Foundations of Excellence

Report to the Campus

Minot State University has been part of a 2007-08 national cohort of thirteen four-year schools dedicated to improving the first year of college in a project called Foundations of Excellence (FoE). Campus committees were organized around nine program dimensions.

The individual dimension committees spent the late fall and winter months meeting and working on their reports. Once these reports were ready to be unveiled to the campus, two campus public forums were held on May 1 to help prioritize all of the action items. The Steering Committee synthesized the action items into five main "action themes."

Subgroups of Steering Committee members then studied these themes and developed them further. This information was then distilled into a set of immediate actions and longer-term actions. The plans provide an estimated timeline, the parties responsible and an estimate of financial resources for each action item.

All of this activity culminated with the development of this final report that includes a "report card" based on institutional performance on each of the nine program dimensions. While this is the final step in the Foundations of Excellence process, it is only the first step in implementing the ideas to come out of it, as the university looks to improve programs and services for first-year students. The Steering Committee has also made a recommendation for establishing a permanent First-Year Committee to guide this process from this point forward.

» MSU Foundations of Excellence Final Report [pdf - July 2008]