John Gardner, once dubbed in Change magazine as an "agenda setter" among leaders in the academy, has utilized a lifetime tactic of collaboration to achieve his overall goal of increasing student success, first with the National Resource Center on the First-Year Experience and Students in Transition at the University of South Carolina and then with the John N. Gardner Institute for Excellence in Undergraduate Education. However, this has involved many challenges as bridging administrative, academic, and student service silos is so counter culture in the higher education setting.

In this era of declining resources and heightened calls for accountability, collaboration is needed more than ever for attaining overall institutional effectiveness, and especially as a means for promoting student learning, retention, and success. But, how do you begin to build collaborative partnerships among administrative, academic, and student service areas? What would you be willing to give up for the common good and your students' welfare through collaboration? And what might you, your institution, and your students reasonably expect to gain in return?

This session will focus on the conference theme, Community and Collaboration, as a paradigm for sharing the speaker's widely replicated philosophy and practices to increase student success.