This report describes the efforts of South Dakota's six public universities to increase their quality, accountability, and efficiency. Through the initiatives of the South Dakota Board of Regents, which is the governing authority, they have moved from a system that funds institutions by enrollment to one that provides base funding with incentives for performance. The universities undertook a program to eliminate under-enrolled classes and reinvest the savings in faculty development and technology. A new series of councils links the research and teaching activities of the six faculties. The institutions' progress in working together more effectively addressed concerns of the state's elected officials and business leaders, who felt that the institutions were inefficient and incapable of change. Under mandate from the Board of Regents, they also began to recast their separate general education requirements around a coherent set of learning goals that students would be expected to achieve at any of the six universities. The number of general education courses was reduced from 520 to 130 across the system, and students are required to complete general education requirements in foundation-level courses in their first 2 years. Listed at the end of the report are learning goals, major initiatives, interviewees, and institutional statistics. (RH)