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Columbus State University Campus Plan Update 2021

SECTION I: INSTITUTIONAL MISSION AND STUDENT BODY PROFILE

Columbus State University (CSU) is a four-year public institution that offers 133 programs at the certificate, associate, bachelor’s, master’s, specialist, and doctoral levels. Many degrees are conferred in professional areas at both undergraduate and graduate levels in response to student demand and service area needs. Due to the nature of Complete College Georgia, this report only concerns our undergraduate degree programs and primarily focuses on efforts and strategies aimed at student success that aligns with our Momentum Approach Implementation Plan and Calendar. 

Institutional Mission

The mission of CSU is to “empower individuals to contribute to the advancement of our local and global communities through an emphasis on excellence in teaching and research, life-long learning, cultural enrichment, public/private partnerships, and service to others.” The institutional focus on excellence in teaching and research as well as the emphasis on life-long learning, cultural enrichment, public-private partnerships and service to others influences the key priorities of the college completion work that CSU has undertaken. The University financially supports student research and creative inquiry projects facilitated by faculty mentors. CSU has a strong commitment to service and has provided significant leadership in meeting the needs of the community, the region, and the state through endeavors such as Dual Enrollment, service to military-affiliated students, Embark on Education (for homeless and foster youths), BOOST (childcare reimbursement program), and the development of high-quality online programs and services that allow students to decrease time to completion regardless of their geographic location and to continue their higher education in the age of COVID-19.

Student Body Profile

The University System of Georgia (USG) designates CSU as one of the three “access” institutions within the state because no State Colleges in the USG are located within the geographic service area. The service area of Columbus State University is defined as these Georgia counties: Chattahoochee, Harris, Marion, Meriwether, Muscogee, Stewart, Talbot, Taylor, and Troup. In Fall 2021, 46.2% of the new student population was drawn from these counties. A breakdown of demographics for FYFT freshmen (such as 57.8% Pell recipient, 23.9% first-generation, 49.8% African American, etc.) is shown in Appendix I: CSU Demographics of Students (2021). 

In a typical year, Columbus State University utilizes moderately selective admissions standards and processes for most applicants (high school grade point average of 2.5 and SAT minimum scores of 440 Critical Reading and 410 Math or ACT English 17/Math 17). In the past, modified standards were utilized for applicants within the local service area in accordance with the University System of Georgia-mandated local access mission (high school grade point average of 2.0 and SAT minimum scores of 330 Critical Reading and 310 Math or ACT English 12/Math 14). But due to the pandemic, CSU has temporarily revised requirements for all high school applicants to the University System of Georgia minimum requirements of high school GPA for state universities and not requiring ACT or SAT scores as entrance requirements. As a result, CSU ADVISE has devised an extensive intentional advising plan that targets students identified as high-risk. Learning Support Services are also essential to support academic and integrative needs of this population group. These efforts are to foster retention, progression, and graduation rates and are supported by our Strengthening Institutional Partnerships (SIP) grant awarded by the U.S. Department of Education.

While the University takes pride in its role as an access institution, this role presents challenges in retention and student success. Nonetheless, due to CSU best practices, retention and graduation rates had increased overall in the last eight years, until COVID-19 hit in 2020. The overall CSU retention rates, 2012-2020, for first-time full-time (FTFT) freshmen had increased from 66.2% to 74.9%, yielding an increase of 8.7% over eight years. Unfortunately, the FTFT retention rate for the 2020 cohort dipped to 59.4%, probably a result of a combination of factors, such as lower COVID admission standards, student fatigue with the continued impact of the global pandemic, student difficulty with online learning, and an increase in students who stayed home but who have now transferred out to their intended college. 

However, even as the retention rate has decreased. the graduation rate has risen from 30.5% to 43.2%, an increase of 12.7%. See p. 7 for details concerning our graduation rate and our dedication to 15-to-Finish. 

For its 2021 CCG Campus Plan Update, CSU focused on topics developed from Momentum Summit IV:

Section 2: Improvement Priorities

Becoming a transfer-friendly institution (Clear Pathways)

Reducing equity gaps in courses that have large gaps (Clear Pathways)

Identifying and implementing high impact practices (Academic Engagement)

Enhancing the co-curricular experience (Critical Milestones)

Making students career-ready through internships and experiential learning (Purposeful choice, Academic Engagement)

Emphasizing 15-to-Finish (Clear Pathways)

Cultivating productive academic mindsets (Productive Academic Mindset)

Section 3: CSU’s Big Idea: Smart Guidance 

Section 4: Momentum Work Resilience 

Section 5: Existing Momentum Work

SECTION 2: IMPROVEMENT PRIORITIES

The CSU Momentum team has chosen seven priority areas, aiming to be broadly inclusive of faculty and staff across the institution.  Of the seven Improvement Priorities listed above, three involve Clear Pathways, one addresses Critical Milestones, one aligns with Purposeful Choice, two foster Academic Engagement, and another develops Productive Academic Mindsets. CSU has focused on these particular improvement practices to remove or lessen structural and motivational obstacles that students face and to improve the success outcomes for our campus. 

Becoming a transfer-friendly institution (Clear Pathways)

CSU’s first Improvement Priority is becoming a more transfer friendly institution by doing the following:

  • Creating a Transfer Task Force to identify barriers to transfer student progression and recommend solutions to make CSU a transfer-friendly institution
  • Determining how to not transfer unusable credits
  • Initiating a centralized web location of all PLA options and required scores
  • Promoting PLA options and process as early as possible
  • Improving the timing of transfer credit evaluations
  • Increasing the number of free electives in majors
  • Developing a concierge approach to transfer and PLA-related services

Reducing equity gaps in courses that have large gaps (Clear Pathways)

The second Improvement Priority focuses on reducing equity gaps (gaps in course completion rates between different groupings of students) by doing the following:

  • Developing a Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging (DEIB) Plan in each College
  • Identifying a course or sequence of courses in which to address equity gaps  in each department or program
  • Providing information and workshops on equitable teaching strategies through the Faculty Center for the Enhancement of Teaching and Learning
  • Adding a question in the course evaluation process that enables students to reflect on their experience with equity

G2C Course Redesign was CSU’s first venture into examining equity gaps. From 2018-2021, CSU was actively engaged in the Gateways to Completion (G2C) initiative to redesign four critical gateway courses: ENGL 1101: English Composition 1; MATH 1111: College Algebra; COMM 1110: Public Speaking; and ECON 2015: Macroeconomics. Since 2018, appropriate CSU faculty and administrators have participated in all system-sponsored G2C events and the institution has moved forward to complete the inventory, administer the student survey, and prepare academic teams. 

AY 2019-2020 marked our second year of the redesign process. Efforts continued in spring 2020, but many strategies were disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic; due to the disruptions, our Act & Refine period was extended through Fall 2021. In Fall 2021, CSU submitted its 3rd year reports and completed its reporting for G2C. Course completion rates haven’t shown the desired improvements, possibly because of disruptions caused by the pandemic. We plan to maintain a continuous improvement approach with these courses, even though the redesign period will have formally ended. We’re also planning to extend the work to benefit other courses and programs. G2C-style course completion data (disaggregated using the same categories used for the G2C process) has been generated for all undergraduate courses at CSU that enrolled at least 40 students in a 5-year period. This report has been shared with academic departments so they can prioritize a course or sequence of courses for improvement. The lessons learned in the G2C process -- including instructional and assessment strategies, academic support systems, and potential institutional barriers -- will be leveraged to support departments and programs as they plan improvements.  

Identifying and implementing high impact practices (Academic Engagement)

The HIPS team at CSU has developed both short-term and long-term goals for identifying and implementing HIPs. CSU is committed to designing its bachelor’s degree programs in such a way that all students have a chance to experience at least three courses that incorporate HIPs. The following are the HIPs being emphasized at this time because they are the most widely practiced; separate efforts are underway to provide high-quality first-year experiences and to promote internships and experiential learning, as well. 

  • Writing-Intensive Courses
  • Collaborative Assignments and Projects
  • Undergraduate Research
  • Diversity/Global Learning

Activity 

Process/Steps 

Person responsible 

Completion date 

Collecting a snapshot of our current efforts in the 4 designated practice areas

HIPs Implementation Team studying NSSE data as well as creating a new faculty survey. The new survey will ask faculty to identify extent of 8 key elements they incorporate into any of the 4 HIPs and which should become the focus for faculty workshops in 2021-22

Alfredo Perez, Toni Franklin, Nehal Shukla, Andrew Donofrio, Susan Hrach

  June 2021

Faculty who lead efforts in Undergraduate Research to gain external development

Participate in the Council for Undergraduate Research Summer Institute, “Centering Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Undergraduate Research and Creative Activity”

Lauren King, Diana Riser, Nehal Shukla

  June 23-25, 2021

Development of workshop programming for 2021-22 

Use Spring 2021 survey to identify top priorities among 8 key elements of HIPs to focus faculty development for AY 22

Susan Hrach

  August 2021

Recommendations for earning designator in Banner for at least 4 HIPs*, possibly to extend to Internships and Capstones as quality control

HIPs Implementation Team in consultation with Faculty Center and Provost’s office to recommend criteria and process for designating HIPs at the course level in Banner

Alfredo Perez, Toni Franklin, Nehal Shukla, Andrew Donofrio, Susan Hrach, Tim Howard

9/ 2021 for spring 2022 courses,

1/2022 for summer/fall 2022 courses.

Enhancing the co-curricular experience (Critical Milestones)  

At CSU, the fourth Improvement Priority of enhancing the co-curricular experience involves two subtopics, 1) milestones in every program and 2) Smart Guidance and ROAR orientations (see Section 3: CSU’s Big Idea– Smart Guidance). 

Activity 

Process/Steps 

Person responsible 

Completion date 

Identify how to get students to download Smart Guidance

(See Section 3: CSU’s Big Idea -Smart Guidance)

Specific moment in ROAR orientations where students all download the app together.

  • Success in First Year
  • Cougar Chats
  • Guidebook
  • Pre-Orientation Modules

 ROAR/Advising

August 2021

Identify additional academic related milestones (department Convocation events)

Identify general/overarching academic milestones

Create submission process for departments and colleges 

Melissa Young

Melissa Dempsey

Kelly Koch

August 2021

Incorporate Majors & Careers Milestones

Work with Mariko and set deadline to identify

Center for Experiential Learning and Career Design

April 15, 2021

As part of the enhancement of the co-curricular experience, CSU ADVISE has developed milestones by program and has built select items onto program maps through EAB. 

Strategy or activity 

Developing Milestones by Program and Building Select Items onto Program Maps Through EAB (Clear Pathways)

Summary of Activities 

  • Ask department chairs and others to identify key activities/courses that correlate to progression in academic programs. 
  • Build milestone information onto program maps.
  • Communicate planned events to advisors so that AFA students can be connected to appropriate events to help them settle on a major. 
  • Align soft skills with NACE.

People Responsible

Melissa Dempsey, Melissa Young, Mariko Izumi, Eli Argueta

Those Involved with Decision Making

Academic Affairs, Student Affairs, Department Chairs, CSU ADVISE

Outcomes/Measures of progress 

This goal will be accomplished department by department so it may take a while to achieve; clear communication to chairs, to advisors, and to students is key to success.

Challenges

Obstacle: EAB (advising platform) and Courseleaf (catalog) are not integrated. Information added to EAB will have to be manually updated in Courseleaf. 

CSU ADVISE has developed EAB Success Markers for every major/track/degree on campus. The extensive EXCEL spreadsheet identifies up to five success markers (usually a particular course), minimum grade, and desired time to complete the marker (e.g. 30-45 hours). Much has been achieved in 2020-2021 but there is more to do. 

Making students career-ready through internships and experiential learning (Purposeful Choice, Academic Engagement)

A fifth Improvement Priority for CSU is integrating career awareness and career services into students’ college experiences. Studies have shown that students are better motivated to complete college when the career outcome is concrete and attainable and they recognize the importance of their studies to achieving their career aspirations. If there’s a job awaiting them, they have a greater likelihood of finishing. CSU has provided more internships, experiential learning, and career guidance in the senior year than ever. 

Activity 

Process/Steps 

Person responsible 

Completion date 

Start developing career milestones for inclusion in program maps with each department

Select two departments (e.g., computer science and theater) to pilot program mapping 

·       visit department to identify career-related skills in the related industries

·       map the skills/location on the program map

·       integrate micro-internships with courses 

  Mariko Izumi/ Jovan Johnson

  April 2022

Faculty Development  

Project-Based Learning Institute (summer)
Soft Skills Course

Izumi/ Johnson
Mariko Izumi

Dec. 2022

Emphasizing 15-to-Finish (Clear Pathways)

The sixth Improvement Priority that CSU has focused on in the past year is 15-to-Finish. In 2013, a review of institutional data indicated that many students were not enrolled in a minimum of 15 credit hours each term. In Fall 2013, 3,680 undergraduate students were taking less than 15 credit hours per term. This group had an average overall GPA of 2.81. During the same term, 1,015 were enrolled in 15 or more credit hours. The average overall GPA of that group was 3.12. A campus-wide initiative was implemented in Summer 2014 to provide new students, beginning in Fall 2014, with 15-hour schedules for their first term of study. These schedules were developed in advance by academic advisors with input from the students. The following chart illustrates that, until COVID hit, CSU had decreased the number of full-time freshmen (FTF) enrolled in fewer than 24 credits (blue bar) and increased the number of students enrolled in 24-30+ hours (orange and grey bars). 

https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/4An657F3-JS41g7YERKCYdNqUiJXrmiOlJSN0vTffAqhOY5PgfZQ23RnPhRgv3JbgEyc-JyK2Jut9mlaXn4UjDkhESCYOKy9h9AxBDAHNvLIFQaLfmmxIFnwKci_xw=s0

Since Fall 2014, we have provided information on the 15-to-Finish campaign to incoming students through our orientation presentations and to professional/faculty advisors through our advising training sessions throughout fall and spring semesters. Here is a chart showing some of our activities:

Activity 

Process/Steps 

Person responsible 

Completion date 

Develop college strategies to offer courses in formats that enable more students to take 15 hours (online asynchronous courses, half-term courses, Jan-term courses. block scheduling, cohort models)

Each dean develops a strategy to add each of these course types

  Deans

 Dec. 15, 2021

Work with advisers to develop persuasive tools

1.Discuss 15-to-Finish with advisers, gauge their level of buy-in

2.Educate/persuade advisers, as needed

3.Collaborate with advisers to identify resources needed to discuss with students

Tim Howard and advisers in CSU Advise

Dec. 15, 2021

Survey students, asking reasons they don’t take 15 hours

1.Develop Qualtrics survey

2.Distribute survey around fall registration 

3.Analyze results

Institutional Research

Nov. 15, 2021

Increase on campus work opportunities for students

Explore ways to employ more students on campus through work study and student employment

Deans, HR,  and academic and nonacademic department heads

Ongoing

Due to our 15-to-Finish efforts, we have improved our 6-year graduation rate by 13% in just 5 years.

6 year graduation rate

Key to putting 15-to-Finish in practice is understanding why students chose to take less than 15 hours in a semester. Data was collected from the Fall 2021 In-person ROAR Orientation Student Survey that shed some light on this problem. This is how students responded to “For the Fall semester, my advisor scheduled me for…”:

→18 or more credit hours 5.22% (55 students) 

→Between 15 and 17 credit hours 71.42% (752 students)

→Less than 15 credit hours 23.36% (246 students) 

When we drilled down into the reasons why students did not take 15 hours, we discovered some responses that warrant further discussion. In a few cases, it might be possible to persuade students to take a few credits more in order to propel them to graduate sooner and to encourage them to take greater responsibility for their future.

We learned that some students end up with 14 hours in their first semester while fully expecting to take 16 hours in their second semester. Discussions about this and the feedback from our students have led our team to also look at a yearlong perspective, tracking the proportion of students completing 30 hours in their first year. This will allow us to take CSU’s unique January-term into account, along with summer terms, while looking at the overall pace. We’re currently building baseline data for this model.

Feedback for <15 credit hoursPassive = I don’t know, it was what I was assigned, that’s what I was given, etc. 

Active = work full time, can only take classes in the morning, play baseball, dual enrollment, need to audition yet, wanted easier schedule, can’t drive, needed remedial classes, etc.

Change/Explain =  students addressed their class schedule, explaining that they will be adding classes, that a particular class they wanted was full, that they changed majors and will be dropping/adding a class, that a class didn’t fit their time schedule, etc. 

Not Valid =  responses did not answer the question (Nursing major, not currently registered for classes, “I have a meeting,” “my GPA in high school,” “ggg,” etc. 

 

Cultivating productive academic mindsets

Students begin their college experience at CSU by taking the Mindset Survey, a first step in getting them to think about how their mindset affects their chances of success. Since Fall 2017, CSU has distributed the Academic Mindset survey every semester to all incoming first-year students. Since then CSU has turned its focus not just to measuring Mindset of freshmen, but to assessing it among faculty and staff and to cultivating a productive academic mindset in students, CSU’s seventh Improvement Priority. 

CSU ADVISE provides advising and academic coaching as well as peer mentoring SIP (Strengthening Institutional Programs) grant services to probation students, students not making Satisfactory Academic Progress (SAP), and transfer students. Specifically, CSU ADVISE’s academic coaches and peer mentors provide coaching on time management, note-taking, study strategies, organization, and effective communication. Services are offered during the day, night, and weekends to meet student needs. In Fall 2019, the National Center for Developmental Education (NCDE) provided CSU ADVISE’s SIP grant with metacognitive training modules for its academic coaches and peer mentors.  In Fall 2020, the NCDE provided virtual training on encouraging growth mindsets and self-efficacy. In Fall 2021, NCDE training was extended to Peer Instruction Leaders (PILs), who implement a modified version of Supplemental Instruction in courses strategically targeted for improvement of course completion rates. As a result, the academic coaches, peer mentors, and PILs learned to implement techniques and strategies to help the students they serve to better understand and adjust their academic mindsets.  

Summary of Activities 

Mindset surveys administered at the beginning and the end of each semester, but particularly in the fall. Fall participants = 1137; Spring 2020 participants = 679 (low due to COVID-19 closure).

Person Responsible

Office of Institutional Research and Effectiveness, Tim Howard, Academic Affairs, CSU ADVISE, USG

Outcomes/Measures of progress 

In 2018, The First Year Experience (FYE) program and CSU ADVISE were awarded a three-million dollar Strengthening Institutions Programs (SIP) grant from USDOE, which supports a cohort of academic coaches and peer mentors, a Learning Support Resource Center, and consulting from nationally recognized experts. These services are aligned with instilling Growth Mindsets in students who can most benefit from it.

Lessons Learned and Plans for the Future 

Students will probably change their mindsets faster if faculty understand the topic better and reinforce it. Since 2018, CSU’s Faculty Center for the Enhancement of Teaching and Learning has scaled up the discussion about Mindsets among faculty by offering workshops every semester, thereby encouraging discussion of the topic during its new faculty orientation series, offering book circles on the topic, and offering forums for faculty, staff, and administrators to develop practices to help students see academic difficulties and challenges as opportunities for growth.

Changes because of COVID-19 

COVID-19 has not directly affected plans for addressing Academic Mindset but it has made training and coaching more difficult as most activities temporarily shifted to online strategies.

EAB Software at Columbus State University

There are two pillars of EAB software at CSU: Navigate and Smart Guidance. 

Navigate is a comprehensive student success management system that links administrators, faculty, staff, and advisors across campus in a coordinated care network to support students from enrollment to graduation and beyond. It incorporates:

  • Predictive Analytics 
  • Appointment Centers/Scheduling Software
  • Advising Notes/Tutoring Notes
  • Early Alerts/Referrals
  • Progress Reports
  • Attendance 
  • Communication Tool: Text and Email
  • Reporting 

Smart Guidance, our newest pillar of EAB software, is the student-facing part of the platform, which can be accessed via mobile application. It includes features such as:

  • Intake Survey
  • To-do Lists
  • Reminders
  • Academic Planning 
  • Registration
  • Polls/Surveys
  • Study Buddies
  • Student Resources

Smart Guidance Implementation

The EAB Smart Guidance student facing app soft-launched to students in Fall 2020. We sent out marketing via CSU email, put it in CSU email newsletters, put it on our social media channels, mentioned it during advising appointments, and discussed the app with students during virtual orientations. However, we quickly noticed that we needed a better way to reach out to students about the app because it was not being downloaded at the rate we expected and we began discussions to market it heavily during freshmen orientation. 

Starting in May 2021, a full roll-out geared towards incoming students attending orientation began. While we are focusing our marketing to incoming freshmen, the Smart Guidance app is available for all undergraduate students. Our marketing campaign targeted incoming freshmen coming through Summer 2021 orientation. Students were given Smart Guidance handouts in their orientation bag and Smart Guidance was promoted during several sessions by both advisors and ROAR leaders. The current number of students who have downloaded the app is 1,147 (as of 10/11/2021). In comparison, during the Fall 2020 semester, only 141 students downloaded the app. 

Features of Smart Guidance include, academic planning, appointment scheduling (tutoring, advising, study abroad, etc.), study buddies, the ability to view holds, the ability to view meeting notes, a to-do list, a calendar of events, push notifications, an intake survey, and the ability to view all resources and support offices on campus. With the plethora of features available within Smart Guidance, we foresee this app becoming a game changer in the way we communicate with CSU students. 

Intake Survey

Upon downloading the Smart Guidance app, students are required to complete an intake survey. This survey is reset each academic year and students are prompted to retake it. See Appendix II for a list of Smart Guidance Intake Survey Questions that we ask students.  

Student answers to the intake survey questions are used to connect them with support centers and services applicable to them. For example, students who indicate they are interested in Tutoring Services are contacted directly by the Academic Center for Tutoring. We also use the intake survey answers to target students as marketing for our CSU ADVISE College Knowledge Workshops. These workshops are meant as an extension of the orientation process and meant to deliver important information to students. 

Smart Guidance Features

Holds - Holds have been loaded into the app that alert students when they have a hold on their BANNER account. Holds range from advising holds, audition holds, Bursar holds, transcripts holds, immunization holds, Dean of Student holds, orientation holds, etc. Furthermore, the app provides students with information on how to release these holds as well as contact information for that department. 

Push Notifications - This feature can be used several ways. If students give the app permission to send push notifications, students can set up their own reminders, get notifications on their holds, when a faculty/staff/advisor reaches out to them, new survey notifications, etc.

Study Buddies - Using study buddies, students will be able to identify other students in their classes who are looking to form a study group. This digital ‘matching’ service will allow students to connect to each other. 

Academic Planning

The Academic Planning feature inside Smart Guidance will allow a student to see their entire four-year plan laid out from their very first semester. Essentially, academic planning brings CSU’s program maps to life. In alignment with the Momentum Approach, having a clear pathway to graduation aids in retention and also aligns with the 15 to Finish initiative. Furthermore, students can instantly visualize the impact of their decisions related to credit hour production. For example, if a student drops a course or decides to take less than 15 credit hours, they can instantly see how it will impact their graduation date. Advisors and students will also be able to interact via the app to adjust and collaborate on their academic plans. Deans and chairs will be able to use student plans to predict course needs/seats and help pressure test program maps (see Appendix IV: Pressure Testing Program Maps). The one drawback to Academic Planning is that each degree/program must be built by hand. CSU ADVISE currently has four team members trained to build programs in academic planning. Since this task is manual and time consuming, plans have only been built back to the 19/20 catalog year. 

Success Markers

As part of the Momentum Approach, Dean and Department Chairs have been solicited to identify Success Markers for all CSU degrees/programs. Advisors have also been included in this process. These Success Markers will identify courses that are essential to each degree and act as pivotal courses needed for students to be successful in their major. Success Markers are able to be noted by a required grade and a timeline to completion (i.e. students must pass class with a C or better before they reach 30 hours). If a Success Marker is missed, advisors will be able to reach out to a student immediately to intervene. Smart Guidance will allow us to push a notification to students about these missed success markers. 

Co-Curricular 

Smart Guidance and Academic Planning also aligns with the Momentum Approach goal to engage students with co-curricular activities. These milestones are being identified by department chairs, Student Life, the Center for Experiential Learning and Career Design, advising, etc. For example, students will be prompted when to apply for graduation or when to take required entrance exams for their majors, such as the HESI for Nursing or the GACE for Education. Student Life and academic advising co-curricular activities have been loaded into the Smart Guidance app. Work is underway to identify departmental activities in collaboration with the Center for Experiential Learning and Career Design. 

Using Academic Planning for Registration 

We are currently in the implementation process to use Academic Planning as a registration tool. Implementation has taken longer than expected as we coordinate with EAB, ITS Athens, and CSU’s UITS department. Originally projected to go live in Fall 2021, the expected date of completion has been pushed to Spring 2022.  

Reaching “at-risk” students (See also Appendix III: Summary of Activities and Measure of Success)

In order to help "at-risk" students persist toward graduation, advisors at CSU utilize predictive analytics through the use of EAB Navigate which takes into consideration ten years of CSU student data and develops a predicted risk level for all CSU students. This risk level indicates whether students are at a low, medium, or high risk of not graduating from CSU. This risk level is taken into consideration during annual advising appointments, major selection, and is used for targeted campaign interventions/outreach via EAB Navigate and Smart Guidance. Some examples of targeted interventions are, students with low midterm grades, non-productive grades, courses that do not apply to their degree plan, etc. 

University Support Program (USP)

As part of the Strengthening Institutions Programs (SIP) Grant, we have eliminated Probation/Exclusion. Students are now placed on University Support Standing (USS), which is managed via EAB Navigate. SIP Advisors utilize EAB Navigate and Smart Guidance to schedule two mandatory meetings each semester with USS students. Notes are taken in EAB for students to refer back to. Furthermore, peer coaching sessions, peer tutoring, group workshops, retention workshops, etc. are scheduled, managed, and tracked through EAB Navigate and Smart Guidance. The use of Smart Guidance will extend our reach to these students. 

Faculty Engagement* 

The number of faculty engaging with EAB products has increased over the past year. We hope that the implementation of Smart Guidance will continue to increase faculty utilization. 

Fall 2019

54.75%

Spring 2020

23.10%

Fall 2020

72.76%  

Spring 2021

66.02%

*Engagement is determined by completing at least one of the following: scheduling appointments, adding availability, making notes on student accounts, texting/emailing through the platform, taking attendance, issuing alerts, and responding to progress reports.

EAB Navigate is utilized 100% percent as the daily student scheduling, engagement, and tracking tool for CSU ADVISE. In addition, the use of Smart Guidance will increase our chances of connecting with our students since we are meeting them where they are. 

 SECTION 4: UPDATING MOMENTUM WORK RESILIENCE

Section 4.1: COVID-19’s Impact

The pandemic certainly hindered our plans for the Momentum Year and the overall Momentum Approach. In this section, we outline our progress on implementing our resilience strategies. We will look at what we have accomplished since Momentum Summit IV, how we are currently challenged, what successes we have had, whether we have amended our original plan, how we are supporting the success of all students (including Black, Latinx, and First-Generation), and what we can do to ensure our work is sustainable and resilient. 

SECTION 4.3: GLOBAL MOMENTUM SUPPORT

Communication Planning 

Activity 

Process/Steps 

Person responsible 

Completion date 

HIPs Implementation

Public-facing Google site already created for repository of resources

  HIPsters

June 2021

The co-curricular experience

-Market Smart Guidance to students/campus
-Communicate submission process 

  Advising/SLD

Ongoing  

  Career 

Collect information from faculty what skills/competencies are important for their programs 

Experiential Learning Center 

April 2022

  15-to-Finish

1.Deans communicate with their colleges about course formats and needs

2.Share data + tools with advisers

1.Deans

2.Tim Howard

1.9/1/2021

2.12/15/2021

Data Plan 

Activity 

Process/Steps 

Person responsible 

Completion date 

 HIP Implementation

Define HIP, get institutional background, names of people working in each HIP

HIPsters

  June 2021

The co-curricular experience

1.App usage data

2.Event attendance scanning/tracking data

Advising

UITS/IR

  Ongoing

Career

1.Qualitative information from faculty; 

2.Handshake usage data for each department

3.Information gathering about internship coordination, plus other steps 

Jovan Johnson  

December 2021

15-to-Finish

1.Use 15-to-Finish BI to help colleges identify areas of need in selecting course formats to enable more students to complete 30 hrs/year

2.Use USG report in discussions w. ADVISE

3.Use Qualtrics survey to learn more about students’ reasons for not taking 30 hrs/year

1.Deans

2.Tim Howard

3.Inst. Research

1.9/1/2021

2.5/31/2021

3.11/15/2021

Faculty and Staff Outreach and Support 

Activity 

Process/Steps 

Person responsible 

Completion date 

HIPs workshops

 Implementation team will recommend topics for fall 2021

HIPsters and Susan Hrach

June 2021

The co-curricular experience

1.Info session during Welcome Week

2.Collaborate with Susan Hrach, Director of the Faculty Center 

Advising/SLD

August 2021

  Career

1.Offer workshops for faculty/staff for helpings students with resume and career conversations

2.Survey faculty about their knowledge/comfort level about career development conversations

Experiential Learning Center 

April 2022

  15-to-Finish

1.Meet with advisers to discuss 15-to-Finish goals and data  

2.Share tools developed with advisers

Tim Howard

1.5/31/2021

2.1/4/2022

All communication avenues proposed are on track, the actions relating to data are proceeding as planned, and faculty and staff outreach is on target. We have not encountered obstacles or resistance. So far, the idiom “Plan your work, and work your plan” rings true for our efforts in Global Momentum Support. 

CSU has chosen to continue critical CCG/student success work that is not detailed above: Academic Focus Areas, Program Maps, Pressure Testing, 2-Year Course Rotation, Off-Ramps, and Free Elective Credits. See Appendix IV for information on Pressure Testing and Appendix V for information on Continuing and Expanding Existing Momentum Work.