UNC Asheville Selected for National Student Success Initiative Led by the Gardner Institute and COPLAC

Innovative, evidence‑based program supported by the Gates Foundation.

University of North Carolina Asheville has been selected to join a national cohort of more than 35  colleges and universities participating in Advancing Student Success: Strategic Prioritization for  Student Success, an initiative led by the John N. Gardner Institute for Excellence in Higher  Education, in partnership with the Council of Public Liberal Arts Colleges (COPLAC) and supported by the Gates Foundation. UNC Asheville is the only institution in the UNC System to be selected for this work.

Participation gives UNC Asheville access to a structured, evidence‑based process designed to help campus leaders set priorities, strengthen academic pathways, and improve student learning,  persistence, and completion.

“My Gardner Institute colleagues and I are honored and excited to partner with UNC Asheville and COPLAC in this important work,” said Andrew (Drew) Koch, chief executive officer of the Gardner Institute. “Our experience — supported by external evaluation of our work — shows that programs, while necessary, are not enough on their own to produce lasting gains in student learning and success. Institutions make the greatest progress when they develop and implement a comprehensive plan for student success. This effort will help UNC Asheville bring together strong existing work into a more coherent  whole, informed by the Institutional Transformation Assessment and the collective wisdom and  contextual knowledge of its faculty and staff.”

“This partnership enables us to refine and reinforce our strong commitment to student success on our campus,” said UNC Asheville Provost Yvonne Russell. “We know that by coordinating our efforts—including our new First-Year and Senior Year Seminars—we can ensure that our public liberal arts and sciences mission translates into career readiness for every student. Our students thrive in a campus-wide environment that supports their values, passion, and dreams into concrete post-graduate pathways and empowers them to leverage every opportunity inside and outside of the classroom to create lives of purpose and meaning.”

As part of the initiative, institutions receive customized reports, facilitated sensemaking sessions, a strategic prioritization plan, and an implementation roadmap aligned with the Gardner Institute’s  Six Transformation Principles.

The initiative is delivered in partnership with COPLAC, which serves as a key partner in advancing and supporting this initiative. The Gardner Institute leads the design and facilitation of the process for all participating colleges and universities.

About UNC Asheville

Founded in 1927, UNC Asheville is a proud member of the University of North Carolina System. With award-winning faculty, small class sizes, and 60+ academic programs in the natural sciences, human sciences, humanities, arts, and social sciences, the University is recognized for its robust paid internship programs to prepare students to immediately enter the workforce. In the US News & World Report 2025 edition of Best Colleges, UNC Asheville is ranked No. #9 in Top Public Schools, and No. #7 in Princeton Review’s 2025 Top 50 Guide to Green Colleges. Known as the Bulldogs, UNC Asheville student-athletes compete in 16 NCAA Division I Teams in the Big South Conference. For more information, please visit: www.unca.edu.