In July of 2012, five representatives of UNM— Greg Heileman, associate provost for
curriculum; Terry Babbitt, associate vice president of Enrollment Management; Kate Krause, dean of University College and Honors College; Mike Dougher, senior vice provost; and Amy Neel, president, Faculty Senate—attended the Foundations of Excellence® launch meeting in Asheville, NC. They went with the goal of improving the quality of the first-year experience for UNM freshmen, and to thereby improve student retention and completion rates.
In September 2012 UNM held a Student Success Summit to kick off the Foundations of
Excellence® project on campus. Drew Koch, executive vice president at the Gardner Institute, and advisor to UNM for the FoE process, gave a keynote address, motivating participants and explaining the process. The event drew over two hundred participants, who were either assigned to, or volunteered for, the nine Dimension Committees, each focused on a different aspect of the first-year experience. Those participants constituted the FoE Task Force, which included all members of the Steering Committee and nine Dimension Committees. The Steering Committee was composed of the Co-Chairs of each Dimension Committee, as well as a number of other campus leaders.
In early October 2012, consultant to UNM, Steering Committee member, and co-chair of the Philosophy Dimension George Kuh visited UNM for a day of meetings with co-chairs and members of the other eight Dimension Committees to provide guidance and answer questions as the committees began their work. The Dimension Committees performed assessments of various areas of the first-year experience, and those assessments would eventually culminate in a final report including recommendations for improving the first-year experience at UNM.
Members of the Task Force completed the Current Practices Inventory in October 2012. This inventory included a review of programs, committees, policies, and high-enrollment courses that impact freshmen, as well as demographic information and retention data for recent cohorts.
In addition to the Current Practices Inventory, two surveys—one for faculty and staff and the other for students—were conducted to assist the Dimension Committees in their evaluation of UNM’s current first-year experience. To promote the surveys, emails were sent directly to
various faculty, staff, and students. There were also incentives attached to the completion of the surveys, including iPads, gift certificates, and other prizes. The promotion of the student survey was much more intensive and included campus-wide publicity (e.g., campus websites,
Facebook, as well as posters and leaflets), an instant lottery event in the Student Union Building’s computer lab, an event coordinated with an Operation Registration initiative for freshman students, and another with the University Advisement Center. The survey of faculty and staff was completed in early November 2012, and closed with a response rate of nearly 30%, involving over 2800 responses. The survey of students was completed in early December 2012, and closed with a response rate just over 20%, about 930 responses.
In February of 2013, UNM and the FoE Task Force held a second Student Success Summit for an FoE mid-process review. By that point in February 2013, five of the Dimension Committees had completed final reports, and the other four were near the halfway point in their process. The purpose of the event was twofold. First, it was an opportunity for the Dimension Co-Chairs to present the work of their committees, including some of their proposed recommendations, which spurred discussion on the connections and overlapping interests and concerns of the separate Dimension Committees. Second, it was a chance to refocus the committee members’
efforts after a long holiday break, and to keep people motivated for the final report writing process. Toward this end, both FoE advisor Drew Koch and George Kuh spoke during the event. Dr. Kuh was the keynote speaker and presented on implementing effective change. Dr.
Koch was present via Skype. He outlined the end of the self-study process for the Dimension Committees, and offered advice for tackling potential challenges.
The Dimension Committees’ Final Reports—which included the evaluations of UNM’s first-year efforts and recommendations for improving them—were completed by late March 2013, after drafts of those reports were sent to advisor Drew Koch for feedback, then revised by the Dimension Committees, and finally submitted to the FoE Liaisons for inclusion in the
development of the Final Report and Action Plan.
On March 26, 2013, George Kuh once again visited campus to assist the FoE Liaisons, Drs.
Heileman, Krause, and Babbitt, in compiling, distilling, and refining the recommendations from each Dimension Report into a single Action Plan, which outlines the process for implementing change during the coming year. That Action Plan is the centerpiece of the full Final Report.
The full process, nearly eight months in the making, and including thousands of hours of work by the Task Force, culminated in the present Final Report and improvement plan, one that we expect to produce improved retention rates for our freshman class, place students on a solid trajectory toward graduation, and demonstrate national leadership in the area of student academic success.
The Dimension Final Reports, included in each of the following nine chapters, are structured as
dimension, is provided, along with a recommended grade. The recommended grade is a letter grade evaluation of UNM’s performance according to the Dimension criteria, not an evaluation of the work of that Dimension Committee. The evaluation is followed by the committee’s recommendations for improving UNM’s performance relative to those same criteria.