Axe ’Em, Jacks!
Legend:
I - Attract, support a high-quality faculty, staff
II - Foster academic and co-curricular innovation
III - Refine university culture
IV - Increase connections
15 to Finish
Lead: Marc Guidry
Focus:
- Encourage students to take at least 15 credits per long semester, known popularly as 15 to Finish;
- Completing the two core English composition courses (ENG 1301 and 1302), and the core math course for the student’s degree program by the end of the freshman year;
- Taking 9 credit hours in the student’s college foundation area and/or in the major during the freshman year.
Status:
A 15 to Finish campaign will be initiated at Orientation sessions this summer to encourage students to sign up for at least 15 hours in Fall 2020, and advisors (both professional and faculty) will follow up in the fall with freshmen to encourage them to sign up for at least 15 hours in Spring 2021, using the Navigate platform to run the campaign.
LAN-CAT
Lead: Steve Bullard
Focus:
Increase the availability of courses and labs that are needed by our students, so that they can take the classes needed, when needed, to graduate on schedule.
Status:
Multiple sections and seats added for Spring 2020._x000D_ Work has begun for the Summer and 2020 and Fall 2020 schedules.
One Stop (break out to multiple phases)
Lead: Erma Nieto Brecht
Focus:
Design and Implement a One Stop to serve and assist students by:
- consolidating primary student services in one virtual and physical location;
- enhancing customer service and experience;
- breaking down information silos;
- increasing teamwork to develop a holistic approach in serving students and student success; and
- enhancing institutional enrollment (recruitment & retention).
Description:
The SFA One-Stop Shop (Axe Handle) is the primary initial contact for student inquiries regarding Student Business Services, Financial Aid, Office of the Registrar, and Residence Life services. The One-Stop Shop provides student support via phone and live-chat by diagnosing issues and providing solutions to the most common obstacles students encounter in those areas. Additionally, the One-Stop Shop refers students experiencing more advanced problems to the appropriate specialists in departments across campus while providing additional context to those specialists. The One-Stop Stop functions to increase teamwork and breakdown information silos by developing a holistic approach in serving students and student success that will result in an enhanced customer experience.
Status:
COMPLETED:
- Determined One Stop will be housed under Enrollment Management.
- Service areas to include: Fin Aid, Business, Registrar, Housing, General Advising, General On-boarding services.
- One Stop will service Tier 1 & Tier 2 questions.
- Naming of One Stop = the Axe Handle.
IN PROGRESS:
- Each service area is building/completing their T1 & T2 Q&A.
- Integrating original One Stop team and physical implementation team plans.
- Defining implementation phases. and d) Identifying technology needs.
NEXT STEPS: Update timeline. Human resource needs - director/coordinator. Establish cross training plan and schedule.
Prospect & Student Relationship Management (CRM)
Leads: Erma Nieto Brecht, Anthony Espinoza
Focus:
- Establish and maintain relationships with prospects and students to grow enrollment and improve retention.
- Enhance and develop tailored communication plans for prospects and students
Status:
Implementation team is in training this week. (Feb 10th). Once the team returns, they will begin SFA's implementation. Communications has been collected from numerous offices.
Reimagining Undergraduate Advising
Lead: Marc Guidry
Focus:
- To improve undergraduate academic advising, including ensuring that best practices in academic advising are being followed by all academic advising units; determining whether adequate resources and structures are in place to deliver effective advising; and developing the student mentorship role of academic advisors, both professional and faculty;
- To relaunch the Navigate Student Success software in order to increase its usage by professional and faculty advisors to facilitate greater student success; this includes making Navigate the go-to scheduling tool and records repository for undergraduate advising; enhancing the early alert system within Navigate; and familiarizing deans, academic unit heads, and faculty with the analytics and institutional reporting functionalities of Navigate.
Status:
The committee is distributing an electronic survey to all undergraduate students to evaluate the effectiveness of current advising practices and the degree to which students are benefitting from the advising functionalities in Navigate. The committee is also distributing an electronic survey to all professional and faculty evaluators to determine the degree to which advising practices are standard across colleges, to gauge their perception of how effective current advising practices are, and to determine the degree to which they are engaging with Navigate. The committee will use the surveys to make its final recommendations on how to improve advising across campus.
Summer School
Lead: Erma Nieto Brecht
Focus:
Coordinate a team to promote summer 2020
Status:
On Timeline - UMC has draft of summer webpage; housing is working with technology to develop housing incentive form.
Financial Aid Leveraging
Leads: Erma Nieto Brecht, Rachele Garrett
Focus:
Evaluate effectiveness of SFA financial aid & scholarship program. Impact Fall 21
Status:
Kay Johnson is still finalizing contract with Ruffal Noel Levits. Lead is identified.
Satellite Team
Lead: Steve Bullard
Focus:
Investigate creation of satellite sites along the I69 corridor, population triangle and Collins county.
Status:
Strategy development
Tiger Team
Leads: Erma Nieto Brecht, Anthony Espinoza
Focus:
Increase the semester credit hours for Fall 2020 by 5% which equals 7,632 SCH using Fall 19 SCH of 152,625 by eliminating barriers to registration and enrollment.
Status:
Current Focus:
- Provide bills earlier
- Modifying financial responsibility hold
- Self-service password reset for applicants
- Excessive hour holds
- Tuition and Fee Restructure Review
- Communication enhancements to Students for the purpose of matriculation.
- Enhance communications to SFA community.
- Identify a process to reach out to stop-outs. Simplify Returner reapplication.
QEP - Reduce Student Debt
Lead: Marc Guidry
Focus:
- A determined/focused effort to instill a level of financial literacy into every student;
- A concerted effort to migrate courses from industry textbooks to low cost materials;
- A thoughtful re-working of SFA’s tuition rates to encourage on-time graduation; and
- A student-led and SFA-specific adaptation of Being Not Rich at U of Michigan.
Status:
A director for the QEP will be identified and installed effective September 1, 2020, and will assemble an office to administer the QEP, which will begin in the 2021-2022 academic year and which will run for five years. It will undergo both formative and summative assessment to ensure its effectiveness.
Plan due to SACSCOC 2/8/2021
Increase Distance programs
Lead: Steve Bullard
Focus:
Status:
Need to identify a lead and charge or goal.
Refocus Dual Credit
Lead: Steve Bullard
Focus:
Bring focus to convert dual credit students and improve the dual credit experience
Status:
Lumberjack Innovation Team
Higher education institutions, to be successful, must rethink, update, innovate and overhaul how education is delivered and supported. At SFA, we must take the initiative to become the model for how higher education can be successful in 2021 and beyond. We must think differently, boldly and with the urgency to shape our future in a positive and profound way. To quote our SFA Envisioned vision statement, we must meet "tough choices head-on and make smart decisions about the future of the university."
We must act now, we can no longer sit idly, wait, and hope things will be the way they were 5, 10 or even 15 years ago. This project will develop models (academic, marketing, recruitment, engagement, etc.) to serve more students from a variety of backgrounds at the same time (traditional aged students, adult learners, distance/geographically isolated students, residential students, transfer students).
To meet the changing higher education, SFA will embark on an initiative to leverage 8 week terms, offer more courses in 8 week offerings, and modify the academic calendar to provide students more opportunities to start and restart their educational career depending on their situation. A streamlined curriculum with reduced complexity will be an important component of this initiative. The successful completion of this initiative will position SFA to better serve students, reduce graduation rates, provide flexibility to serve a wider student population and position SFA to be the model of the new American university.