Mission and goals  

Our mission is to increase student success and improve retention. We will accomplish this goal by:

• sharpening focus on student achievement by creating a coherent design for first-year courses, academic support, and co-curricular programming
• creating a community of accomplished teacher-scholars who commit to first-year education, and supporting them so they can do their best work
• systematically assessing our efforts to understand how and what our students are learning and use the results to improve instruction and support programs
• closely monitoring the progress of first-year students and developing coordinated action plans for intervention and support
• designing advising to focus on student decision making, planning, and development of student responsibility and efficacy
• creating distinct pathways for subgroups of our admitted students who will benefit from stronger support
• creating a strong framework for learning in the first year by situating the liberal studies program as a foundation for undergraduate learning
• supporting innovation in teaching, learning, mentoring, and advisement
• increasing academic and community engagement through deliberate coordination among curricular, co-curricular, and experiential learning programs