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Resources: Transforming Students’ First-Year
Experience into Long-Term Success
By Karen A. Stout
As most presidents do after their first
“term” of service at an institution (five years in my case),
I’ve been reflecting on the successes of the college’s first
strategic plan and how to re-cast, simplify, and focus our next
strategic plan. A commitment to “Placing Learning First”
anchored our first plan. As a result, we accomplished many important
objectives: We launched several new academic programs, started the
construction of new learning facilities (our first new facilities since
1972), opened a comprehensive honors program, engaged in a rigorous
review of the core curriculum, revitalized business and industry
programs, and hired 53 new full-time faculty members to address our
full-time to part-time ratio and help revitalize the curriculum.
Yet, even with these successes, it hit me during this
time of reflection that Learning First—while a worthy
goal—must be firmly and tangibly connected to student success to
have truly transformational effects. This connection became obvious when
I began facilitating our college’s move toward a “culture of
evidence,” by establishing a framework to better measure the
progress of our Learning First goal. . . .
Excerpted from the winter 2006 issue of The
Presidency. To subscribe to the magazine, please call (301) 632-6757,
or order online through ACE’s
bookstore.
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