An Invitation
The Policy Center on the First Year of College invites you and your colleagues to attend a “meeting” of a very different kind: a planning retreat that would be uniquely designed for a leadership team from your campus.
You would be the only attendees!
This two-day retreat would be designed to help you develop a new vision for first-year student success and retention through the creation of an intentional plan for improving your institution’s first-year programs, policies, and procedures. As you work to implement your plan, you would also receive off-site consulting support from the Policy Center on the First Year of College for a period of one year.
What Kind of Meeting?
This retreat would be designed for a small group from your institution and would be attended by senior institutional leaders as well as first college year stakeholders and practitioners. The retreat experience would be supplemented by a year-long consultation process. Your team would come together in a beautiful, western North Carolina mountain setting. The retreat would provide the opportunity for taking stock of your current efforts, but more importantly, for creating a new plan to improve student learning and success in the first year. In a retreat environment that is conducive to good thinking, planning, and relaxation, your team would be away from the normal press of campus affairs and able to really concentrate on issues related to beginning student success.
Advance Preparation
The Policy Center would request that your institution provide background information (such as student demographic and performance characteristics, results from prior assessments, institutional policies directed to first-year students, etc.) in advance of the meeting in order to help the Center’s staff to become more knowledgeable about your campus. This information is not being collected for research purposes and would not be released to any other parties.
F0llow-Up Advisory Support
The Policy Center would provide, for one academic year after the retreat, off site advisory support to assist the institution in the implementation of its new plan for the first year. This consultation would include:
- The assignment of a Policy Center senior staff member to serve as primary liaison to the campus during the one-year follow-up /implementation period
- Written feedback and recommendations
Willingness and availability to participate in conference calls and/or individual telephone consultations.
Your institution would have total discretion and freedom to determine its team. We suggest that for maximum benefit, each team include up to 10* individuals including campus leaders, first college year stakeholders, and practitioners. The team might include:
- the chief executive officer
- the chief academic officer and/or the chief undergraduate education officer
- the chief student affairs officer
- the chief financial officer
- the chief enrollment management officer
- the chief institutional research/assessment officer(s)
- senior faculty governance/curricular leaders
- first-year program directors
- other first-year stakeholders and leaders
- a representative of the Student Government Association or other appropriate student leader(s)
*While 10 is the recommended number of participants, an institution may elect to send fewer than 10 individuals.
John N. Gardner, Betsy O. Barefoot, and the staff of the Policy Center on the First Year of College. These principals are leaders of the international reform movement to rethink and redesign the beginning college experience. For staff bios see www.firstyear.org.
The Policy Center on the First Year of College is an independent, non-profit organization that works with colleges and universities to improve their assessment of the entire beginning college experience so as to improve student learning, success, and retention. Founded in 1999 the Center has developed its processes and initiatives with support from five major foundations: The Pew Charitable Trusts; The Atlantic Philanthropies; Lumina Foundation for Education; the Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation; and USA Funds. The Center is an outgrowth of John Gardner and Betsy Barefoot’s work at the University of South Carolina and is located in Brevard, N.C. about 35 miles from retreat locations in the Asheville area. The signature work of the Policy Center is a voluntary, comprehensive, externally guided, year-long process of institutional self study and action planning known as Foundations of Excellence® in the First College Year (www.fyfoundations.org), which has engaged over 116 institutions from 2003-2008.
Where would the meeting be held?
The retreat would be held at the Highland Lake Inn* (www.hlinn.com), an historic North Carolina mountain resort located near Hendersonville and Asheville, NC. The retreat could be scheduled at any time during the year.
*Or another similar location in the Asheville, NC area.
What would be the retreat format and approximate schedule?
The retreat is designed to be an intensive, small group, interactive, intellectually stimulating, provocative experience. The process would include presentation of material by the facilitators on best practices to challenge and support new students and principles of change management as applied to the first year of college. But the primary focus would be on your campus-specific issues as defined in pre-event communication with the Policy Center. Each retreat would be custom designed to meet specific institutional needs but general topics would include:
- Core concepts of first-year student success and models for institutional excellence in the first year
- An inventory of information (on first year students, practices, programs, and policies), compiled by the institution with the guidance of the Policy Center, so that all participants would have a common basis of knowledge about the institution’s first year.
- Guided evaluation of the institution’s challenges and opportunities, relevant data, and defined goals.
- Recommendations for improvement. We would distill and synthesize recommendations into a plan for further review, approval, and implementation back home. Policy Center staff would assist the campus in considering how to prioritize recommendations, develop timelines, determine resource implications, acknowledge sources of resistance and support, and determine responsibility centers.
- Decisions about next steps. How to present the plan back home, and how the Policy Center can best assist the institution over the next year in implementing the plan.
Day 1: Participants would arrive at the Asheville Regional Airport or Greenville/ Spartanburg International Airport by mid afternoon, in time to get oriented to the retreat facility and for a welcome and overview session. This would be followed by a reception and early dinner.
Day 2: Through a mix of presentation and group interaction, we would work together throughout the day, allowing some late-afternoon time for a break before a reception and dinner.
Day 3: The retreat would continue during the morning and conclude in time for participants to catch either a mid-day or mid-afternoon flight.
What would be included in the fee?
The comprehensive fee is inclusive of all expenses except air or ground transportation to the Asheville area.
These covered expenses are:
- Round trip ground transportation to and from the Asheville airport (for each participant, even if on different flights)
- Two nights single room accommodation
- All meals and refreshments provided by the Highland Lake Inn’s award-winning restaurant, Seasons.
- Readings and materialsRetreat planning and leadership by Policy Center staff
- One year’s off-site follow-up advisory support provided by Policy Center staff to offer direction and feedback on implementation of the campus plan for improving the first year.
The comprehensive fee is $25,000* (based on 10 participants). This fee is comprised of $15,000 for professional service, and $10,000* for accommodations, meals, and other facilities costs for 10 individuals.
*The $10,000 charge for accommodations, meals, etc. is based on per-person costs for 10 participants and is scalable for fewer participants.
©2008 Policy Center on the First Year of College