Jossey-Bass has published the results of a major study on successful institutional initiatives for the first year of college and university studies in the USA. Betsy O. Barefoot, John N. Gardner, and six colleagues paint vivid portraits of the outstanding achievements of thirteen colleges and universities selected for their sustained commitment to the needs of first year students. The work is no doubt destined to become essential reading for those academic administrators, faculty, and student service personnel interested in enhancing the first year experience in all sizes and categories of institutions of higher learning.

Researchers selected thirteen of 130 institutional applicants as exemplars of a holistic approach to providing excellence in educational opportunity in the first year. Readers will be interested in the overall parameters and findings of the study as well as the detailed descriptions of the individual institutions and their fascinating quests to meet unique challenges, and to implement and sustain student-centred solutions to problems associated with adjusting to the demands of college life.

A panel of 18 reviewers adopted five criteria to measure the quality of the 130 applications and to select the final 13 institutions. The panel looked for evidence of an intentional and comprehensive approach to improving the first year in a given institution, evidence of internal assessment of the approaches adopted, evidence of a broad impact on a large proportion of the first year students in a given college, evidence of administrative support and durability, and evidence of involvement of large numbers of stakeholders such as faculty, administrators, and student service professionals. Although the research team's emphasis on a comprehensive approach to the first year is indeed strong. The twenty initiatives touch upon areas such as advising, core curricula, faculty development, first year seminars, learning communities, mentoring, orientation, residence life, and supplemental instruction.

The authors describe their campus site visits with enthusiasm, setting the scene by underlining the importance of geography, institutional history, culture, and mission. They take us from tiny Kalamazoo to comprehensive South Carolina, from the bustle of the Bronx in New York to the beauty of Ward Island in Texas. In each and every instance, the authors make a compelling case for the importance of aligning first year initiatives with overall institutional priorities, purposes, strengths and needs, and student characteristics.

The authors first review two-year institutions, praising the Community College of Denver for providing a "second family" for students and LaGuardia in Queen's, New York, for providing a "window on the world" for its multi-cultural and multi-ethnic student population. Small colleges, Eckerd in Florida and Kalamazoo in Michigan, are said to distinguish themselves for "responsible innovation" and for creating a true "fellowship of learning". Institutions with fewer than 5,000 students include Drury (Missouri), Elon (North Carolina), and West Point (New York). Drury is lauded for its "intellectual rigor" and "intrusive personal support", Elon for the creation of a "community of inquiry and engagement", and West Point for its' commitment (surprising to some because of perceived military traditions) to "leave no plebe (first-year student) behind"!

Lehman College of the City University of New York and Corpus Christi of Texas A&M are the two institutions with from 5,000 to 10,000 students having programs reviewed in the book. The college in the Bronx is praised for its "intentional connectedness across the first-year curriculum" as it serves many first generation and economical disadvantaged students, while the Gulf Coast island setting of Corpus Christi is the home of a first year program praised for achieving both extraordinary "economy of scale" and "personal attention". Appalachian State University and Ball State University fall into the category of institutions with from 10,000 to 20,000 students. The award-winning North Carolina ‘high country' institution is noted for its Freshman Learning Communities in General Studies program, while the focus of the Indiana university on the quality of teaching and support of the scholarship of teaching in promotion and tenure decisions has a positive impact on first year students.

The largest universities chosen as exemplars for their first year program approaches are Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis and the University of South Carolina. They represent what some would consider the most unlikely candidate and the most likely candidate for first-year program distinction. IUPUI has met various challenges, including a commitment to serve students at risk, emerging "as a model" for the "enhancement of first-year student success". USC is reviewed as the institution that, in a sense, pioneered many initiatives with regards the enhancement of the first-year experience, eventually drawing national and international attention to its' long-term efforts.

Institutional Excellence for the First Year of College succeeds in delivering both ‘the big picture' and fascinating sketches of individual institutional approaches to enhancement of the first year. While the reader will no doubt be tempted to adopt some specific strategies and program components reviewed in individual chapters of the book, the study underlines the fundamental importance of a thoughtful, intentional, and global approach to responding to the overall needs of first year students in a given institutional environment.