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Foundations of Excellence

Beginning in the Fall 2012 semester, York College embarked on a comprehensive self-study and improvement initiative to foster retention and graduation rates

Together with the John N. Gardner Institute for Excellence in Undergraduate Education, and with significant support from CUNY Central, York and several other colleges engaged in this process.

The process followed an established series of best practice guidelines and a self-study template developed by the Gardner Institute, which envision a broad and deep campus-wide engagement of several constituencies among faculty, administration, and students.  Thus, a Task Force comprising a Steering Committee and nine Dimension Committees provided a series of self-study and planning exercises towards a comprehensive report, which shall guide the College in the next years in its efforts to improve educational and co-curricular experiences for first-year and new students. 

President Keizs initially asked Dr. Thomas Gibson (Associate Dean, Student Development) and Dr. Holger Henke (Assistant Provost) to be the campus liaisons guiding this comprehensive exercise. Since November 2013, Dr. Cicely Horsham-Brathwaite (Director, Counseling Center) has replaced Dr. Gibson, who departed from York earlier in the semester.  During the summer 2013 preparatory conversations with the Gardner Institute were held to set the process in motion.  Over 70 faculty, administration and student development colleagues agreed to serve as chairs, co-chairs and regular members of the Dimension Committees.  The final report was issued in late November 2013 ( Notea download tab for the report will appear on the left once have logged into your user account).

Ultimately, the self-study insights and conclusions, and the resulting plan will have to be owned by the entire College community in order to make a real difference, and we look forward to your participation, as we are about to unfold and implement the initiative.

Thank you for your active support of this important initiative.

Panayiotis Meleties, Ph.D. Provost & SVP, Academic Affairs Geneva Walker-Johnson, Ph.D. VP, Student Development