15-to-Finish

USG Strategy 2.1: Change institutional culture to emphasize taking full-time course loads (15 or more credits per semester) to earn degrees ‘on-time.’

Three major activities supported Intrusive Academic Advising this past year. They are: (1) Advising with Targeted Tier Populations, (2) Encouragement to enroll in 15 semester credit hours, and (3) the Educational Advisory Board’s Student Success Collaborative (EAB-SSC) pilot project, which was designed to precede the campus-wide implementation of the new advising platform that will begin in Fall 2015.

Fifteen to Finish campaign, Promote full-time enrollment of 15 credit hours per semester

Provide intrusive advising to keep students on track to graduate; decrease excess credits on the path to getting a degree

Adoption and implementation of 15 to Finish.  Beginning in Fall 2013, we  increased the number of credit hours in the first-time freshmen learning communities from 12-14 hours to 14-16 hours and advisors have been trained to encourage students to continue taking 15+ credits each semester.

Implemented aggressive recruitment and retention efforts with an intensified focus on STEM students, joint/dual degree students, Eagle Incentive Program (EIP) students, military/military supported students, Hispanic students, part-time students, Bachelor of General Studies (BGS) students, and low income students to increase to increase enrollment numbers, as well as retention and graduation rates by 1% annually.

To help keep students on target to graduate “on-time,” defined as within four years, we focused on increasing the number of students who take 15 or more hours per semester.