Several years ago, when the author was associate dean in the College of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences, a new senior administrator on campus expressed the view that one of their premier first-year experience programs in the college was too expensive and that a different model, based on an approach taken at the administrator's previous institution, was cheaper and far superior. It was only after the author engaged in a careful analysis of the program's impact, and distributed the results to the administration and larger campus community, that the program was saved from likely extinction. He learned an important lesson from this experience, one that he carried with him as vice provost for undergraduate education, a position that placed him in charge of a number of academic support and cocurricular programs on campus. In this article, the author describes the approach taken to program evaluation at the University of California-Riverside (UCR), and recounts some of the ways in which evaluation results have been utilized to enhance student success.