor the Scholarship (DeliciaReynolds, a 1999 graduate of St. Peter’s,studied social and political sciences andfounded the College’s first gospel choirduring her tenure at Cambridge).Holandez, a social and political sciencemajor at St. Peter’s, has conductedurban field work in both Korea and thePhilippines, and has previously been afellow at the Junior Summer Institute atthe Woodrow Wilson School for PublicPolicy and International Affairs atPrinceton University.The Davies-Jackson Scholarship providestuition and expenses for two years,and gives students with exceptional academicrecords and who are among thefirst in their families to graduate fromcollege the opportunity to participate ina course of study at St. John’s. TheScholarship commemorates twoCambridge faculty members who providedopportunities for the anonymousdonor when he was a young man at St.John’s.Independent 21 www.cic.eduWinter/Spring 2003