Creating Personal Connections Through Proactive Advising Life Map

Creating Personal Connections Through Proactive Advising: Life. Map 2. 0 Dr. John Britt & Evelyn Lora-Santos

Valencia College – Fall 2018 Source: Valencia College Institutional Research, Fall 2018 Student Characteristics

Valencia College – Fall 2018 Source: Valencia College Institutional Research, Fall 2018 Student Characteristics

Valencia College – Fall 2018 Source: Valencia College Institutional Research, Fall 2018 Student Characteristics

Advising Model Prior to 2014 • Reactive advising model • No active outreach to students • Developmental advising theory

Funding Model of Life. Map 2. 0 2014 Pathways Title III 2 PAs Hired 2016 – Round 1 Program Advisors 54 PAs Hired 16 PAs Hired 2017 – Round 2 19 PAs Hired 2018 – Round 17 PAs will be Hired

Pathways Title III Advising Initiatives • Increase collaboration between advisors and department leadership, faculty, and staff. • Develop proactive advising strategies (Life. Map GPS). • Create personal connections between advisors and students (e. g. classroom visits, proactive outreach, required advising sessions). • Increase students course work and degree completion.

Meta-Majors and Advisor Assignment • Meta-Majors are majors that have related courses and fit within a career area. • There are eight Meta-Majors used by colleges in the state of Florida. • The intent of selecting a Meta-Major is to help students choose a major and degree based on their interests and start them on the appropriate math pathway. • Advisors assigned by the different meta-majors. • Larger meta-major assignments such as STEM were assigned to multiple advisors with an alpha break.

Student Engagements: Individual interactions between advisors and students by either face-to-face, email, phone, or virtual.

Institutional Research on Advising Retention Rate Fall 2016 – Fall 2017 Seen Advisor Advising Number of Records Returned Spring Returned Fall Spring Retentio n Rate% Assigned Advisor Yes 1, 367 1, 136 733 83. 1% No 3, 270 2, 384 1, 710 72. 9% No Advisor Assigned Yes 1, 595 1, 285 950 80. 6% No 30, 951 21, 802 15, 885 70. 4% 37, 183 26, 607 19, 278 71. 6% Grand Total

Title V Objectives • Enhance college infrastructure for increased engagement between students, faculty and staff. • Increase student readiness for baccalaureate transfer by increasing capacity for advising through enhanced advising, new faculty roles and technology. • Strengthen data collection and analysis to reduce redundancy, increase efficiency, and support collaboration.

Sample Title V Survey Results Feedback 450 417 406 403 400 428 423 392 368 350 300 250 200 150 100 46 64 47 39 52 50 35 28 0 Advisor demonstrated interest in learning about my career goals. Advisor provided me with information about my university of interest. Strongly Agree Disagree Advisor provided me with information on the resources at Valencia that can help support Strongly Disagree Notsuccess. Applicable my academic Based on my experience with my Advisor I would recommend academic advising to others.

Sample of Student Feedback • “Very interested in what I wanted to do as my next step and that made me feel great!” • “Fantastic help with great knowledge and understanding of material and information. ” • “I was confused about a few things before, but after talking to my advisor I was able to clearly understand how to proceed with my academics and programs. Overall, extremely helpful!”

Activity • Pair into groups of 4 -5. • Are there any current advising communication or outreach plans at your institution?

Steps to Developing a Communication Plan • What communication is already in place at your institution? • Know your dates and deadlines. • What do you want your communication to look like and when should it go out? • Modality of communication can be different based on outreach strategy (i. e. email, phone, text, etc. ). • Identifying student trends through data and consider information in communication plan. • Develop a relationship with your institutional research and data warehouse teams.

Steps to Developing a Communication Plan • Communicate with academic deans and chairs to understand course indicators. • Share with senior leadership for feedback. • Assess the plan. • Have a backup plan in case of technology failure. • The communication plan is never finished. • Make sure communication is student friendly. • Involve your advisors and staff from the very beginning.

Intervention When Welcome to the program emails Ongoing (as students are newly added to cohort) Noticed that you haven’t registered this term After grades roll (from the prior term) and/or Week 1 of current term Course indicators outreach Program advisors identified critical courses within programs that is the student gets below a certain grade that triggers an intervention outreach. After grades roll (from the prior term) and/or Week 1 of current term Low GPA outreach After grades roll (from the prior term) and/or Week 1 of current term Cumulative Completion Rate between 67 -75% outreach Week 4 Thinking about Withdrawing/Learning Support Services emails Week 5 Registration Coming Up/Assistance with Course Selection emails Starting one week before advanced registration

Intervention When Noticed You Haven't Registered Yet emails Week 10 -16 (This email will go out twice. ) Congrats on a good term emails End of term Classroom visits Throughout a semester Group Cohort Advising workshops Before registration Campus Events Before grad deadline - grad prep events. Before registration - career/major exploration events. After registration - transfer/transition events Information sessions/skillshops Varies Direct. Connect collaboration emails Twice a term (beginning and end) Scholarship opportunities emails Post at the beginning of term Skillshops emails Post at the beginning of term Upcoming Events emails Post at the beginning of term

Technology • CRM Advise -Unexpected Challenges • SAS (Data Warehouse) -Statistical Analysis System (CPP 001) • EAB -Data management and communications system • Who’s Next Appointment Scheduler and Reporting Tool

Building Personal Connections with Students • • • Classroom visits (both departmental and FYE courses) Meta-Majors fair Get in shape to transfer Career panel and mocktails networking event Pop-Up advising in collaboration with learning support centers Program advisor meet and greet Welcome videos from advisors to students Virtual advising Journey to the top

Questions