Skip to content Skip to navigation

College of Coastal Georgia Campus Plan Update 2021

Campus Plan Update (PDF version)
Appendix

SECTION 1. INSTITUTIONAL MISSION AND STUDENT BODY PROFILE

Mission Statement

Revised and approved in November 2015 and reaffirmed by the Board of Regents in January 2021, the CCGA mission statement reads as follows:

As a state college of the University System of Georgia, the College of Coastal Georgia will be a college of choice for residents of Georgia and beyond by providing an accessible and affordable quality education. Advocating excellence in scholarship and community engagement, the College promotes student progression and timely graduation through student-centered programs that offer a rich and diverse student experience. Students are prepared for meaningful careers, advanced study, lifelong learning, and participation in a global and technological society. The institution will provide associate and baccalaureate degrees that support the intellectual, economic and cultural needs of the community and region.

This mission statement is fully aligned with the University System of Georgia’s (USG) mission, it represents the core principles and unique institutional characteristics of a state college, and it is accentuated by strong leadership, worthwhile community linkages, and exemplary student development. Further, the mission statement effectively infuses the College’s strategic framework that is structured around five central themes: Student Enrichment, Academic Excellence, Institutional Distinction, Leadership through Community Engagement & Partnerships, and Sustainability & Organizational Development. Finally, the mission underscores the College’s sustained commitment to community engagement that encompasses service-learning, volunteerism, practica, and internships, contributing to the cultural, economic and social well-being of the local community, southeast Georgia and beyond.

Fall 2021 Student Profile[1]

The College of Coastal Georgia’s fall 2021 enrollment stands at 3,249 students and an FTE of 2,565. In terms of self-declared race/ethnicity, 8.6% identified as Hispanic/Latino, 0.2% American Indian or Alaska Native, 2.4% Asian, 19.3% Black or African American, 0.3% Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander, 62.4% White, 2.6% two or more races, and 4.2% undeclared. With an average age of 23.4, the College’s student body is composed of 69.1% female and 51.2% full-time students with 90.9% indicating Georgia residency, 6.9% out-of-state, and 2.2% out-of-country.

First-generation students (whose parent(s)/legal guardian(s) have not completed a baccalaureate degree) account for 54.9% of the 3,198 students for whom we know parent/guardian educational attainment. Adult learners (25 years of age or older) and military/veterans account for 23.7% and 11.2% of the total student body, respectively. Pell recipients account for 35.4% of students, while dual-enrolled students total 453, which is a 2.3% increase compared to fall 2020. Academically, the class of new freshman (for fall 2020) came to the institution with a 2.99 average high school GPA attempted an average of 22.68 credits during the first academic year, and earned an average of 15.96 credits. This cohort persisted through fall 2021 at a 58.3% rate and had an average GPA of 2.5. The work on completion is imperative as we continue to support this student population.

Influence on Completion Work

CCGA’s institutional mission is a beacon that guides its completion priorities. First, by providing access and affordability, CCGA addresses the needs of the region and is particularly impactful for communities that are traditionally underserved by postsecondary education (data from the First Destination Survey shows 81% of graduates remain in the state and 78% in the region). Secondly, the College promotes student progression and timely graduation by proactively engaging and supporting students at every stage of their collegiate journey (as evidenced by the process improvement, strategies, and activities, implemented as part of the 2021 Momentum Plan). Finally, by increasing student campus and community engagement, the institution prepares students to engage in meaningful careers and to satisfy the economic and cultural needs of the community and the region (data from the First Destination Survey shows that 59% of respondents were employed full-time at or immediately after graduation, nearly equal to the national rate of 59.7%, which includes graduates of highly selective institutions).

The next few sections are organized around the College of Coastal Georgia Momentum Framework and will provide an update of the progress in the institutional Momentum Plan for 2021. This progress report will conclude with some supplemental updates on activities and strategies that are not part of the Momentum Plan but that are contributing to our commitment to student success for every student, every time.

SECTION 2: IMPROVEMENT PRACTICES – UNDERSTANDING CHANGE MANAGEMENT

The College of Coastal Georgia is recognized from its dynamic nature and agility to react to emerging challenges and student needs. As documented in previous CCG reports, well before the challenges presented by the COVID Pandemic, the College has maintained a relentless and continuous improvement culture that has propelled the institution to be an active and leading participant in many of the state efforts around Learning Support Redesign, Gateways to Completion (G2C), implementation of innovative methods of communication (chat bots), and many other trailblazing strategies like the integration of Career Counseling and Academic Advising.

From this continuous improvement culture, the College continues to evaluate processes, procedures, and structural elements of the educational enterprise to ensure that students are challenged in the classroom by the rigor of academics and not impacted by structural or motivational obstacles. As seen in the next few sections the College is committed to improving the way in which we guide students through integrated career and academic planning, through intrusive and proactive success monitoring, and through intentional and explicit communication of the impact of their engagement in their personal development.

Planning, decision-making, and change management continues to be a collaborative effort between Academic Affairs and Student Affairs & Enrollment Management, always supported by Business Affairs, technologically agile and data rich thanks to a strong Technology Services team, and always focused on student voices and needs through the President’s motto of “Every Student, Every Time.” Retention and student success are priorities that are culturally embraced and are embedded in every institutional endeavor, including performance reviews, annual reports as well as budget requests and reviews. The data and metrics of success, some of which originated from the Gateway2Completion process but are now sustained metrics that the College actively monitors, are disaggregated to monitor the effectiveness in serving the diverse student population and the institution is actively addressing areas where equity gaps persist.

Section 3: Your Big Idea

The College is excited to share that the Endeavor project is starting its implementation phase. As a mechanism to focus our efforts and resources to promote student development and success, the Endeavor framework will help students personalize, internalize, and later articulate their transformation beyond a credential. For faculty and staff members, the Endeavor Framework will help recognize, highlight, and celebrate how their work contributes to student development.

Through Endeavor, the College has established a set of core competencies that all students are expected to develop at the College of Coastal Georgia, and now aims to align curricular, co-curricular, and extracurricular programs, activities, and learning outcomes with these competencies. These Endeavor Competencies include:

  1. Critical Thinking and Problem Solving
  2. Written, Oral, and Digital Communication
  3. Professionalism and Personal Responsibility
  4. Social Awareness and Contribution
  5. Collaboration and Teamwork

With a newly formed Endeavor Implementation Council, the College plans to identify and execute the next steps to operationalize this framework and to develop the structure to document the student exposure and development associated to these competencies.

Some of the tasks to be considered by the Council for implementation include:

  • Designing a visual model and logo
  • Working with academic units and student support offices to align current programs, activities, and outcomes with the core competencies
  • Integrating Endeavor into Brightspace and the student activity platform Presence
  • Developing marketing campaigns targeting current students, prospective students, and the community
  • Formalizing levels of growth and development
  • Formalizing assessment processes and practices
  • Creating a tool and process to evaluate potential initiatives under this framework

Academic Affairs is working closely with the Director of Service-Learning and Undergraduate Research in a communication campaign to ensure the broad campus community remains informed and engaged as the implementation phase unfolds, and the Council is providing direct representation and guidance from units across campus.

For additional information regarding this project, please refer to Appendix A: Endeavor Document Summaries, which contains a brief summary of the Endeavor Prospectus document (2018), and the Endeavor Recommendation document submitted by the Endeavor Steering Committee (2020).

SECTION 4.1: MOMENTUM WORK RESILIENCE UPDATE

Update on Priority Areas for Work: Momentum Year

Activity / Strategy

Strengthening of mindset integration during student orientation

Process / Steps

Building more virtual activities on mindset as part of new student orientation and in advising.

Person responsible

Laura Lynch, AVP for Faculty Affairs

Update / Activity Status

In April - May 2020, the College’s Orientation Committee created Navigate, an online orientation program for new students during the pandemic. The program was revamped for summer 2021 to complement rather than replace the traditional on campus orientation programming. We took this opportunity to create and add two mindset-related videos into the Navigate online orientation platform:

One video encouraged students to have a growth mindset:  https://navigate.ccga.edu/uploaded/Videos/4-ItsAllInYourHead.mp4

The second video explained the definition of a credit hour to help students understand how much they are expected to spend outside of class on studying and assignments:  https://navigate.ccga.edu/uploaded/Videos/5-WhatsACreditHour.mp4

Lessons Learned / Next Steps

The Office of Academic Affairs and COMPASS Career and Academic Advising are working on a D2L course for students on an Academic Improvement Plan due to academic standing. This resource is based on some existing resources but is being revamped for a broader audience. We are embedding mindset components into this resource as well.

 

Activity / Strategy

Faculty engagement in mindset activities

Process / Steps

Broadened faculty participation in research and development activities surrounding Mindset.

Person responsible

Laura Lynch, AVP for Faculty Affairs

Update / Activity Status

In 2020, the Center for Teaching and Learning organized a student success booklet, with ideas crowdsourced by CCGA faculty, which was organized around improving student mindsets (specifically, purpose and value, growth mindset, and social belonging). That booklet was shared with all faculty (full- and part-time) in 2020 and shared with all new faculty as part of the new faculty orientation in fall 2021.

There is an ongoing research group focused on student mindset consisting of faculty from several departments. This group presented their work to campus as part of the Coastal Scholars Showcase in spring 2021 and has also begun collaborations with South Georgia State College.

A subgroup of the larger research group has also begun researching growth mindset specifically in mathematics courses and ways to improve growth mindset among CCGA students. Their efforts are being shared with the entire mathematics department, especially those instructors teaching learning support.

Lessons Learned / Next Steps

The spring presentation of the research group is available here:  https://libguides.ccga.edu/coastalscholars2021/growthmindset. The group found links between students perceived math growth mindset and academic preparedness with student GPA at the end of their first semester at CCGA.  This is what led to the smaller subgroup focusing on ways to improve student growth mindset in mathematics courses. The larger research group is now looking at findings related to first versus continuing generation students and how it relates to cultural mismatch theory.

The Office of Academic Affairs and COMPASS Career and Academic Advising are currently developing a learning community for the 2021-2022 cohort of new faculty that focuses on advising best practices. The learning community will take place in the spring semester and will include discussions on improving academic mindset through advising.

 

Activity / Strategy

Momentum Dashboard

Process / Steps

Build a Momentum Year Dashboard that displays momentum metrics like the percentage of students who are attempting and completing fuller schedules, and the percentage of students completing English and Math. This dashboard will not only provide high-level summary data for year-to-year comparisons, but also individual flags to help us intervene and assist students that are not on track.

Person responsible

Diana Leal, Director of Enterprise Services /

German Vargas, AVP for Academic Student Engagement

Update / Activity Status

This dashboard has been fully developed and was shared with school deans on 10/07/2021. This dashboard will provide immediate support for data-informed decisions; it was used to support the discussion and analysis of the disruption and impact of the pandemic in the delivery of a momentum year.

Lessons Learned / Next Steps

This dashboard was developed to provide both high-level summary data, as well as granular data for individual academic units. Training will be required to integrate the evaluation of these metrics at the department level.

 

Activity / Strategy

Focus 2 APPLY/Career

Process / Steps

Full implementation of Focus® 2 APPLY, and Focus® 2 Career. This includes the integration with the student admission process, orientation, and the freshman experience.

Person responsible

Brian Weese, Director of Career and Academic Advising

Update / Activity Status

Focus2 Apply has been integrated into the Admissions application. Additionally, Focus2 Career is now included as part of the communication protocol to accepted students. Focus2Career is introduced during orientation, it is reintroduced in Freshmen advising meetings, and it is discussed during in-class presentations for core classes.

Lessons Learned / Next Steps

As we continue to strengthen the integration of these two tools, we will use this year as baseline for participation. So far 89 students have used Focus2Apply, and 267 students have used Focus2Career for 2021.

 

Update on Priority Areas for Work: Momentum Approach

Activity / Strategy

ENDEAVOR

Process / Steps

Continue the development and implementation of ENDEAVOR. A new committee will be created to begin implementation in conjunction with our 2021 QEP.

Person responsible

Johnny Evans, Provost and VP for Academic Affairs

Update / Activity Status

(See Section 3: Your Big Idea)

Lessons Learned / Next Steps

(See Section 3: Your Big Idea)

 

Activity / Strategy

DegreeWorks Student Planner

Process / Steps

Starting with the static four-year plans that have been developed for each major and updated over the last few years, we will be implementing dynamic and interactive four-year plans directly within DegreeWorks through their Student Planner feature.

Person responsible

Laura Lynch, AVP for Faculty Affairs / Lisa Lesseig, Registrar

Update / Activity Status

The College is in communication with Gordon State College (GSC), who has recently begun implementation of the Student Educational Plans within DegreeWorks. The GSC Registrar’s Office is sharing implementation resources they found as well as the training resources they created for the broader campus community.  The Registrar’s Office has dates set aside in November to adjust all necessary back end coding to bring the SEP feature online for spring 2022.

Lessons Learned / Next Steps

To ensure this feature remains sustainable, COMPASS career and academic advisors will be trained on how to create and modify student plan templates so that plans for all majors remain updated and consistent with curricular change. The training materials created and shared by Gordon State College will be modified and adapted to fit institutional needs and to serve as a resource to all faculty advisors.

These plans will have a significant impact on advising since this will reduce the time spent on mapping out student course schedules, releasing time to focus on career planning and other advising activities. The student plan features will also allow the institution to project with significantly more accuracy student demand for individual courses. This will lead to greater efficiency in our course scheduling, which will also likely improve student progression.

SECTION 4.3: GLOBAL MOMENTUM SUPPORT

Update on Communication and Planning

Activity / Strategy

Full integration of the Momentum Approach in Orientation Activities

Process / Steps

The orientation program and objectives will be fully revised under the lens of the Momentum Approach. This revision and alignment will ensure that: 1. faculty and staff participating in the activities associated with orientation are fully informed and engaged in the Momentum Approach Strategies; and 2. the students are introduced to, and start actively participating in, important practices like making a purposeful choice and creating a productive academic mindset.

Person responsible

Jason Umfress, VP for Student Affairs & Enrollment Management
German Vargas, AVP for Academic Student Engagement

Update / Activity Status

From February 2021 to April 2021 an orientation committee with broad institutional representation, carefully reevaluated the New Student Orientation Program for alignment with the Momentum Year and Momentum approach strategies.

Lessons Learned / Next Steps

The result of this detailed revision of the program was a summer and fall orientation program that was focused and deliberate in the way it transmitted the momentum tenets to students.

 

Activity / Strategy

Momentum Approach Presentation during Launch

Process / Steps

A Momentum Approach presentation will be delivered at the beginning of the fall semester as part of the Launch Week activities. This presentation will reacquaint all faculty and staff to the tenets of the Momentum Year and the Momentum Approach, will explore the variety of institutional strategies and activities that align with these tenets, and will invite participants to brainstorm additional ideas for weaving Momentum Approach Principles into their roles and activities.

Person responsible

German Vargas, AVP for Academic Student Engagement

Update / Activity Status

A Momentum Approach presentation was delivered as part of the fall 2021 launch activities. This presentation reacquainted faculty and staff to the Momentum Approach principles and served as the platform to reflect on the individual ways in which participants were already contributing to the momentum approach, or to identify new opportunities.

Lessons Learned / Next Steps

The next step in this process is to connect with individual units in a more focused and intimate setting, where the connection with the Momentum Approach strategies and principles takes a more individual and detailed perspective. (This is step will take place in spring 2022).

 

Activity / Strategy

Student Life and Housing communication of the Momentum Approach

Process / Steps

Student Life and housing maintains active communication campaigns and social media outreach and engagement protocols. The institution will use these avenues to highlight and promote the Momentum Approach elements directly to students.

Person responsible

Michael Butcher, AVP for Student Affairs, Dean of Students, and Title IX Coordinator

Update / Activity Status

The institution continues to do individual outreach through programming and intentional conversations with students in both Student Life and Residence Life and Housing. However, the outreach has not been branded through the Momentum Approach.

Lessons Learned / Next Steps

During the reminder of the academic year, the institution will develop an intentional marketing campaign through various online social media and engagement platforms, educating students on the connection of these outreach efforts to the Momentum Approach.

 

Activity / Strategy

Momentum Approach Peer Video

Process / Steps

Peer tutors/SI will be engaged in the creation of a student-to-student explanation of the Momentum Year and the Momentum Approach. This video will be archived and will be available for use in various activities, like orientation (Navigate), Coastal Discovery Workshops, etc.

Person responsible

German Vargas, AVP for Academic Student Engagement
Niki Schmauch, Director of Academic Support

Update / Activity Status

Peer tutors/SI are currently applying the Momentum Year framework when working with students both one-on-one and in groups. This practice enforces the elements of the framework in student terms and through student experiences. They have been engaged in the creation of the videos shared under Section 4.1, Growth Mindset (https://navigate.ccga.edu/uploaded/Videos/4-ItsAllInYourHead.mp4) and, Credit Hour (https://navigate.ccga.edu/uploaded/Videos/5-WhatsACreditHour.mp4), which exhibit student-to-student explanations of the Momentum Year and the Momentum Approach.

Lessons Learned / Next Steps

Focus groups are being held to determine the material to be used in additional videos; peer tutors/SI will continue to be engaged in this discussion to make sure they fully internalize the Momentum principles and can assist the institution in the delivery of these principles in a way that connects with the student population.

 

Activity / Strategy

Quality Enhancement Plan (QEP) Development

Process / Steps

Our next QEP will focus on integrating more career-focused initiatives into advising as well as other curricular and co-curricular activities. This concept involves improvements to pathways, better communication of purpose and a strong development of several forms of productive academic mindset (social belonging, purpose, value).

Person responsible

Jennifer Hatchel, Associate Professor of Biology and QEP Committee Chair / Brian Weese, Director of COMPASS Career and Academic Advising

Update / Activity Status

The QEP has been fully developed and the institution is ready for its SACSCOC On-site reaffirmation visit. This QEP has always maintained a strong alignment with the Momentum Year and Momentum Approach, and the work from COMPASS Career and Academic Advising will continue to be a great contributor to the institutional Momentum Approach efforts.

Lessons Learned / Next Steps

The institution is looking forward to the SACSCOC visit from November 8th through 10th and is excited to engage in the year-by-year implementation of the plan.

 

Update on Faculty and Staff Outreach and Support

Activity / Strategy

USG Faculty Groups

Process / Steps

Engage institutional faculty involved in the USG’s Chancellor’s Learning Scholars and the HIPS Implementation Team in training and professional development activities that promote and support the implementation of the Momentum Approach activities across the faculty.

Person responsible

Laura Lynch, AVP for Faculty Affairs

Update / Activity Status

The HIPs implementation team led two faculty workshops as part of the fall 2021 launch week activities and one of the HIPs team members is providing a third follow-up workshop in November 2021 specifically on ePortfolios as part of the Center for Teaching and Learning’s planned Ed Tech Week.

The College’s Director for Service-Learning and Undergraduate Research, who is leading the implementation efforts for the Endeavor Program was also selected as a Chancellor’s Learning Scholar for the 2021-2022 academic year specifically to bring HIPs into the work of the Endeavor program. Each of the Chancellor’s Learning Scholars lead a team of faculty through a learning community that is focusing on implementing High Impact Practices.

Lessons Learned / Next Steps

ePortfolios has become a central component of the College’s new Quality Enhancement Plan (submitted to SACSCOC in September 2021). As the QEP is implemented, the College will continue to use these USG Faculty Groups to engage and train more faculty specifically with the high impact practice of ePortfolios. The QEP, along with the Endeavor program, will institutionalize HIPs.

 

Activity / Strategy

Momentum Approach module in the New Faculty Orientation

Process / Steps

The New Faculty Orientation Program will be enhanced by the addition of a module dedicated to training and preparing faculty to support the implementation of the Momentum Approach.

Person responsible

Laura Lynch, AVP for Faculty Affairs

Update / Activity Status

The Office of Academic Affairs updates a New Faculty Survival Guide each semester, which is distributed to new faculty and also biennially distributed to all faculty as a reminder. The Fall 2021 edition of the guide included several pages that explain the Momentum Approach, including ideas to incorporate mindset into the classroom, as well as a couple of pages on “Seven Principles for Good Practice in Teaching” based on Chickering & Gamson’s book that also focus on productive academic mindset. (See Appendix B: 2021 Fall - New Faculty Survival Guide).

Lessons Learned / Next Steps

As previously mentioned, the College is expanding the New Faculty Orientation to include a spring faculty learning community focusing on advising, and mindset components will be included in those discussions.

 

Activity / Strategy

Momentum Approach Discussions at Department Meetings

Process / Steps

Academic Affairs will coordinate with each department to host a series of conversations to evaluate, from a discipline specific perspective, how each department can support the implementation of the Momentum Approach.

Person responsible

German Vargas, AVP for Academic Student Engagement /
Deans and Department Chairs

Update / Activity Status

As indicated in the activity update for the Momentum Approach Presentation during Launch, the next step of engagement of Faculty are the departmental discussions across campus. These discussions are planned for spring 2022.

Lessons Learned / Next Steps

N/A

 

Activity / Strategy

Momentum Approach Discussions with units across Campus

Process / Steps

Academic Affairs will engage staff across campus to discuss how each unit can support the implementation of the Momentum Approach.

Person responsible

German Vargas, AVP for Academic Student Engagement /
VPs of each area

Update / Activity Status

As indicated in the activity update for the Momentum Approach Presentation during Launch, the next step of engagement of staff across campus are the individual unit discussion. These discussions are planned for spring 2022.

Lessons Learned / Next Steps

N/A

 

Update on Data Plan

Activity / Strategy

Momentum Dashboard

Process / Steps

As described in the Resilience Plans section above, the institution will develop a Momentum Dashboard with key metrics that will allow us to be more agile to intervene and assist students that are not on track. This Dashboard will be developed in such a way that individual departments and program can track and analyze their data, which in turn will enhance their ability to support the students in their disciplines.

Person responsible

Diana Leal, Director of Enterprise Services /
German Vargas, AVP for Academic Student Engagement

Update / Activity Status

(See Section 4.1: Momentum Work Resilience Update - Momentum Dashboard)

Lessons Learned / Next Steps

(See Section 4.1: Momentum Work Resilience Update - Momentum Dashboard)

 

Activity / Strategy

Course Success Dashboard

Process / Steps

The John Gardner Institute provided a robust data dashboard for analyzing and disaggregating student DFWI rates in gateway courses. As we complete our three-year G2C project, we are developing our own datablock to parse through data in a similar way and with numerous additional features requested by faculty in the G2C process.

Person responsible

Diana Leal, Director of Enterprise Services /
Laura Lynch, AVP for Faculty Affairs

Update / Activity Status

The datablock within the Argos reporting platform has been created to expand on the G2C platform DFWI tables by including the following parameters to parse out data:

Additional Student Parameters:

  • Graduation Status (how many students graduated in a subsequent term after taking the course)
  • Student Major
  • Student Type (specifically, dual enrollment or not)

Additional Instructor/Course Parameters

  • Instructor
  • Instructor Type (Full or Part time)
  • Class Type (face-to-face, hybrid, online)
  • Course Capacity
  • Credit Hours taught by Instructor
  • Contact Hours taught by Instructor

Lessons Learned / Next Steps

The computational time for this query is expensive. Thus, we are restructuring the datablock into separate queries for student-focused parameters and instructor/course parameters. Once the restructure is complete, the datablock will be accessible to all school deans and department chairs to help in our ongoing analysis of course success rates and potential course improvements.

 

Update on Program Maps and Pressure Tests

Activity / Strategy

Momentum Enhancement to the Grade Distribution OLAP

Process / Steps

The institution has robust dashboards to evaluate various progression and academic achievement metrics. One of the dashboards that will be enhanced to assist in pressure testing program maps will be the Grade Distribution OLAP (online analytical processing cube, a table with dynamic columns and rows similar to Excel’s pivot table function). The enhancement will allow individual programs and departments to shift the focus of evaluation from being course centric (overall course grade distribution), to being student centric (likelihood of progressing through their program map).

Person responsible

Diana Leal, Director of Enterprise Services /
German Vargas, AVP for Academic Student Engagement

Update / Activity Status

This dashboard has been fully developed and was shared with school deans on 10/07/2021. This dashboard has extended the functionality of an already detailed and robust dashboard. With this extended functionality, department chairs will be able to analyze the progression through courses in the curriculum for their individual programs, and will allow them to pressure test and identify courses that may be creating progression bottlenecks, or courses that students are taking and that are off-track from their prescribed 4-year program maps.

Lessons Learned / Next Steps

This level of detail in reporting will need to be paired with extensive training and testing to make sure it provides the needed information and utility for academic units.

 

Activity / Strategy

DegreeWorks Student Planner

Process / Steps

Once the DegreeWorks student planner is implemented, we will be able to create reports based on the data that help us determine how many students need a particular course in a certain semester.

Person responsible

Diana Leal, Director of Enterprise Services /
Laura Lynch, AVP for Faculty Affairs

Update / Activity Status

This is on hold until the implementation of the DegreeWorks Student Planner feature is completed.

Lessons Learned / Next Steps

Once this feature is implemented, this will allow us to begin creating data reports potentially in spring 2022. The College is also looking at the feasibility of implementing CourseDog’s course scheduling suite of products which includes demand analytics using the DegreeWorks Student Planner feature.

SECTION 5: OPTIONAL SUPPLEMENTAL UPDATES

If there are elements of your critical CCG/student success work that is not detailed above that you wish to provide an update on, please use this section to indicate this.

The updates above are a detailed account of the institutional progress in the Momentum Approach plan, but for the College of Coastal Georgia, the impact on student success in not centralized on any particular set of strategies, it is a cultural commitment that permeates all processes and activities across the institution. Below you can find a small subset of those activities that are critical to our CCG/student success work:

  • First, one of the big lessons learned from the pandemic, is that lack of access to technology should not be a barrier for student progression, and that the College needed to take an active approach to provide a leveled playing field for students that lacked the resources to progress in an environment where online education was so prevalent. From the initiatives launched during the pandemic, the College has continued to support students with a Laptop Loan program, and continues to proactively track students’ access to their online course materials to make sure they have all the necessary resources and do not fall behind at the beginning of each term.
  • Beyond the technology access and support, the institution has now implemented an intrusive and proactive success monitoring campaign that includes course engagement monitoring during the first week of classes, attendance monitoring during the second week, early alert reports during week 4, midterm course attendance and engagement evaluation during week 8, academic risk assessment during week 10, advising and registration support throughout the term, and weekly always alert referrals.
  • Through various communities of practice and engagements led by the Center for Teaching and Learning, faculty often engage in discussion and activities, like book clubs, to promote best practices, and to identify opportunities to promote student success.
  • Administrative processes and procedures are regularly evaluated to make sure that they are not presenting roadblocks to students, and that are helping the institution deliver a seamless and supportive student experience.
 

[1] Total enrollment, FTE, and all demographic information are based on USG Semester Enrollment Report and persisted report data for fall 2021; the academic achievement metrics are based on Bfootfoanner SIS data for the fall 2020 cohort