A: The Policy Center on the First Year of College was initiated in October 1999 with a grant from The Pew Charitable Trusts. It is an independent, non-profit, higher education policy, advocacy, and research center located at 400 North Broad Street in Brevard, North Carolina. The work of the Policy Center is currently supported by the Lumina Foundation for Education, and is an extension of the work of John N. Gardner and his colleagues at the University of South Carolina’s National Resource Center for The First-Year Experience and Students in Transition. The two centers work cooperatively on issues of central concern for the success of first-year college students.

Mission Statement

The Policy Center on the First Year of College has as its basic mission the improvement of the beginning college experience through enhanced learning outcomes, success, and retention of new students. This mission is grounded in the belief that an institution’s first-year policies and practices are the foundation for attainment of the larger goals of undergraduate education. The signature work of the Policy Center is the engagement of postsecondary institutions in a model for voluntary, comprehensive self-study and development and implementation of an intentional action plan designed to enhance the effectiveness of the first year.

Q: How is the Policy Center different from the National Resource Center for The First-Year Experience and Students in Transition.

A: The Policy Center, founded in 1999, is a direct outgrowth of the USC National Center, founded in 1986. It was the original vision and charge from The Pew Charitable Trusts, a grant from which made possible the establishment of the Policy Center, that the Policy Center work to complement and not duplicate the work of the National Resource Center. The Center at USC was founded by John Gardner who remains a Senior Fellow in that Center and who is the Executive Director of the Policy Center. The Policy Center’s Co-Directors and Senior Scholars, Betsy O. Barefoot and Randy L. Swing, also hold appointments as Fellows of the USC Center. Both centers work collaboratively in designing, organizing, hosting a number of joint initiatives for the improvement of the first college year. While the USC Center is focused on a wide range of undergraduate improvement initiatives and the dissemination thereof, the Policy Center’s focus is much more narrowly confined to one signature effort, the Foundations of Excellence self-study and improvement plan processes.

Q: What is/are the source(s) of financial support for the Policy Center?

A: The Center’s operating costs must be recovered from fees for services charged to participating campuses.

Q: What is the Policy Center’s primary line of work?

A: Although the Policy Center continues to be involved in many activities related to the first year, its primary work is with colleges and universities in the signature project, Foundations of Excellence® in the First College Year. Foundations of Excellence is both a model and process for engaging postsecondary institutions in a voluntary, comprehensive self-study, improvement planning, and change implementation process focused specifically on the totality of the beginning college experience.