Mindset

The Mindset Student Workshops series, known internally as the “Boost” Mindset project, is entering its fourth year as an institution-wide initiative designed to enhance student motivation, metacognition, and academic self-efficacy. Originating from a Chancellor’s Learning Scholar Faculty Learning Community on Mindset in 2018 and supported by the USG STEM Grant Initiative, this work has evolved from a pilot project into a sustained element of SGSC’s student success strategy.

UGA students are very well prepared. Ninety-one percent of the admitted Class of 2029 posted an average core high school GPA of 4.0 or higher, with 98% having completed at least one advanced course (such as AP, IB, or Dual Enrollment). Often such high-achieving students have never experienced any kind of failure. But the demanding pace of a research institution like UGA often poses significant and unexpected challenges for our students.

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 

VSU’s Quality Enhancement Plan (Experiential Learning); 4 year completion Spring 2025

The LIGHT Your Path initiative aims to integrate student support services at MGA to provide a guided structured pathway for incoming freshmen towards successful academic and career outcomes.  

This initiative is built around MGA’s existing student support resources to include advising, student success coaching, academic engagement, career and leadership opportunities, and freshman year experience. This initiative addresses Strategy I under MGA’s 2023-28 Strategic Plan to ‘Champion Student Success.”

The Continuing Student Communication Strategy priority is designed to establish a streamlined, cohesive approach to communicating with our continuing student population. We have already made progress with two key units—Registration and Financial Aid—by partnering with a third-party vendor to create personalized communication journeys for these processes.

In freshman orientation classes each 1st-year student will be required to complete an assignment designed to encourage the use of stepping blocks data.  Based on an academic major of interest, students will research common jobs associated with the major as well as the job market and the salaries associated with these positions.

All incoming first-year students were connected post-NSO with online information and communication from their top 5 engagement choices via the Panther Involvement Network - PIN. During their in-person NSO event, each student attended a 'Panther Connect' session to dive deeper in their top desired involvement opportunity, where they were able to connect and share contact information with students that possess similar interests as them.

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.

The Accelerator Academy is an academic program offered in the summer semester to students who did not successfully complete their introductory English class during the academic year. Students are offered wrap around academic support to help them understand how to successfully engage the material and complete the course successfully.  The goal of this course is to help increase student progression in order to meet the USG’s goal of completing English by the end of the freshmen year (30 hours).