The Office of Student Retention (OSR) is in the middle of our search for a Student Success & Retention Specialist. We are happy to report that we have eight candidates to interview before the end of the month, with the intent to have the new hire in the office before the end of October.
This individual will assist with the efforts outlined in the Title III grant, including helping to take Carlow's summer bridge programming to the next level, leading efforts to reengage with students who have stopped out, assisting in the implementation of Navigate360, and otherwise supporting the work of the Office of Student Retention.
In the meantime, we are grateful for the ongoing welcome and assistance from the more established offices on campus, including the teams in Institutional Research, Enrollment Management, CTRL, and the many folks in Student Affairs.
In October, we will be gathering a core group of staff to map the foundations of the student journey from the student perspective, looking at the experience from deposit to the end of the first year through student behaviors, emotions, touchpoints, and attitudes. The goal is for Title III, the OSR, and Carlow as a whole to gain a better collective understanding of the student experience and how all the pieces fit together, as well as to identify potential handoff gaps where students could get lost or disconnected. Once the core group maps the foundation, there will be opportunities to expand the breadth and depth of the framework, to include additional perspectives from populations who may have more unique experiences.
For the purposes of the grant, and the immediate goals of the OSR, the student journey map will provide a standard against which to measure progress. By charting everything that is happening in the first year, we can better identify effective times to check in with students for assessment of the process, ensuring that their experience meets expectations. The overview also enables us to better integrate assessment and be strategic about modifications and additions to the journey.
Thanks to the support of the Carlow community, we're off to a strong start, and look forward to expanding opportunities for collaboration in the coming year.
While our Carlow IT team works with EAB to enable the data connections with Navigate360, we're laying the groundwork for the cross-departmental teams who will help determine the goals, outcomes, and objectives for the implementation and use of the new system, along with faculty and staff training and development needs.
Alexis and Kate will be engaging with the Gardner Institute's Symposium on Transforming the Postsecondary Experience: Innovation and Design So Every Student Can Graduate, which convenes in Pittsburgh this year. From their website, for those unfamiliar with the Institute:
The John N. Gardner Institute for Excellence in Undergraduate Education is a non-profit organization dedicated to partnering with colleges, universities, philanthropic organizations, educators, and other entities to increase institutional responsibility for improving outcomes associates with teaching, learning, retention, and completion. Through its efforts, the Institute will strive to advance higher education's larger goal of achieving equity and social justice. https://gardnerinstitute.org/about/
Their mission is closely aligned with Carlow's and with the core purpose of the Title III grant, and we hope to build on connections with participants and institutions who are doing similar work in the realm of student persistence, retention, and completion.
In our transformative work, we are also working with NACADA, the National Academic Advising Association. Carlow's Retention Committee shared their work from the last few years, which identified advising as one of the key areas that could best move the needle on student persistence and completion here, and the national research backs this up.
The Title III grant is enabling us to take 11 faculty members to the NACADA annual conference, which also happens to be in Pittsburgh this year. To best profit from this investment, the Carlow team will participate in a pre-conference session with our NACADA consultant, Sean Bridgen, who is a native Pittsburgher with close ties to Carlow! After the conference, the attendees will regroup with our consultant to plan our next steps. The goal is to identify ways to best support our faculty advising model, to ensure that every Carlow student experiences excellent advising each step of the way on their way to graduation.