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His reputation as an authority on retention would likely attract interest to such a list, “but that wouldn’t necessarily legitimize it or make it meaningful enough for people to buy into it,” says Gardner, executive director of the Policy Center on the First Year of College at Brevard, N.C., and senior fellow at the National Resource Center for the First-Year Experience and Students in Transition at the University of South Carolina.

Instead, he and his colleagues have created a project in which nearly 1,000 institutions have been invited to collaborate to create a set of standards called “foundations of excellence.” Better than a model imposed by outsiders, this design will result in “thoughtful consensus and shared goals,” says Gardner, whose knowledge will serve as a catalyst toward reaching this consensus.  Participants in the study will determine the types of programs and interventions — curricular and co-curricular — that help first year students make the successful transition to campus life.

A $1.4 million Lumina Foundation® grant will help support the cooperative effort to identify the foundations of excellence and develop the means by which a school can measure its effectiveness in reaching them. Finally, Gardner and his team hope to propose a process that will lead to certification, an accomplishment that members of the higher education community will strive to achieve.  

“It’s not enough to merely lay out a set of standards,” explains Gardner. “We have to be precise about how schools might achieve the standards.”

The project will use a Web site and various publications to disseminate information and describe innovative practices that enhance retention.

Certification, once achieved, might serve as a sort of seal of approval that assures prospective students and their families that a school views the first year of college as an important foundation and gives retention a high priority.

“We hope to make certification desirable enough that colleges and universities will want to go through the process,” says Gardner. And if, during the process, the schools find that their programs fall short of reaching the foundations of excellence, “we hope they will be willing — and knowledgeable enough — to make the necessary changes and adjustments.”