John N. Gardner is the founder of and a senior fellow with the National Resource Center for The First-Year Experience and Students in Transition; founding executive director of the University 101 Programs; and distinguished Professor Emeritus of Library and Information Science at the University of South Carolina (USC). He was executive director of the first-year seminar course, University 101 (U101), from 1974 to 1999; and also, the National Resource Center from 1986 to 1999. And he served as Vice chancellor/associate provost for academic affairs for regional campuses from 1983-96.  Currently he serves as chief executive officer, co-founder and board chair of the John N. Gardner Institute for Excellence in Undergraduate Education, a non-profit national organization he co-founded with his wife, Betsy O. Barefoot, in 1999. As a senior fellow, Gardner provides advice, counsel, and intellectual leadership and vision when called upon. He is involved in presenting at National Resource Center conferences and continuing education events. He also remains engaged in its scholarship and research agenda and its publishing activities. He serves USC in other capacities as requested.

Biographical Sketch

Gardner is an educator, university professor and administrator, author, editor, public speaker, consultant, change agent, student retention specialist, first-year student advocate, and initiator and scholar of the American first-year and senior-year reform movements. He is best known for initiating an international reform movement in higher education in 1982 to bring awareness to and improve what he originally called "the freshman year experience" and later renamed "the first-year experience."

Beginning in 1990, Gardner expanded his focus to improving and championing the senior-year experience, another critical transition during the college years. He changed the National Resource Center’s name to the National Resource Center for The First-Year Experience and Students in Transition, signifying a broader focus on the need for institutions to better support students in transition.

Gardner retired from the University in 1999 after more than 32 years of service to the people of South Carolina, but he continues to serve in a reduced and more focused way as a Senior Fellow. He immediately went on to co-found another national organization to extend and complement but not duplicate in any way the work of the National Resource Center.

The U.S. Air Force brought Gardner to South Carolina in 1967, where he served as a psychiatric social worker in the 363rd Tactical Hospital at Shaw Air Force Base near Sumter. Following a direct order from his squadron commander, Gardner became a part-time adjunct instructor at the University of South Carolina. After completing his military service in 1968, Gardner held a two-year temporary appointment at Winthrop College as an instructor of history. He returned to the University in 1970 where he taught courses in American and South Carolina history, interpersonal communications for librarians, public speaking, higher education administration, and other topics. He also regularly taught U101, the first-year seminar, and The First-Year Experience, a graduate seminar course he developed for the College of Education. From 1994 to 1998 Gardner developed and taught University 401, Senior Capstone Experience, as a sequel to U101 but for departing students only.

Gardner founded the Policy Center on the First Year of College in October 1999 with Dr. Betsy O. Barefoot, his wife and former co-director for Research and Publications at the National Resource Center.  It was reorganized as an independent 501(c)(3) nonprofit public charity in 2007 and renamed the John N. Gardner Institute for Excellence in Undergraduate Education. With its new name, the Gardner Institute expanded its mission to the pursuit of excellence in the broader undergraduate education experience by working with colleges and universities to improve student learning and retention.

Since its inception, the Institute has been supported by more than 400 participating institutions, including these philanthropic partners: the Pew Charitable Trusts, the Lumina Foundation for Education, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Atlantic Philanthropies, the Kresge Foundation, the Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation, United Student Aid Funds (now the Strada Education Network), the ECMC Foundation, the Ascendium Educational Foundation, the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation, and the California Futures Foundation..

Gardner’s area of expertise in higher education was, for almost three decades, the creation of programs to enhance the learning, success, retention, and graduation of students in transition, particularly first-year students, through first-year seminar courses. Beginning in 2003, his efforts have been directed almost exclusively to working with institutions to look beyond a “programmatic” approach to improving the first year and instead to focus the entire experience of entering students. Throughout his career, he has hosted workshops, led training, and spoken on issues related to first- and senior-year experiences at more than 500 campuses in the U.S., Puerto Rico, Canada, the United Kingdom, the Republic of Ireland, Denmark, and Norway.

He is a prolific author, developing highly successful first-year seminar textbooks and building the literature base on the first-year experience and students in transition. Some of his key contributions to the field include The Freshman Year Experience (1989) with M. Lee Upcraft, Jossey-Bass; The Senior Year Experience (1998), with Gretchen Van der Veer, Jossey-Bass; Challenging and Supporting the First-Year Student (2005), with M. Lee Upcraft and Betsy O. Barefoot, Jossey-Bass; Achieving and Sustaining Institutional Excellence for the First Year of College (2005), with Betsy O. Barefoot and Associates, Jossey-Bass; Helping Sophomores Succeed (2010), with Mary Stuart Hunter and Barbara F. Tobolowsky and Associates, Jossey-Bass; Developing and Sustaining Successful-First-Year Programs (2013), with Gerald M. Greenfield and Jennifer R. Keup, Jossey-Bass; The Undergraduate Experience: Focusing Institutions on What Matters Most (2016), with Peter Felten, Leo Lambert, Charles Schroder, and Betsy Barefoot; The Transfer Experience A Handbook for Creating a More Equitable and Successful Postsecondary Educational System (2021), with Michael J. Rosenberg and Andrew K. Koch, Stylus Publishing.

Distinctions

Gardner is the recipient of numerous local and national professional awards including USC's highest award for teaching excellence, the AMOCO Award for Outstanding Teaching (1975), and the Division of Student Affairs Faculty Award "for outstanding contributions" (1976). The USC Alumni Association in 1997 conferred upon him its highest award for a non-alum, the Honorary Life Membership, "for devoted service in behalf of the university." He was the 1998 recipient of the USC's Administrative Affirmative Action Award "for an outstanding job in promoting equal opportunities at the university." In 1999, USC presented Gardner with an award created and named in his honor, the John N. Gardner Inspirational Faculty Award, to be given thereafter to a faculty member "who has made substantial contributions to the learning environment in campus residence hall life." Gardner is the recipient of 12 honorary doctoral degrees recognizing him for his contributions to American higher education from Marietta College, his alma mater, 1985; Baldwin-Wallace College, 1990; Bridgewater State College, 1991; Millikin University, 1999; Purdue University, 2000; University of Teesside, UK, 2000; Rowan University, 2001; Thiel College, 2006; Indiana University, 2008; Clarion University of Pennsylvania, 2009; University of South Carolina, 2012; and Northwest Missouri State University, 2013.

Gardner was selected by the American Association for Higher Education (AAHE) in 1986 as one of 20 faculty in the United States who "have made outstanding leadership contributions to their institutions and/or American higher education." He was recognized in 1996 by the Council of Independent Colleges with its Academic Leadership Award "for exemplary contributions to American higher education." He has served on the board of directors/trustees for AAHE, the International Partnership for Service Learning, Marietta College, and the Brevard Music Center; and on advisory boards for the American Council on Education, the Association of American Colleges and Universities, The New York Times, and the Lumina Foundation for Education.

In 1998, Gardner was named one of the "top 10 professionals who have most influenced student affairs practitioners." This was based on a random sample of practitioners throughout the country as part of a study titled The Professional Influence Project, sponsored by the National Association of Student Personnel Administrators Foundation, and conducted by the University of Georgia. Gardner received the National Academic Advising Association’s Virginia N. Gordon Award for Excellence in the Field of Advising in 1999, in recognition of his contributions toward the enhancement of academic advisement in American higher education. In 2002, he received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the American College Personnel Association, one of the nation's two major professional organizations for student affairs officers. Gardner and wife, Dr. Barefoot, received the Ernest L. Boyer Award, conferred by the New American Colleges and Universities, in 2012.

In the January 1998 issue of Change, Gardner was among approximately 80 people named as the "past, present, and future leaders of higher education." The article’s authors drew on the results of 11,000 questionnaires to name the leaders, whom the Chronicle of Higher Education dubbed "the movers and shakers." Gardner was included in a special category of 11 so-called "agenda-setters." 

Personal Life

Gardner has a son, Jonathan David Gardner, a graduate of Elon University; and a stepson, Wynn Corley, a graduate of the University of South Carolina. He is married to Betsy O. Barefoot, another distinguished scholar and leader of the first-year experience reform movement. Dr. Barefoot is a Fellow with the National Resource Center and a Senior Scholar with the Gardner Institute. She is also the Co-Founder and Senior Scholar of the John N. Gardner Institute for Excellence in Undergraduate Education. Together they live near Brevard in the Blue Ridge Mountains of western North Carolina. 

(sourced from https://sc.edu/about/offices_and_divisions/national_resource_center/about/affiliates/fellows/index.php)