The Policy Center on the First Year of College, in partnership with EBI, developed two surveys designed to assist institutions with their efforts to identify, define, and assess the policies, programs, and services that address key elements related to the first year. In conjunction with the Foundations of Excellence ® project, a two-year version and a four-year version of each survey were created to provide community colleges and universities with a means to evaluate the first year on their campus.

The first instrument gathers information from faculty and staff members about the effectiveness of current first-year practices and policies. The second instrument gathers information from first-year students about their views and perceptions of campus efforts in the first year. These surveys are designed so that groups of questions can be linked to each of the Foundational Dimensions ®, nine aspirational principles of excellence, developed in four-year and two-year versions.

The faculty/staff survey is administered electronically; the student survey is available in both Web and paper formats. On-line results are available through WESS (Web-Enabled Survey System). The combination of tools and data allows the participating institutions to go far beyond looking at “average” scores.

Although, these instruments intentionally align with the Foundations of Excellence process, they are stand alone surveys. Participation in the Foundations of Excellence project is not a requirement to take advantage of these particular surveys, which can be beneficial to any institution of higher education that wishes to evaluate and enhance the first year of college on their campus.