The University of New Orleans is partnering with two national organizations, The Gardner Institute and Complete College America, to redesign the first two years of college so that every student can thrive. UNO is part of the second cohort of the Transforming the Foundational Postsecondary Experience initiative, which was first launched by the Gardner Institute in 2023 with 11 institutions. UNO is among the nine institutions in the second cohort. This effort aims to close performance gaps and improve student success outcomes in ways that move toward eliminating factors such as zip code as the best predictors of who gets to graduate.

“At the University of New Orleans, student success is our top priority,” said President Kathy Johnson. “Most importantly, our focus remains on students for whom a college education would provide the most significant opportunity for advancement in their lives and who need assistance to successfully progress toward graduation. With assistance from two nationally-recognized partner organizations—the Gardner Institute and Complete College America—we are changing the future path of our most deserving students by ensuring they receive the support needed to complete the often challenging first two years of college, paving the way for their timely graduation.”

The John N. Gardner Institute for Excellence in Higher Education is a nonprofit, mission-driven organization that partners with colleges, universities, philanthropic organizations and others to create and implement strategic plans for student success that improve teaching, learning, retention, and completion. Through doing so, the institute strives to advance higher education’s larger social mobility and justice goals.

Complete College America is a bold national advocate for dramatically increasing college completion rates and closing institutional performance gaps by working with states, systems, institutions and partners to scale highly effective structural reforms and promote policies that improve student success.

The Foundational Postsecondary Experience refers to the critical first two years of college education. Gardner Institute research shows that at least 76% of all attrition occurs sometime during or immediately following the first two college years. Through a systems redesign process, institutions participating in the effort develop and implement plans over a five-year period to close performance gaps, enhance teaching and learning practices, and promote student success, completion and retention. The plans are supported through context-specific application of more than 20 Gardner Institute engagements as well as efforts to harmonize all other student success initiatives underway at participating institutions.

The initiative has been made possible, in part, through generous support from Ascendium Education Group, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, ECMC Foundation, Lumina Foundation, and The Kresge Foundation. These organizations share the Gardner Institute’s vision of creating a more equitable education system and have provided financial support to implement the Transforming the Foundational Postsecondary Experience effort.

The cohort 2 institutions include:

• The University of New Orleans | New Orleans, LA

• Bellarmine University | Louisville, KY

• Emmanuel College | Boston, MA

• Frank Phillips College |Borger, TX

• Kentucky State University | Frankfort, KY

• Lindsey Wilson College | Columbia, KY

• Mary Baldwin University | Staunton, VA

• Simmons College of KY | Louisville, KY

• Thomas More University | Crestview Hills, KY

“Colleges and universities must have high expectations for their students. They must also have high expectations for how they teach and support the students they serve,” said Andrew (Drew) Koch, the Gardner Institute’s Chief Executive Officer. “These nine institutions join the eleven colleges and universities in the first cohort in making a long-term commitment to focusing on what they control, who they serve, and building a more effective undergraduate experience where every student they admit can thrive.”

Over the next five years, the institutions in the second transformation cohort will collaborate closely with the Gardner Institute to create and implement strategies aimed at fostering a more successful postsecondary experience. By the end of this initiative, these institutions are expected to be well on their way to removing demographics and zip codes as the primary determinants of who succeeds in and graduates from college.