AUBURN – During the coming year, Central Maine Community College will participate in a national higher education initiative known as the “Foundations of Excellence in the First Year of College.” The project, sponsored by the Policy Center on the First Year of College, will utilize an aspirational model of excellence for measuring the college’s approach to first-year programming and policies.

Dr. Linda Gallahan, assistant dean of academic affairs and director of the Center for Retention and Transfer, will serve as liaison for the project.

“To work with the Foundations of Excellence is a high honor; it is prestigious, and only a handful of colleges are selected for participation each year,” said Gallahan. Since February of 2003, the Foundations of Excellence project has involved more than 300 institutions.

Some colleges that have undertaken the program in the past include Kennebec Valley Community College in Maine, as well as Texas A & M University, Indiana University, Fort Wayne, Ind., and numerous other two- and four-year institutions.

During early phases of the project, member institutions assisted in the development of the foundational “dimensions,” a set of components identified as key to student academic and college experience success. Using the dimensions as guides, this year’s participating institutions will measure their effectiveness in recruiting, admitting, supporting, advising and teaching new students. They will then be able to make changes and improvements that will increase student learning and success.

The CM Taskforce Steering Committee recently attended the launch meeting of the project in Asheville, N.C. The meeting was designed to prepare each campus to derive maximum benefit from the Foundations of Excellence process. It was sponsored by the Policy Center, located in Brevard, N.C., which has as its basic mission the improvement of the beginning college experience through enhanced learning, success and retention of new students.