Randy L. Swing, Ph.D. is Senior Fellow for the Policy Center on the First Year of College. Dr. Swing joined John N. Gardner and Betsy O. Barefoot in establishing the Center in 1999 and served as Co-Director and Senior Scholar until assuming the position of Executive Director of the Association for Institutional Research in November, 2007.

Dr. Swing was involved in every aspect of developing the Foundations of Excellence (FOE) project and led the development of the Current Practices Inventory, a campus audit of first-year practices; the FOE Performance Indicators that measure achievement of each of the Dimensions^®, the FoE technology that undergirds the self-study process and the FOE Faculty/Staff Survey and the FOE Student Survey. Randy worked intensively with 4-year institutions in piloting and field testing the self study and led the development of the process with 2-year institutions.

During his time at the Policy Center, Dr. Swing led over 300 workshops on first year issues, assessment, and change management. He is a co-author of the 2005 Jossey-Bass book, Achieving and Sustaining Institutional Excellence for the First Year of College. He edited two monographs on first-year assessment, Proving and Improving: Strategies for Assessing the First College Year and Proving and Improving (II): Tools and Techniques for Assessing the First College Year and contributed chapters to several other books, including Challenging and Supporting the First-Year Student: A Handbook for Improving the First Year of College (Upcraft, Gardner, and Barefoot, 2005). His research on first-year seminars has been widely disseminated through the First-Year Assessment Listserv and included in Assessment Update and About Campus. He serves on the editorial boards for the Journal of General Education, and the journal of Innovative Higher Education.

He holds a Ph.D. in higher education from the University of Georgia. Until 1999, Dr. Swing worked for 20 years in a wide range of first-year programs at Appalachian State University. He was the founding director of the assessment office, co-director of Freshman Seminar and Summer Preview, founding director of the Academic Advising Center, and coordinator of the Upward Bound program. These programs received national awards for excellence including Time Magazine's 2001 College of the Year award for outstanding service to first-year students.

To contact Randy, please email him at swing@fyfoundations.org.