Scaling

As of Spring 2025, Living-Learning Communities (LLCs) at GGC continues to be an emerging effort as part of the College’s overall Learning Communities strategy. The LLC project at GGC continues to be driven primarily by the grant-funded STEM Living Learning Communities (LLCs) for the Information Technology (IT) and Health Science (HS) programs. The STEM LLC project has laid a foundation on which LLC expansion will be built in the coming academic year, as outlined below.

We aim to continue scaling first-year LCs so all new full-time first-year students enroll in an LC by an opt-out approach. Longer-term aims are to develop more Living-Learning Communities (see sub-strategy 1.b., below) and to add to the LCs more sections of the first-year seminar (GGC 1000), redesigned to include discipline-specific content that can align with Core IMPACTS.

Engaging in High Impact Practices (HIPs) improves student learning outcomes. Research shows that students involved in high-impact practices enjoy higher levels of learning success, retention and degree completion. Research and research training, for example, are fundamental cornerstones of an academic institution. Students who learn to perform research, use systematic methods to investigate significant problems in innovative ways, and who learn to clearly communicate their findings to diverse audiences, are uniquely trained in the high-demand skill sets needed by our modern-day workforce.

The Summer Success Academy (SSA) is a structured summer bridge program designed to support incoming first-year students who are required to enroll in co-requisite English or Mathematics courses due to not fully meeting college admissions benchmarks. The program provides an early, supportive transition into the academic, social, and personal expectations of university life while equipping students with the skills and confidence necessary for long-term success.
Program Design and Structure:

The Peer Learning Assistants (PLAs) initiative is a cornerstone of UGA’s strategy to strengthen active learning across high-impact classrooms. Through this program, trained undergraduate students are embedded in large-enrollment, introductory and gateway courses, particularly those with historically high DFW rates, to support peer-to-peer instruction and engagement.
PLAs are recruited and trained by the Office for Student Success and Achievement (OSSA), where they develop core competencies in active 

The institution is scaling the number of courses with embedded HiPs and systematically capturing those in the SIS. 

Pathway+ focuses on Learning Support students instead of all Associate students, placing them in learning communities, a new required FYE course (UNG 1101), and revising pedagogy for LS courses. Modifications to this intervention are based on positive impact on LS students in the pilot, logistic challenges in taking it to scale for all Associate, the increased number of students required to take math LS, and NISS recommendations that we align support services to support students in high DWF courses

This initiative will expand the utilization of an academic chatbot in core courses.  The chatbot provides basic academic information, utilizes intelligent agents in the LMS to monitor student engagement and prompts as necessary, evaluates readiness for quizzes and reminds students about assignments and deadlines. GSU received a $7 million Post Secondary Student Success grant from the Department of Education to launch this technology in introductory English and Math courses in Fall 2024.  Chatbot technology is already used in American Government, Macroeconomics and Chemistry.

Increase the number of freshmen completing fifteen credit hours in their first semester at GSW. Freshmen students are enrolled in classes for their first semester by FYE advisors that include 14-16 credits. They are advised by FYE advisors at early registration for spring classes to register for enough hours to accumulate 30 credit hours during their first year.

Increasing pass rates in English 1101 and the major appropriate MATH courses is the goal of this strategy. Both the department of English and Mathematics have submitted improvement plans and are implementing them. Among the strategies being employed include: