Sally A. Roden, Ed.D; is Associate Provost and Dean of Undergraduate Studies at the University of Central Arkansas. She received the Outstanding Freshman Advocate Award from the National Resource Center for the Freshman Year Experience, the Outstanding Institutional Advising Program Award from the National Academic Advising Association and the Retention Excellence Award from Noel-Levitz. She also served as Co-Director of the Policy Center's First Year of College Foundations of Excellence Task Force on the University of Central Arkansas campus. Through her leadership, positive changes have occurred which have positively affected student achievement and academic success. She has initiated programs and academic services to support traditional freshman and non-traditional students. These changes include: the establishment of a Clustered Learning Program to provide commuter students with an academic support group, a university wide tutoring center created to help students with their academic progress, and the First-Year Experience course created to help students with the transition from high school to college. This course includes a service learning component. Additional campus wide changes include the Academic Advising Center which is the advising entry for all incoming freshmen and home for all undeclared students. The Academic Advising Center was formed by recruiting part-time faculty from the six academic colleges and a cadre of eight full time professional advisors. The Residential College Program, in cooperation with the University Housing Department, was initiated to enhance living/learning communities for incoming freshmen students. The newest residential college opened this fall with a specific focus on different forms of the arts. Due to the success of the Freshman Residential College Program, a Sophomore Year Experience Program was established and is now in a pilot phase for 310 sophomores. The University College was established to provide students who enter the university lacking college academic preparation and the UCAN Program (Unlocking College Academics Now) was created for students facing a first academic suspension. These initiatives were created to improve and expand better service for students at the University of Central Arkansas.