Complete College Georgia - Advising

Early Alerts

Tracking Student Success

Strategy/Project Description:

The Advising Center established as a pilot on the Waycross Campus requires faculty to schedule a minimum of one hour per work to provide academic advising to students on an ongoing basis. Student Support staff are assigned case loads of students for whom they provide referrals, conduct skills workshops, and address non-academic needs.

Summary of Activities:

Activity Status:

Piloting

Evaluation/Assessment plan:

Administering and analyzing student and faculty satisfaction surveys; determining and tracking student usage and faculty participation rates; monitoring 1-year retention rates. The primary KPI is the % of students retained at the institution yearly (fall to fall). Baseline was fall 2022, with a 1-year retention rate of 52.9%; goal was set at 60%. The fall 2023 retention rate was 54%, and the fall 2024 retention rate was 52.5%. We originally hoped to reach 60% by fall 2025; we have now adjusted our timeline to fall 2029.

Progress and Adjustments:

We have established the Advising Center on the Waycross Campus in what was the Writing Center. We have added computer and phone equipment and hired a student worker to help direct students when faculty are not available. We have learned that monitoring of faculty scheduling is necessary and better delineation of responsibilities between faculty and Student Success staff is needed. We need to publicize the Center’s purpose more effectively.

Plan for the Year Ahead:

Our original plan was to pilot the Advising Center on the Waycross Campus before establishing one on the Douglas Campus, but faculty on the Douglas Campus are not supportive of the idea, so we will rethink our approach to collaborative advising in Douglas and conduct a comparative analysis of the two approaches as data becomes available.

Challenges and Support:

As always, limited physical and fiscal resources limit our abilities. Faculty and staff buy-in is essential.
Funding for professional advising position(s) would be ideal.

Contact email:

brandi.elliott@sgsc.edu

Primary Contact:

Brandi Elliott, Associate Vice President for Student Success

FULLER SCHEDULES AND PROMOTING ESSENTIAL SKILLS COMPLETION (MATHEMATICS AND WRITING), FACILITATED THROUGH MORE COURSE SCHEDULING CHOICES (South Georgia State College-2025)

jacari.gill — Mon, 05 Jan 2026 21:40:21 +0000

Strategy/Project Name:

FULLER SCHEDULES AND PROMOTING ESSENTIAL SKILLS COMPLETION (MATHEMATICS AND WRITING), FACILITATED THROUGH MORE COURSE SCHEDULING CHOICES

Momentum Area:

Mindset

Category:

Pathways

Strategy/Project Description:

This initiative centers on training advisors to help students create fuller schedules (15 or more hours) and complete essential skills mathematics and writing requirements within 30 hours, aided by the use of scheduling tools and success markers in Navigate.

Summary of Activities:

Activity Status:

Evaluation/Assessment plan:

Evaluation Plan and measures: Review number/percentage of students enrolled in 15 or more credit hours; track number/percentage of first-time full-time students completing essential skills courses within 30 hours.

KPIs: Rate of enrollment in 15 or more credit hours and rate of completion of essential skills requirements for FTFT students
Baseline measure (for each KPI): fall 2020 percentage of students enrolled in 15 or more credit hours was 17.01%; percentage of students completing essential skills courses within 30 hours was 57.04%.
Current/most recent data (for each KPI): The fall 2024 rate of enrollment in 15 or more credit hours was 12.16% of total enrollment, significantly down from the fall 2023 rate, which was at a 5-year high of 19.48%, and also far lower than the fall 2020 baseline rate of 17.01%. As is noted elsewhere in this report, at the beginning of fall 2024 the disastrous effects of Hurricane Helene appear to have caused a decline in student credit hour enrollment; therefore, the fall 2024 credit hour data may be an anomaly, rather than a trend.
At the same time, however, the fall 2024 rate for essential mathematics and writing skills completion within 30 hours for FTFT students was a 5-year high of 70.52%. All credit hour and essential skills courses data can be found in Appendix Tables G, H, and I.
Goal or targets (for each KPI): Percentage of students enrolled in 15 or more credit hours, 25% of total enrollment; percentage of students completing essential skills courses within 30 hours, 80%. Both goal targets to be achieved by 2029.
Time period/duration: Measured each Fall

Progress and Adjustments:

A number of factors, not the least of which was budget cuts that led to a loss of advisor positions and cancellation of the contract for the Navigate platform, necessitated a complete overhaul of not only academic advising but also course scheduling practices, all of which we are currently undertaking. The USG’s revision of the core curriculum structure contributed to the need for a new approach to advising that incorporates much more than creating fuller schedules and promoting essential skills course completion. A Course Analysis Committee was formed to study course scheduling practices in an effort to ensure that students have the ability to enroll in 15+ hours each semester, that course sequences are appropriately offered, and that students have enough information to make purposeful choices along their academic pathways. A new approach to advising with the collaboration of faculty and student success staff in a centrally located Advising Center is being piloted on the Waycross Campus. Tools in the Banner 9 platform are being used to replace those lost when Navigate was discontinued. New program maps are in development. All of this constitutes a culture change for students, staff, and faculty.

Plan for the Year Ahead:

Our Course Analysis Committee will persist in analyzing data, surveying students and faculty, and making informed recommendations on course scheduling. Faculty will be required to spend a minimum of one hour per week in the Advising Center to provide academic advising to students. Student success staff will provide referrals to services, offer skills workshops, and support students’ specific needs. We will reexamine our currently paused strategy of concierge coaching to determine if it should or could be improved and resurrected.

Challenges and Support:

Major challenges include convincing mid-level administrators, some faculty members, and some students that recommended schedule changes are in the students’ best interests. Faculty buy-in is essential for the Advising Center model to be successful.
Scheduling software would be a great help to increase the effectiveness of our course scheduling practices.

Contact email:

brandi.elliott@sgsc.edu

Primary Contact:

Brandi Elliott, Associate Vice President for Student Success

. Sara Selby, Vice President for Academic and Student Affairs

Transfer Student Success (University of Georgia-2025)

jacari.gill — Mon, 05 Jan 2026 21:14:10 +0000

Strategy/Project Name:

Transfer Student Success

Momentum Area:

Pathways

Category:

Orientation

Transition to College

Strategy/Project Description:

Improve graduation rates of transfer students through improved course articulation, addressing performance gaps in challenging gateway courses, and directed academic advising.

Summary of Activities:

Improve graduation rates of transfer students through improved course articulation, addressing performance gaps in challenging gateway courses, and directed academic advising.

Activity Status:

Studying

Evaluation/Assessment plan:

Full-Time, Transfer Sophomore 3-year graduation rate (4-years total)

Progress and Adjustments:

A Transfer Student Working Group, consisting of leaders from the Office of Instruction and Office for Student Affairs, conducted their work in AY2024-25 and presented a set of recommendations in August 2025 to evaluate and reimagine the transfer student experience at the University of Georgia.
UGA Admissions began using OneOrigin's Sia AIRR product starting in Spring 2025, which uses AI to extract the relevant data from college transcripts, to articulate that data to its UGA course equivalent, and then push this information into Banner/Athena, allowing a student to view it in DegreeWorks to monitor their path toward degree completion.
In Fall 2025, we created the Transfer Launch Seminar (TRLS 3001), a one-credit seminar course designed to help transfer students transition successfully during their first semester. The seminar fosters connections with faculty and peers, introduces students to UGA’s academic culture, policies, and resources, and strengthens academic and professional skills through discussion-based learning. Each section’s topical content aligns with the instructor’s discipline (akin to UGA’s First Year Odyssey Seminars), and instructors deploy student success programming personalized to their student population – including connecting students with major-related activities, internships, and experiential learning. Students also attend campus events to engage with the broader university mission, while participating faculty receive support, compensation, and funding for out-of-class activities to enhance student engagement.

Plan for the Year Ahead:

Implementation of the Transfer Student Working Group plan is underway in Fall 2025 and will be reported in future years. In advance of a broader implementation, a new student progress survey targeting challenging gateway courses with gaps in performance by transfer students (DFW rate > 15%) was implemented this academic year.
Instruction and Student Affairs are partnering to change the structure of Transfer Student Orientation in Summer 2026. This new structure will result in an expanded academic advising window for transfer students, allowing for more one-on-one academic advising time for incoming transfer students.

Challenges and Support:

N/A

Contact email:

tmote@uga.edu

Primary Contact:

Thomas Mote

Improve consistency of Academic Advising for students (University of North Georgia-2025)

jacari.gill — Mon, 05 Jan 2026 19:31:38 +0000

Strategy/Project Name:

Improve consistency of Academic Advising for students

Momentum Area:

Pathways

Category:

Strategy/Project Description:

Based on NISS recommendations, the institution is standardizing advising systems, protocols, training, and practices for professional and faculty advisors to ensure students receive a consistent standard of advising care across all advising units, academic departments, colleges, and campuses.

Summary of Activities:

Activity Status:

Evaluation/Assessment plan:

Initial KPI will be percentage of programs covered by professional advisors and the percentage of students who meet with professional advisors in 0-30CH; 31-60CH.
Assessing yearly. Currently, we have expanded the professional advising model to include all students within all majors with Learning Support course requirements. In process of implementing expansion of Fine Arts and majors within College of Arts & Letters not currently assigned to Professional Advisors into the PA model on Dahlonega and Gainesville Campus. Additionally, expanding programs covered by PA on the Oconee Campus. Both implementations are expected to be completed by late 2025/early 2026.

Progress and Adjustments:

UNG has created, as recommended by NISS, an Institutional Advising Council (IAC). The IAC’s first tasks are to develop a training program for all advisors. The institution also added three additional professional advisors, thus increasing the capacity for advising to serve more students.
Based on IAC guidance, expansion of available advising training and resources for non-centralized and faculty advisors is in development.

Additional next steps expected by IAC include standardizing use of technology to support advising

Plan for the Year Ahead:

The IAC will build appropriate training for all academic advisors. For FY 25-26, four new advisor positions were created with one allocated to the Mike Cottrell College of Business and three for Academic Advising Centers.

Challenges and Support:

Funding, physical space, and training compliance for advisors.

Funding to support new advisor lines and possible purchasing of technology platform to support recommendations of technology from Advising Council

Contact email:

melissa.adams@ung.edu

Primary Contact:

Melissa Adams, Executive Director of Academic Advising

Starting Blocks (Kennesaw State University-2025)

jonathan — Mon, 05 Jan 2026 00:40:05 +0000

Strategy/Project Name:

Starting Blocks

Momentum Area:

Pathways

Category:

First Year Experience

Strategy/Project Description:

KSU’s “Starting Blocks” project launched in Fall 2024. Block scheduling serves multiple purposes, all designed to enhance the academic experience and support student success. It streamlines the registration process for easier enrollment, ensuring students make appropriate selections of courses, including introductory English and math, during their first semester. It helps minimize potential credit loss if students change majors, and it provides students with the optimal opportunity to register for a full-time (15 credit hour) schedule. Additionally, block scheduling is meant to enhance social integration, facilitate the formation of study groups, and foster community building. Additional information is available at

Activity Status:

Blocks for fall 2026 are being created. As mentioned, modifications are being made to allow for additional students to participate in block scheduling. This year, we also plan to engage first-time freshmen starting in summer in block scheduling in the fall. Students will register for the blocks at orientation. Enrollment will be closely monitored. Pre-orientation advising materials will be updated throughout the summer. Lessons learned will be carefully tracked.

Evaluation/Assessment plan:

Assessing the impact of block scheduling will involve various methods to measure its effectiveness in achieving its intended goals and benefits. Academic performance metrics, course enrollment data, and student feedback around belonging will all be considered.

KPIs:

First-year full-time retention rate (assessed yearly)
Percentage of first-time, full-time cohort enroll in 15+ credit hours (assessed yearly) – ASPIRE Priority
Percentage of first-time, full-time cohort who have completed 30 or more credit hours by the end of summer semester (assessed yearly) – ASPIRE Priority
NSSE Survey Results (assessed every 3 years)

Baseline measure (for each KPI):

Plan for the Year Ahead:

Challenges and Support:

CHALLENGES:

A potential challenge could arise if enrollment patterns differ significantly from projections, resulting in too few blocks being available overall or for students in particular majors.

SUPPORT NEEDED:

We intend to engage with other universities to better understand their approaches to managing seat capacity in block scheduling. Our goal is to learn whether they have mechanisms that seamlessly transition open seats from block enrollment to general availability when demand within a block falls short, while also ensuring that seats reserved for block students are not prematurely taken by first-year students seeking to enroll in individual block-designated sections.

Contact email:

mlowder2@kennesaw.edu

Primary Contact:

Lori Lowder, Associate Vice Provost

Lis Hames, Director of Academic Course Scheduling

Advising Redesign / Intrusive Advising (ASPIRE Top 5 Strategy) (Gordon State College-2025)

jonathan — Sun, 04 Jan 2026 22:36:22 +0000

Strategy/Project Name:

Advising Redesign / Intrusive Advising (ASPIRE Top 5 Strategy)

Momentum Area:

Purpose

Pathways

Category:

Strategy/Project Description:

The Advising Redesign and Integration Initiative at Gordon State College (GSC) is an ongoing, multi-year effort to transform the college’s academic advising system into a proactive, structured, and program-embedded model. The project seeks to enhance student success and retention by ensuring that all students receive personalized, discipline-specific guidance from the moment they enroll until they reach 60 earned credit hours. Beyond this threshold, students transition to faculty advisors within their academic majors, ensuring continuity and depth of support throughout their degree pathways.

This redesigned system centers on professional advisors who are strategically embedded within GSC’s three academic schools. By aligning advisors with specific disciplines and programs, the college fosters closer collaboration between advising and academics—allowing advisors to provide targeted, informed guidance that supports students’ academic, professional, and personal development.

The overarching goal is to create a structured, process-oriented, and intrusive advising program that integrates advisors fully into the academic fabric of the institution—shifting advising from a transactional function to a relational, developmental partnership between students, advisors, and faculty.

Project Design and Major Elements

1. Expansion of Professional Advising

Gordon State College has expanded its professional advising model to include all students with up to 60 earned credit hours, a key milestone in students’ academic journeys. This expansion ensures early and consistent engagement with professional advisors who are trained to support students through foundational coursework, academic planning, and early career exploration.

To sustain this effort:

The advising staff is increasing from five advisors in Fall 2023 to eight by Fall 2026, maintaining an average caseload of approximately 200 students per advisor.
As of Fall 2025, GSC employs six full-time professional advisors who collectively serve all students with fewer than 60 earned credit hours.

This strategic staffing plan provides the necessary infrastructure to deliver consistent, personalized guidance to students in the first half of their academic careers.

2. Intrusive Advising Approach

At the core of the redesign is an intrusive (proactive) advising model, in which advisors actively engage with students rather than waiting for them to initiate contact. This approach includes multiple, structured outreach and engagement strategies:

Five targeted advising emails each semester are sent to students through the Navigate platform, providing reminders, resources, and check-in messages aligned with key academic milestones.
Appointment campaigns are conducted each semester to ensure students meet with their assigned advisors for academic planning and course registration for the upcoming term.
Early alert and intervention processes identify students facing academic challenges, enabling advisors to connect them promptly with appropriate campus resources.

This proactive communication and engagement structure allows advisors to maintain ongoing contact with students throughout each term, fostering accountability, connection, and informed decision-making.

To strengthen this model, formal NACADA training began in Spring 2025, providing professional development in intrusive advising techniques, student success strategies, and data-informed decision-making. These efforts support a unified advising philosophy and reinforce a culture of proactive, student-centered service across the advising team.

3. Integration with Academic Schools

To ensure advising is both contextually relevant and closely aligned with academic programs, professional advisors are now embedded within GSC’s three academic schools:

The School of Business and Professional Studies
The School of Education, Arts, and Humanities
The School of Nursing, Health, and STEM

Each school has two dedicated professional advisors who collaborate directly with faculty, administrators, and educational support staff. This embedded structure fosters:

Improved communication between advisors and faculty regarding curriculum, course sequencing, and program expectations.
Enhanced consistency in advising practices and policies across disciplines.
Stronger connections between students and their academic communities, reinforcing a sense of belonging and engagement.

By positioning advisors within academic units, GSC bridges the traditional divide between student services and academic affairs, ensuring advising becomes a cohesive component of the student learning experience.

Conclusion

The Advising Redesign and Integration Initiative represents a foundational shift in how Gordon State College supports student success. Through structured, proactive, and discipline-embedded advising, the college is cultivating a system that not only helps students persist but also empowers them to make informed academic and career decisions. As the initiative continues to expand through 2026, GSC aims to institutionalize advising excellence as a defining feature of the college’s commitment to student achievement and institutional effectiveness.

Activity Status:

Evaluation/Assessment plan:

KPIs:

KPI 1. The number of advisees per advisor

KPI 2. Year-to-year retention for FTFT students

KPI 3. Student perception of advising quality (from survey) – "satisfied"

Baseline measure (for each KPI):

KPI 1. Two hundred actively enrolled students per advisor per Fall term and 175

per Spring term.

KPI 2. One percentage point

KPI 3. One percentage point

Current/most recent data (for each KPI):

KPI 1. 172.6 in Spring 2024

222.5 in Fall 2024

186.5 in Spring 2025

265 in Fall 2025

KPI 2. 49.7% (Fall 2022 FTFT)

53.2% (Fall 2023 FTFT)

64.5% (Fall 2024 FTFT)

KPI 3. 90% - Spring 2025 (Professional Advising)

90% - Fall 2025 (Professional Advising)

Goal or targets (for each KPI):

KPI 1. 200 actively enrolled students per advisor per Fall term and 175 per

Spring term.

*Given the realities of 60 CH professional advising, we may need to increase this to 225 and 175 or 250 and 200.

KPI 2. 65%

KPI 3. 80% "satisfied"

Progress and Adjustments:

Gordon State College has made significant strides in enhancing student advising through structured communication, improved advisor engagement, and a more intentional approach to professional training and workload management.

Advising Loads and Staffing:
We have exceeded our initial targets for advisees per advisor, reflecting both the success of our advising redesign and the increasing demand for advising support. Currently, advising loads for the School of Nursing, Health, and Natural Sciences exceed 300 advisees per advisor, and one advisor in the School of Business and Professional Studies is approaching that level as well. These numbers are well above our ideal range. To address this, we plan to hire two additional advisors. Funding remains a challenge; however, we anticipate adding one new professional advisor for Fall 2026. This new advisor will serve students in the School of Nursing, Health, and Natural Sciences, providing critical relief to existing advising staff.

Standardized Advising Campaigns:
Our standardized advising campaigns—implemented through Navigate—have proven highly effective. Students now receive five encouraging and informative emails from their advisor each semester, as well as two additional emails and two text message reminders during advising and registration periods. These nudges have helped sustain engagement, prompting timely advising appointments and course registration.

Advisor Training and Professional Development:
While we successfully launched biannual NACADA-aligned training in Spring 2025, maintaining two sessions per year has proven difficult due to competing demands and heavy advising loads. Both summer and fall have been especially busy, leaving limited time for professional development. We are now adjusting our expectations to focus on one comprehensive NACADA training each spring semester. Once advising loads decrease and additional staffing is secured, we will revisit the possibility of restoring two annual training sessions.

Advisor Relationships and Collaboration:
We have made strong progress in building connections between advisors and their students before each semester begins. However, continued attention is needed to strengthen relationships among advisors, academic assistants, and academic administration within each school. Sustaining this collaboration is essential for ensuring consistent communication, coordinated student support, and a shared understanding of program requirements and student needs across all academic areas.

Expanded Student Support Structure:
As we move into the 2025–2026 academic year, the merger of the Student Success Center, Career Services, and other student support offices has continued to yield positive results. Collaboration between Advising and Career Services has been particularly strong. These teams have worked closely to plan and implement campuswide initiatives such as Major Fest and the annual Career Fair, both of which have significantly improved student awareness of academic pathways and career opportunities. This integrated model of support ensures that students experience a seamless connection between academic advising and career development

throughout their time at Gordon State College.

Overall, these developments demonstrate continued progress toward a proactive, student-centered advising model. Despite challenges in staffing and scheduling, the Advising Redesign initiative remains on track to strengthen student engagement, advisor capacity, and institutional alignment in support of student success.

Plan for the Year Ahead:

In 2025–2026, Gordon State College will focus on strengthening the Advising Redesign initiative by improving advisor capacity, student engagement, and communication consistency across all schools.

1. Lower Advising Loads
Advising loads remain high—especially in the School of Nursing, Health, and Natural Sciences and the School of Business and Professional Studies, where some advisors manage around 300 students. We plan to hire two additional advisors, with one position expected for Fall 2026. Until then, we will explore redistributing advisees and using temporary or faculty advising support during peak periods to ensure students continue receiving timely, personalized attention.

2. Implement Success Plans for At-Risk Students
Beginning in 2025–2026, all students newly on academic probation or returning from suspension will complete a success plan with their advisor. These plans will set clear academic goals, identify campus resources, and schedule check-ins. Standardized templates and brief advisor training will ensure consistency across schools.

3. Expand and Diversify Advisor Training
We will increase advisor training opportunities beyond NACADA sessions to include short, practical workshops and peer-led discussions. Topics will focus on advising students in distress, maximizing Navigate tools, equity-minded practices, and effective communication. Advisors will complete at least one structured training per semester.

4. Finalize Advising Handbook and Best Practices Sheets
The Advising Handbook will be finalized and distributed college-wide. Advisors will also receive one-page Best Practices sheets covering topics such as degree planning, early outreach, and probation advising. These concise resources will standardize approaches and improve efficiency across the advising team.

5. Reinforce the “15 to Finish” Message
We will strengthen campus-wide promotion of the importance of enrolling in 15 or more credit hours per semester. This message is now embedded in all advising and registration communications, but we will expand its visibility through banners, yard signs, and flyers in the Student Success Center and high-traffic areas. Advisors will emphasize “15 to Finish” in every student meeting to reinforce the expectation.

6. Reestablish Paper Advising Invitations for Residential Students
We fell behind in delivering paper invitations for advising appointments to residential students, many of whom are harder to reach digitally. This initiative will resume in Spring 2026, ensuring that every student receives a personalized, physical reminder to meet with their advisor and register early.

Outlook

These focused initiatives will strengthen advising capacity, improve communication, and promote a culture of academic momentum. By lowering advising loads, supporting at-risk students with structured plans, enhancing advisor training, and making “15 to Finish” a visible and consistent message, Gordon State College will continue advancing toward a proactive, student-centered advising model that supports timely degree completion and student success.

Challenges and Support:

CHALLENGES:

Limited Funding for Staffing:
Budget constraints may delay hiring additional advisors needed to reduce advising loads.

High Current Advising Loads:
Heavy caseloads limit the time advisors have for training, implementing success plans, and personalized student outreach.

Competing Institutional Priorities:
Advisors and support staff are balancing multiple campus initiatives, reducing availability for new program rollouts.

Training Time and Capacity:
Finding consistent time for professional development, especially during peak advising and registration periods, remains difficult.

Communication and Coordination Across Units:
Effective collaboration among Advising, Residence Life, Marketing, and Academic Schools is essential but can be slowed by differing schedules and workloads.

Resource Needs for Campaign Materials:
Producing and placing “15 to Finish” banners, yard signs, and printed materials requires additional funding and logistical coordination.

Tracking and Assessment Systems:
Monitoring completion of success plans, training participation, and campaign impact will require refined data collection and follow-up procedures.

SUPPORT NEEDED:

Professional Development Resources: Provide systemwide training modules, webinars, and shared best practices to supplement advisor development.

Data and Analytics Support: Offer guidance on tracking advising loads, success plan outcomes, and 15-to-Finish metrics through standardized data dashboards.

Peer Collaboration Networks: Facilitate cross-institutional communities of practice where advising teams can share strategies, templates, and campaign materials.

Communication Toolkits: Develop systemwide messaging and marketing assets (e.g., 15-to-Finish materials) that campuses can adapt locally.

Policy and Process Guidance: Provide recommendations on effective advising structures, workload benchmarks, and success plan implementation models used across USG institutions.

Contact email:

sshubitz@gordonstate.edu

Primary Contact:

Scott M. Shubitz, Executive Director of Workforce Development and Associate Professor of History

Stepping Blocks Integration into Freshman Orientation Courses (Georgia State University-2025)

jonathan — Sun, 04 Jan 2026 20:57:14 +0000

Strategy/Project Name:

Stepping Blocks Integration into Freshman Orientation Courses

Momentum Area:

Pathways

Category:

Change Management

Course Redesign

Data

First Year Experience

High Impact Practices

Learning Communities

Mindset

Program Maps

Strategy/Project Description:

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.

Activity Status:

Studying

Evaluation/Assessment plan:

Evaluation Plan and measures: Project completion in the Orientation course

KPIs: Not yet defined

Baseline measure (for each KPI): new project no baseline

Current/most recent data (for each KPI): new project no recent data

Goal or targets (for each KPI): 80% project completion

Progress and Adjustments:

With the leadership of the Provost all departments have completed webpages based on Stepping Blocks data for their units.
Freshmen orientation courses have added a SteppingBlocks assignment to the course curriculum.
Next year orientation courses will increase SteppingBlocks integration by incorporating it into a values and career fit assignment, where students will need to research possible future careers and assess how they align with personal values.

Plan for the Year Ahead:

We piloted the use of the departmental pages in the Orientation course. The goal is to scale this project for the next year.
Fall 2025 marked the first year integrating VMock into the course, with strong student adoption. More than 11,000 students engaged with the platform across three key areas: resume enhancement (8,874 students), mock interviews (663 students), and cover letter development (374 students).

Challenges and Support:

There are over 100 instructors for this class, so training and communication will be essential.

Primary Contact:

Allison Calhoun-Brown, Sr. Vice President for Student Success and Chief Enrollment Officer

Ramona Simien, Director of Employer Relations

Increasing Student Engagement (Georgia State University-2025)

jonathan — Sun, 04 Jan 2026 20:54:31 +0000

Strategy/Project Name:

Increasing Student Engagement

Momentum Area:

Data & Communications

Category:

Mindset

Orientation

Program Maps

Transition to College

Strategy/Project Description:

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. An enhancement in 2024 was the reflective activity 'Pounce on Points' where students interacted with each other, sharing what they learned in the session and how they plan to engage, and met new friends, all while earning points towards various GSU prizes. Also deliver pre-collegiate modules related to developing a productive mindset and building college readiness skills.

Activity Status:

Initiating

Evaluation/Assessment plan:

Evaluation Plan and measures: Measure engagement by first year students through tracking activities in Panther Involvement Network and completion of modules

Goal or targets (for each KPI): 75% 1st year engagement and 75% completion of modules.

Progress and Adjustments:

Panther Connect was piloted 3 years ago and expanded in Fall 2023. The program has helped increase the number of unique students engaged from 19,176 in 2021-2022 to 27,742 in 2024-2025—an increase of 45% over 3 years.

In Fall 2025, GSU added two more pre-collegiate modules to better support onboarding, bringing the total to 6 animated modules for students. One of the modules was designed to increase first-week attendance led to a decrease in the number of freshmen who were dropped for non-attendance.

Plan for the Year Ahead:

We plan to add two additional modules next year and continue enhancing and streamlining communications.

Challenges and Support:

Strong technological implementation.

Primary Contact:

Michael Sanseviro, Vice President/Dean of Students

Heather Housley, Associate Vice President for College & Career Engagement

Increasing Credit Completion (Georgia Southwestern State University-2025)

jonathan — Sun, 04 Jan 2026 18:01:10 +0000

Strategy/Project Name:

Increasing Credit Completion

Momentum Area:

Pathways

Category:

Program Maps

Strategy/Project Description:

Increase the number of freshmen completing fifteen credit hours in their first semester at GSW. Freshmen students are enrolled in classes for their first semester by FYE advisors that include 14-16 credits. They are advised by FYE advisors at early registration for spring classes to register for enough hours to accumulate 30 credit hours during their first year.

Activity Status:

Scaling

Evaluation/Assessment plan:

We are tracking the percentage of students in the FTFT cohort who attempt 15 hours each semester, as well as the overall average hours attempted for all students in the cohort and for those attempting 15 or more hours. We are also tracking average completion percentage of all students in the cohort and students with 15 or more attempted hours. Our target is for all FTFT students to complete no less than 67% of their attempted hours (to maintain SAP), and hopefully more than 75% to ensure that completing a degree in four years remains possible.

Currently, the results are disappointing. For the fall 2024 cohort, only 45% of the students attempted 15 or more hours. The average number of attempted hours for the cohort was 14.5 with an average of 9.7 hours completed, or a completion percentage of 67%. For spring 2025, only 40% of the 2024 cohort attempted 15 or more hours. The average number of attempted hours was 12.6 with an average completion of 8.4 hours, or 67% completion percentage. For the 2024-25 academic year including summer term, 29.1 hours were attempted, while 19.9 hours were completed, or a completion percentage of 67%.

Progress and Adjustments:

While we met the lower end of our completion percentage target, we are not making enough progress in getting students to attempt an average of 15 credit hours per semester or 30 credit per academic year, even when including summer term. We will need to reconsider our strategies for advising students to register for 15 or more credit hours per semester and for advising students on withdrawing from classes.

Plan for the Year Ahead:

Since we are in the first year of implementing a NISS recommendation on Proactive advising, we will make it part of our planning to explore ways of increasing the percentage of students who attempt 30 credit hours or more during their first year.

Challenges and Support:

Training faculty advisors and getting buy in from them on encouraging students to complete 30 or more credit hours per academic year.

We will consult other members of our NISS Implementation cohort on strategies for encouraging students to register for 30 credit hours per academic year.

Contact email:

David.jenkins@gsw.edu

Primary Contact:

David Jenkins, Director of First Year Experience and Student Success

Student Degree Planning – Providing Students with clear degree pathways (Georgia Southwestern State University-2025)

jonathan — Sun, 04 Jan 2026 17:56:58 +0000

Strategy/Project Name:

Student Degree Planning – Providing Students with clear degree pathways

Momentum Area:

Pathways

Category:

First Year Experience

Math Pathways

Pathways

Strategy/Project Description:

Every incoming freshman is being trained on the use of the Student Educational Planner (SEP) in Degree Works in their UNIV 1000 the GSW Experience, first-years seminar course. Creating and submitting a registration plan is an assignment in all sections of UNIV 1000.

Activity Status: