The National Resource Center for the First-Year Experience and Students in Transition at the University of South Carolina
First-Year Student Development 
(slides on psychosocial development, generational trends, stats on student misconduct and student distress, from Lori Johnson, Angie Kneflin, and Jean Griffin). Another set of slides here.
"Do First-Year Seminars Improve College Grades and Retention?" (Permazadian and Credé). See pages 28-30 for highlighted recommendations. Notable for our context is to think about FYS as an academic orientation (combining top of page 29 with mid-30).
How College is Different from High School. Aimed at first-year students, from the AAC&U publication "What Will I Learn in College?"
What the Best College Students Do (Bain). Aimed at college students. We have access to the electronic book. Chapter four, for instance, discusses grit in the face of failure.
"College Is Worth It If You Have These Six Experiences," a blog piece based on a recent Gallup poll.
"What's the Point of a Professor?" (Bauerlein, The New York Times). Aimed at faculty. "You can’t become a moral authority if you rarely challenge students in class and engage them beyond it. If we professors do not do that, the course is not an induction of eager minds into an enlarging vision. It is a requirement to fulfill."