Mary Baldwin University faculty and staff begin a transformative five-year partnership with the Gardner Institute to elevate student success, foster collaboration, and innovate higher education strategies campus-wide.
Mary Baldwin’s five-year partnership is underway with the Gardner Institute, a non-profit organization that focuses on higher education strategy and improving student outcomes.
Gardner Associate Vice President Brandon Smith was on campus for two days in mid-July to lead the institute’s first campus-wide meeting, bringing together representatives including President Jeff Stein, executive leadership, admissions counselors, full-time faculty, and more to discuss the state of the university.
“I love that it’s a whole-brain experience, where we get to take one topic and investigate how it impacts, interacts, and intersects with other offices and departments on campus,” explained LaRhonda Johnson Horton, MBU’s interim vice president of student engagement.
This partnership is an extension of the Gardner Institute’s “Transforming the Foundational Postsecondary Experience” initiative, a guided, continual institutional improvement process that will address aspects of the MBU enterprise, such as teaching, learning, retention, and completion. Gardner focuses on guiding progress toward insight and improvement, elevating Mary Baldwin’s strengths and helping to navigate its challenges.
“Essentially, we’re focused on serving all students well,” Smith said of the institute’s mission. “We firmly believe that one of the greatest opportunities in our society is access to a high-quality education that leads students toward lives where they are well-engaged, applying their passion and purpose.”
Faculty and staff were excited to kick off the partnership, and brought a sense of shared purpose to understanding MBU’s many processes.
“It was interesting to hear different participants say what they saw having an impact on the lives of students,” Dr. Amy Diduch, vice president and dean of the Gold College of Arts and Sciences and professor of economics remarked. “It gives me an appreciation for the fact that there are so many of us working together in so many different capacities at MBU. And all of these goals are shared goals, but it’s not easy to stay aware of what each and every office is doing. We have a tendency to feel atomized, and it’s really nice to get a little less siloed by conversations like this.”