Augusta University has a robust, multi-year plan to promote student retention and graduation utilizing the Four-to-Finish principles of Mindset, Purpose, Pathways and Engagement. Over the previous years, AU has implemented new strategies to support enrollment growth, and most recently created holistic student support structures organized by meta-majors.
Our meta-majors are called CAPEs -- Career, Academic & Professional Engagement clusters – and we intentionally organize staff in Academic Advisement, Academic Success, Career Services and Health Professions Outreach Offices, into three CAPEs to provide students with a network of support over their college career. In addition to faculty and other resources, students can think of these CAPE staff members as their respective success team. These units are housed within the Student Success unit in the Division of Enrollment and Student Affairs.
The next step in our CAPE development is refining our undergraduate academic advising process and shifting to a fully centralized program. Prior to this academic year, the former decentralized academic advisement model was structured for students to meet with staff in the Academic Advisement Center (AAC) until they earn 60 credit hours, then transition into their major with advisement through their respective academic departments. Taking a phased approach, students this year are being advised centrally through the AAC for up to 89 hours. By fall 2025, all students will be centrally advised by the AAC.
While some academic units have professional staff working as advisors for upper division students, others have faculty advisors, and many of them appreciate the opportunity to build relationships with students outside of the classroom. Students also benefit from informal relationships with faculty, with research indicating that students who have meaningful interactions with faculty are retained at higher rates, persist to graduation at higher rates, and experience greater levels of satisfaction with their educational journey. As Drs. Peter Felton and Leo. M. Lambert wrote in their book, Relationship Rich Education,“…human relationships are central to an excellent college education.”
Consequently, we will develop a faculty professional development module focused on building supportive relationships and mentoring our undergraduate students. We will use principles and approaches from “Relationship Rich Education” to support and empower faculty to make meaningful connections with students, both inside and outside of the classroom, to foster student success.
A recent institutional project involved the development of a faculty toolkit for Student Success. The final product is housed on D2L and connects institutional data points with best practices on classroom pedagogy and student success. AU’s goal is to include a module based on the text by Felton and Lambert. The module will allow all faculty, both those who previously operated as advisors as well as those who did not, to build awareness and a skill set centered on relational perspectives.
Moreover, given the recent inclusion of student success in faculty promotion and tenure requirements, AU intends on developing content that connects with college guidelines for student success and provides a template to include in promotion packets. The goal of the program will be to foster a culture that prioritizes relationship-building between faculty and students inside and outside the classroom.
The plan is to develop a content module that highlights the variety of interactions that generate supportive relationships between faculty and students. The content would include offering such as:
- Guidance and strategies on supporting students as it relates to degree, career path, or graduate school.
- Additional academic support.
- Research opportunities.
Over the past year, AU has taken some initial steps to outline the module content and this year we intend to utilize “Relationship Rich Education” to highlight the multiple mechanisms faculty can use to build strong relationships with students. By the end of Fall 2024 AU should have a completed product and will share the professional development module with faculty for feedback in Spring 2025. In Fall 2025, the module will be available to faculty via a professional development site at Augusta University. This coincides with the centralization of advising.
Over the next two years, the Student Success team intends on collaborating with faculty offices and committees to expand intentional faculty-student mentoring options. This could include a focus on first-year students to promote retention, expanding options for community engagement to support our efforts earning a Carnagie classification, and intentional career path connections in CAPEs and majors to facilitate a smooth transition into the workforce.
The overall goal of building a relationship rich culture and faculty-student mentoring at Augusta University is to improve student retention rates. However, cultivating an institutional infrastructure for meaningful faculty-student interactions is a multi-year commitment, and this initial assessment will focus on product development. Once the professional development options are in place, we can construct assessments that measure the impact on student retention and progression.
Consequently, for the current year, AU intends to create a professional development module centered on relationship building strategies and share the content with faculty. The institution will gather feedback in the fall term and pilot the content the following spring.
KPIs:
- Creation of professional development module on “Faculty roles for a relationship rich culture.”
- Publication of module as part of the Teaching and Learning series on Student Succes.
Baseline measure (for each KPI):
- Professional development module
- Outline of module reflecting content by Felton and Lambert by July 2024.
- Articulate options for faculty-student engagement (ie classroom tactics and mentoring options) with appropriate assessment by September 2024.
COMPLETED SEPTEMBER 2024
- Publication of module
- Collaborate with Center of Instruction and Innovation and Director of Teaching and Learning to format learning module.
- Integrate web-approved module into Student Success D2L site for faculty.
COMPLETED OCTOBER 2024
After discussing the topic with stakeholders. It was decided to pull the RRE modules to one side and share with faculty for feedback separately to primary support toolkit, so as not to muddy the waters. However, it is still in a D2L sandbox for review.
Current/most recent data (for each KPI):
- CREATED
- PUBLISHED
Goal or targets (for each KPI):
- Complete content module by Fall 2024 – COMPLETED
- Publish module for full faculty access by Fall 2025 – PUBLISHED
Time period/duration
Summer 2024: develop the modules. DONE.
Fall 2024: Share content with faculty Learning Communities for insight and feedback. COMPLETE
Spring 2025: Pilot content with select group of faculty. ON TRACK.
Summer 2025: Make any necessary adjustments and finalize product. ON TRACK
Fall 2025: Publish for all faculty and promote engagement. ON TRACK.
With the planned transition to centralized advising, we have developed a framework for an updated faculty role focused on faculty-student interactions without the transactional responsibilities such as graduation applications. We have notified faculty of the change to centralized advising and fostered the concept of relationship building and mentoring with students through professional development activities.
With this model, we can:
- Build a framework for a relationship-rich culture at Augusta University.
- Integrate faculty and students more intentionally with our burgeoning CAPE communities.
- Connect faculty with other professional development units, for example, the Center of Teaching and Learning.
- Nurture the overall focus on student success by connecting the project with current initiatives.
UPDATE
We have had a senior leadership transition, and new President effective July 1. Within that same month, the institution identified a new interim Provost. This has led to some institutional reorganization that has impacted the projects. Centralized advising and building the CAPE communities is still in progress. However, organizational infrastructure changes have been prioritized. This prioritization has resulted in a delay in some of the development of the AU model development of centralized advisement, particularly faculty to student mentoring. As AU began to resume progress with the model with the challenges of reorganization, the greater Augusta area was devastated by Hurricane Helene at the end of September. The area and institution are still recovering from the hurricane.
- Summer 2024: Student Success and Center for Instructional Innovation develop the modules.
- Fall 2024: Share content with
- 1) Center for Instructional Innovation,
- 2) Faculty Senate Faculty Development Committee
- 3) Faculty Learning Communities for insight and feedback.
- Spring 2025: Pilot content with select group of faculty.
- Summer 2025: Make any necessary adjustments.
Fall 2025: Publish for all faculty and promote engagement; Invite Dr Felton to campus.
- As a research institute, faculty have considerable responsibilities outside of the classroom, so they might be hesitant to commit to some activities. We will need to construct options to facilitate varying commitment levels and scaffold opportunities that can connect with promotion and tenure expectations to support engagement.
- As a faculty centered activity that promotes student success, we need strong collaborators and faculty representatives at all stages of development to promote robust faculty engagement.
UPDATE
Immediate challenges for the feedback include the impact of the hurricane on faculty engagement with professional development as they focus on student success. Long term, however, there are no new challenges.
