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Georgia Southwestern State University 2023

Georgia Southwestern State University’s (GSW) institutional mission is,

Georgia Southwestern State University is a state university serving a diverse population of students, offering a range of strong undergraduate and graduate programs in a vibrant learning environment. The University is a collegial community that values collaboration and community engagement with an emphasis on faculty, staff, and student interactions. An active student body and state‐of‐the‐art amenities enhance the learning experience on a visually appealing campus located in historic Americus, Georgia.

Georgia Southwestern State University’s (GSW) total enrollment in fall 2022 was 3076. At that time, the gender distribution of the student population was 66.7% women and 33.3% men. The ethnicity of the fall 2022 student population was 57.2% White, 26.2% African American, 7.7% Asian and Pacific Islander, 5.7% Hispanic, 2.5% Multiracial and less than 1.0% were Native American or Unknown. Approximately 40% of GSW undergraduates receive Pell Grants; 49% are First-Generation college students (no parent/guardian with bachelor degree or higher); 18% began college for the first-time as adults (25 years old or older); and 22% were age 25 or older. The majority of our undergraduates (62%) are classified as full-time (taking 12 or more hours); 28% live on campus; 72% are enrolled in one or more online classes; and 34% are enrolled exclusively in online classes. These populations are also representative of our recent graduates. Out of the undergraduates who were awarded bachelor’s degrees in FY23, 53% had received the Pell grant while enrolled at GSW, 47% were first-generation students, and 25% were 29 or older at the time of graduation.

GSW Student Success Inventory

GSW continues to focus its student success efforts on providing students with clear degree pathways and facilitating social belonging in its students. While the strategies we employ benefit all students, we are particularly focused on improving the success of our male students while maintaining the success of our female students. 

Success Inventory

Updated CPR Process (Georgia Southwestern State University-2023)

Strategy/Project Name: 
Updated CPR Process
Momentum Area: 
Pathways
Data & Communications
Category: 
Curriculum Design
Data
Program Maps
Tracking Student Success
Milestones/indicators in programs
Strategy/Project Description: 

The project is to update our CPR process to include pressure testing of our Storm Tracks using Curricular Analytics. In addition, we are working to make the CPR process more focused on student success, to make the process a student success activity.

Activity Status: 
Initiating
Progress and Adjustments: 

A Draft of the updated CPR process is ready for GSW’s academic approval process

Plan for the Year Ahead: 

We anticipate that the academic process will be complete during fall semester and we will be ready to implement the process in that 2024-25 academic year.

Primary Contact: 
Bryan Davis, Associate VPAA

Social Belonging (Georgia Southwestern State University-2023)

Strategy/Project Name: 
Social Belonging
Momentum Area: 
Mindset
Category: 
Advising
Block Schedules
Curriculum Design
High Impact Practices
Leadership
Mindset
Orientation
Peer and Supplemental Instruction
Student engagement
Tutoring
Tracking Student Success
Strategy/Project Description: 

We continue to implement ways to help support students both in and out of the classroom to be successful and improve retention.

Evaluation/Assessment plan: 

Evaluation Plan and measures: Retention numbers, event attendance, tutoring sessions, event evaluations, DFW rates

KPIs: Retention rates, event attendance, FYE advising and check-in meetings, tutoring participation.

Baseline measure (for each KPI): Fall 2018 cohort retention rates.  Increased participation and retention of first-year students who attend Thunder Camp.  Increase student attendance at university-sponsored events.  Increase in person interactions with first-year students.  Increase participation in the number of students attending tutoring sessions.

Current/most recent data (for each KPI): Attendance and retention of Thunder Camp participants (142 freshmen attended camp in August 2022 and 63% were retained to their sophomore year.) Attendance at student engagement events (59 events were held in the 2022-2023 academic year with 5,997 students attending).  FYE advising and check-in meetings (FYE conducted 1091 in person meetings with students during the 2022-2023 academic year).  Tutoring participation (179 tutoring sessions were conducted to 74 individual students during the 2022-2023 academic year).

Goal or targets (for each KPI): increased participation in events and progress towards meeting the retention target

Time period/duration: yearly

Progress and Adjustments: 

In Fall 2023, the first-year students in University College were placed in block schedules that included having their first-year seminar (UNIV 1000) course meeting four days a week.  Our Thunder Camp extended orientation has proven successful with a higher retention rate for students who attended compared to the overall retention of the cohort.   Our UNIV 1000 first-year seminar course was revamped to focus on the student’s purpose, self-advocacy, self-regulation, self-awareness, and self-confidence. 

Plan for the Year Ahead: 

This fall, all first-year students are each creating a personalized academic plan using the Student Educational Planner in Degree Works.  We will continue to work on creating a sophomore/2nd year retention plan and are in the process of planning a university-wide retention summit.

Challenges and Support: 

Challenges: Academic and social maturity of first-year students.

Support Needed: Re-evaluation of the funding model to include special funding or earmarks for academic retention initiatives.

Primary Contact: 
Dr. Laura Boren, Executive Vice President for Student Engagement and Success
Dr. David Jenkins, Director of First-Year Experience and Student Success

Campus Plans Supplemental Sections

GSW TILT Update

In spring 2021 just before GSW launched its campus-wide TILT initiative, four TILT-related questions were added to GSW’s course evaluation survey. The questions were added under the head question, “was the course transparent, well planned, and organized?” Students were asked to rate the course on the following aspects of the head question:

  • Clearly explained the goals and requirements of the course.
  • Clearly explained how the class activities, reading, and assignments related to each other.
  • Clearly explained how to learn or study course materials and content.
  • Clearly explained why the class focused on the topics presented.

For each aspect the students were able to answer strongly agree (5), agree (4), undecided (3), disagree (2), and strongly disagree (1) with answers scored 5-1 to achieve numerical mean for each aspect. The spring 2021 scores acted as a baseline for comparison with post-TILT development scores. In general, the scores have increased steadily each academic year.

  

The results are largely consistent when disaggregated by college.

 

 

One notable finding from these data is that the explanation of how to study lags behind the other the other aspects of TILT as measured by these questions. Therefore, GSW will continue to provide faculty development opportunities aimed at ways of guiding students on how to study. A survey will also be administered to faculty during spring 2024 to gather data on what faculty have used TILT principles to revise course materials, in what courses, and what types of course material have been revised. These data will be used to examine grade distributions for evidence that specific interventions have had positive effects. 

Overall, the TILT initiative has had a positive impact on teaching and learning across GSW’s campus, including helping faculty understand the importance of transparency when communicating with students. Still there is much room for growth by ensuring that more faculty are aware of the possibilities that TILT offers.

GSW Observations and Next Steps

GSW has put significant time and effort into its Storm Track degree pathways, but the evidence from a pilot of pressure testing and from usage by students and faculty suggest that they are less effective than they could be. This situation apparently results from a number of factors, including students entering with significant amounts of dual enrollment credits and students in the sciences who are not ready for their Core Math requirements. GSW does not plan to abandon Storm Tracks, but we will take a revised approach to their use. We will continue to use them as templates for the Student Educational Planner (SEP), and we will be updating them to include the revised USG Core curriculum before fall term 2024. During fall 2023, however, a new intervention was added to UNIV 1000 the GSW Experience. Both instructors and Storm Spotters (peer mentors) have been trained in the use of SEP so that they can teach their students how to use the tool so that each student can create an individualized graduation plan that shows what they need to do to graduate on a term by term basis.