College of Coastal Georgia Campus Plan Update 2020

Strategy or activity 

COMPASS Career and Academic Advising

Summary of Activities 

In alignment with the discussion during the Momentum Summit III and the subsequent Momentum Approach Plan, the College has now created the COMPASS Career and Academic Advising Center. This new office is the consolidation of Career Services and Academic Advising and is now providing a more holistic approach to student development, where students are guided to start with the end in mind and are supported throughout their college experience.

The College recognizes the impact that this strategy can have on student success and has selected “COMPASS: Integrated Career & Academic Planning” as the topic for its next Quality Enhancement Plan (QEP). A committee with broad institutional representation has been appointed as the QEP Development Committee, and has been charged to work during the 2020-2021 academic year to develop an action plan for submission to SACSCOC.

Specifically, through various webinars, professional development and one-on-one training, Academic Advisors are becoming proficient COMPASS advisors. COMPASS Advisors work with freshmen in general advising, registration, academic support and intervention as well as have more detailed discussion with students about major/focus areas as it relates to career development. In addition, advisors have begun to work toward providing students with more information about internships, service-learning and student engagement opportunities. Finally, advisors are working with faculty more closely to encourage more student interaction and to provide programs that are focused on majors with a career path in mind, by visiting the introductory classes in each major. COMPASS is also providing training to faculty advisors on best practices for advising.

Outcomes/Measures of progress 

The institution has now established the consolidated office and is currently in the stage of aligning protocols and operational processes to support students under the new paradigm.

While Key Performance Indicators like retention and graduation rates are broadly the measures of progress that we want to impact, there will be many preliminary measures as part of the implementation of the QEP and as the office starts interacting with students. For the implementation stage we expect the QEP development committee to focus on accomplishing the following tasks:

· Research the QEP topic and refine student learning outcomes

· Identify actions needed to achieve the desired student learning outcomes

· Consider the infrastructure necessary to implement and maintain the QEP

· Establish a timeline for accomplishing the plan

· Budget necessary resources to successfully carry out the QEP

· Develop an assessment plan

· Prepare submission documentation

As the office starts to interact with students to provide this holistic approach to career and academic planning we expect to track and measure the number of classroom presentations addressing purposeful choice and career planning, the average number of credits before declaring a major for those that are undeclared within an academic focus area, the average number of changes of major per student, the number of freshman advising sessions, number of students engaged in academic improvement protocols, number of resume workshops, and the number of trainings and workshops developed and delivered to support faculty advising.

Lessons Learned and Plans for the Future 

While this strategy is in its early stages, the institution is fully committed to its development and implementation during the next few years.

Changes because of COVID-19 

The two offices were in the process of consolidation as we experienced the transition due to COVID-19. This transition impacted our ability to offer job fairs and graduate program fairs, and we have been relying on our online job management platform, Coastal Careerlink, to communicate job and career opportunities. We initially planned to announce the new office in spring 2020, but the announcement was delayed until the start of fall 2020.

This transition also impacted our ability to meet face-to-face with students so COMPASS has increased the use of web-conferencing for individual meetings and workshops. Employer Spotlights have replaced job fairs to ensure safe distancing.

Strategy or activity 

Always Alert System

Summary of Activities 

After its pilot in fall 2019 and at-scale implementation in spring 2020, the Always Alert System now allows all faculty to report students that are in need of academic intervention at any point during the semester.

This new system has two mechanisms to report students: An Early Alert Report that is completed for all students and all courses early in the term, and an Always Alert Referral that can be done for an individual student at any point throughout the term.

Outcomes/Measures of progress 

The new system is a home-grown platform that seamlessly integrates with the institutional portal and provides ease of access and reporting for all faculty as evidenced by the participation during the first at-scale implementation in spring 2020 where 96% of the student population received early alerts (this includes good standing reports) and where 341 referrals were submitted during the term. As we start fall 2020 this participation increased and 100% of the student population received early alerts and so far 282 referrals have been submitted through this system.

It is important to note that the institution continues to implement homegrown and agile alternatives to expensive platforms and products. As an example, this platform is replacing GradesFirst, which the institution used a few years ago but proved not to be the right fit.

Lessons Learned and Plans for the Future 

One of the important lessons learned is that while the Early Alert Report is now a mandatory practice, the Always Alert Referral is a process that starts with faculty initiative, and the regular use of the platform is a clear indication that there was an unmet need that is now being addressed by the system. As the platform continues to evolve, the institution is now working on improving the way in which the communication loop is closed; so far the information regarding the report and the subsequent action to address the report are being documented in banner, but we plan to create notifications that will let the initiator know what was the result of their report. 

Changes because of COVID-19 

While there are no changes associated to COVID-19, it is important to highlight, that the system has been used to react to student challenges associated with the pandemic. We believe this system improved communication between faculty and student support staff and that many of those communications would not have occurred during the pandemic without this system in place.

Strategy or activity 

Improved Communications through Technology

Summary of Activities 

The College has implemented several technology enhancements and new platforms to improve communication with students. These improvements have allowed students to get the information they seek faster and are allowing the College to take quicker action on student needs.

Outcomes/Measures of progress 

Student Portal “Mariner Success Crew” Feature. To increase the cohesiveness of the College’s support services, every student is now connected with 5 support staff/faculty: A Career and Academic Advisor, a Financial Support Advisor, a Tutoring and Academic Support Advisor, a Campus Life Advisor, and a Faculty Advisor. Students can click on one of their advisors in this portal feature, which will connect them via email without having to open an email client. The email is sent to the advisor (with cc to the student) who will receive an email from “Success Crew” with a subject line: “Success Crew question from [Student Name]”. The advisor’s reply will be sent directly to the advisee.

From its launch at the end of March 2019 to September of 2020 the system has connected students with their various advisors in 3755 instances (2510 connections during the last 12 months).

“Ask Jack” Text Messaging. Building off of the work of Georgia State University’s “Pounce” virtual assistant, the Office of Admissions worked with administrators and staff across campus to form an extensive knowledge base that was incorporated into AdmitHub, a subscription service that fosters student success with mobile messaging powered by artificial intelligence. Originally available to students who applied to the College for fall 2019, and now available for all students, this system allows prospective and current students to text their questions to “Ask Jack” and the AdmitHub artificial intelligence system will link their question to data in our institutional knowledge base. Representatives from Admissions and Academic Affairs monitor questions asked to update the knowledge base to ensure students receive the correct information. For the 2019-2020 academic year, Ask Jack communicated with 5155 current and prospective students, sent 46610 text messages and received 6126 messages.

Technology Survey. As the impacts from COVID-19 brought the classes to a temporary pause during spring 2020, one of the immediate concerns that needed to be addressed was the capacity of the students to successfully complete the semester after a transition to online delivery. While the institution was working diligently to transform operations, it was key to ensure that students had the appropriate technology to continue their classes and have access to all the educational support structures in an online format. Academic Affairs worked with Technology Services to quickly implement a survey to be placed in the student portal that asked students if they had a computer, if they had a smartphone/tablet, and if they had internet access. Since the portal is the main gateway for students to access all resources, this survey had an outstanding 96% response rate and it gave the institution rich data to react and address student needs. Furthermore, and because the technology needs vary from course to course, the institution took this initiative a step further and integrated the results of the survey with student rosters in the portal for every faculty to have access and to quickly assess whether or not their students had access to the technology that they needed for their classes. In a concerted effort between Academic Affairs, Student Affairs & Enrollment Management, and Technology Services, students who needed access to a laptop were provided one, and students were given the resources to secure internet access (including leveraging emergency funds to give wireless internet access for student in rural areas) as needed. Faculty have shared a number of success stories where students were provided with computers and internet to help them succeed in their courses; these students would have had to withdraw from classes otherwise since the transition happened at the midpoint of the semester. In the end, the withdraw rate for the spring semester (5.7%) was just slightly higher when compared to the previous year (5.1% for spring 2019); the institution is proud of having met the technology needs of the students during such a chaotic world event.

Lessons Learned and Plans for the Future 

The institution is excited to see these platforms connecting students with the resources that they need and continues to improve and promote its use, by marketing its power to students, faculty and staff.

Changes because of COVID-19 

These platforms proved essential in the delivery of information and in connecting students with support services during the transition caused by COVID-19.

Strategy or activity 

Retention Campaigns

Summary of Activities 

At the end of the 2018-2019 academic year, the institution implemented a retention campaign structure that is allowing us to better conceptualize, design, track and evaluate all our retention efforts. This new structure is now allowing the institution to carefully document in Banner the various student success efforts, and has improved our capacity to connect important demographic data in an unprecedented way. This year this structure is being used to document efforts associated with Academic Standing, Midterm Grades, the Always Alert System, COMPASS Career and Academic Advising activities and outreach, and now faculty advising.

Outcomes/Measures of progress 

With a more focused and concerted effort to impact student success, various campaigns were launched to support students who were identified at academic risk. Using a combination of Academic Standing information and the number of failing or unsatisfactory grades at midterm (D/F/U), various levels of intervention were developed and deployed. The classification of risk was done based on the following criteria:

By the end of fall 2019 the total number of unsatisfactory grades (D/F/U) was 2001, a reduction of 13% when compared with the number of unsatisfactory grades for fall 2018 (2299), for a comparable total enrollment (3524 for fall 2019 vs 3544 for fall 2018).

Additionally, the percentage of students who were not in good academic standing by the end of the term was 11.8%, a reduction of 2.1 percentage points when compared with Fall 2018.

Lessons Learned and Plans for the Future 

The scalability of the retention campaign structure is allowing the institution to incorporate more campaigns and use similar mechanisms for documenting and reporting this information in a way that directly connects with each student record. The richness and centrality of the data will allow the institution to do treatment analysis and determine what efforts are having the greatest impact on student success.

Changes because of COVID-19 

Some of the campaigns that were planned for the spring 2020 were put on hold during the disruption caused by COVID-19. All campaigns are back on track and are being fully implemented in fall 2020.

Strategy or activity 

Faculty learning communities around Mindset

See section 3.2 for details.

Strategy or activity 

“Strategies for Promoting Student Success” booklet

See section 3.2 for details.

Strategy or activity 

Revision of the Academic Standing Protocols

Summary of Activities 

During the Gateway2Completion process, it was noted that our Academic Standing policy was outdated. The G2C steering committee reviewed data and proposed an update to the policy that was reviewed and approved by the Faculty Senate and Provost. A working group was additionally organized to review and improve the procedures related to academic standing. The working group consisted of representatives from Academic Affairs, COMPASS Career and Academic Advising, TRiO Student Support Services, ATTIC Tutoring Center, and Registrar. The academic warning and academic probation letters sent to students were updated with more targeted advice, the Academic Improvement Plans (AIP) used by the professional advisors and TRiO were synthesized to create a single AIP that could be used more broadly on campus, and additional interventions are being discussed to help aid students who are not in good academic standing.

Outcomes/Measures of progress 

The new Academic Standing policy begins fall 2020, so we will not have any data until spring 2021.

We have begun the use of revised letters to students who are placed on academic warning or academic probation, as well as using the revised Academic Improvement Plan.

Professional advisors are meeting regularly with their advisees on an AIP to keep them on track to improve their GPA.

Lessons Learned and Plans for the Future 

There are no repercussions for students who do not participate in the AIP process, so some students may fail to engage and end up with academic suspension. We are working to find ways to motivate students to engage in this process so that we can keep them on track to graduate.

Changes because of COVID-19 

While we were able to implement the new academic standing policy and revising the academic standing letters and academic improvement plan forms, we have put a hold on instituting infrastructure on interventions for these groups given a shift in priorities during the pandemic. We are continuing work to create a consistent array of interventions for students on academic warning or academic probation, and hope to pilot these in spring with professional advisors and then train faculty and fully implement in fall 2021.

Priority Work

Career and Academic Advising

See section 3.1 for details.

Priority Work

Focus® 2 Career

Description of Activities

Adding the Focus® 2 Career assessment to the orientation program.

Activity status and plans for 2020

The integration of the Focus® 2 Career assessment into the orientation program was originally planned as a pilot during the summer 2020 orientation with a full deployment during the fall 2020 orientation. With the transition due to COVID-19, priorities were shifted, and the efforts were diverted into transforming the orientation to an online experience.

In preparation for the next orientation cycle we plan to address the different scenarios as follows:

• Online: Integrate the Focus® 2 Career into Navigate (online platform) or as a pre-Orientation activity through the new CRM.
• In-person orientation: COMPASS Advisors will host sessions to introduce Focus® 2 Career to students

Lessons Learned

We expect to increase new freshman participation in the Focus® 2 Career assessment. With limited marketing and promotion, we still had participation and for 2020, Focus® 2 Career had the following number of new users:

Freshman: 158

Sophomore: 53

Junior: 42

Senior: 43

Others: 4

Total: 300

Priority Work

Focus® 2 APPLY

Description of Activities

Addition of Focus® 2 APPLY career assessment to the recruitment process.

Activity status and plans for 2020

Focus® 2 APPLY has not been fully integrated to the recruitment process. To date, only 184 Focus® 2 APPLY accounts have been created.

With the implementation of the new CRM coming to fruition, and the creation of COMPASS, the institution is in a prime position to reinitiate the conversation and take advantage of this opportunity inform and guide prospective students to make a purposeful choice as part of the recruitment activities.

Lessons Learned

While the tool has been deployed and is ready for use, the limited promotion has resulted in the following participation:

Total Accounts created: 184,

Modules Completed:

• Academic Strengths/Weaknesses: 128
• Work Interest Assessments: 98
• Occupation Search (Name): 9
• What you can do with a major in ___: 50
• >

More needs to be done to take full advantage of the value that the tool has in the inform stage of purposeful choice. The institution is committed to start guiding the student as early as possible in the student life cycle, and will work to deliver this guidance more prominently through the admissions process.

Priority Work

Disciplinary based FYE

Description of Activities

Prior to the changes to business operations in March 2020, Coastal Georgia was beginning to develop a plan for an FYE program in conjunction with the Gen Ed CORE remodel.

Activity status and plans for 2020

No progress has been made at this time, but the goal is to develop an FYE and SYE program, ready for implementation in conjunction with the new Gen Ed CORE implementation.

Lessons Learned

N/A

Priority Work

Faculty learning communities around Mindset

Description of Activities

There were two faculty learning communities this year focused on Mindset. One is part of the Chancellor’s Learning Scholars program and consists of faculty at our off-campus instructional site at the Camden Center. The other is a group of faculty who first participated in an informal Mindset discussion led by the CTL and are now researching mindset at CCGA by taking a deep dive into the USG Getting to Know You Mindset survey and other campus instruments.

Activity status and plans for 2020

The Chancellor’s Learning Scholars faculty learning community that focused on mindset was a success. The Scholar who led that learning community has just completed her second year as a Chancellor’s Learning Scholar.

The other mindset learning community has become an interdisciplinary research group with faculty from psychology, math, education, natural sciences, as well as the AVP for Faculty Affairs and our Research Analyst from Institutional Effectiveness. We have begun analyzing the Getting to You Mindset survey, working to address a number of research questions we have posted and have a call set up in November with Motivate Labs.

Lessons Learned

Coastal Georgia does not have an FYE course, so our response rates have been historically low on Getting to Know you Mindset survey. We have been working to find new ways to improve response rates for that survey. This fall, we embedded a link directly into the student portal.

Priority Work

“Strategies for Promoting Student Success” booklet

Description of Activities

During spring “launch week,” several sessions were held with faculty on student success strategies and mindset. From that work and through additional mechanisms to crowdsource faculty ideas, the CTL developed a “Strategies for Promoting Student Success” booklet, organized by types of mindset interventions (Growth, Purpose/Value, Social Belonging) to serve as an idea guide for new and returning faculty. 

Activity status and plans for 2020

The booklet was finalized in April, but due to a shift in priorities at the institution, it was not distributed at the time. Instead, we postponed the distribution to August when we shared the booklet with all faculty via email as well as provided print copies to all full-time faculty.

Lessons Learned

We realized this is not a one-time publication. The ideas will need to be updated regularly, especially those that make reference to technology. We anticipate making this a biennial publication.

Priority Work

Promotion of Service-Learning integration in the curriculum

Description of Activities

In academic year 2019-20, S-L courses were integrated across thirteen academic disciplines, including several new courses in the Cyber Defense concentration. The Center for Service-Learning offers an S-L Scholar’s Workshop on a biannual basis for new faculty members to be trained in the history, good practices, and logistical matters for S-L course implementation. As of fall 2020, 125 faculty members had completed the S-L Scholar’s Workshop. Additionally, the Center offers the opportunity for a variety of stakeholders, including faculty, students, and community partner agency representatives, to present their S-L work during the annual Service-Learning Symposium. Over 180 stakeholders presented posters during the most recent Symposium in April.

Activity status and plans for 2020

The Center for Service-Learning will continue to promote the S-L Scholar’s Workshop and Symposium, while continuing to grow the program through outreach with on-campus groups, including upper administration, Deans, and Department Chairs. The Center is part of the New Faculty extended orientation organized by the Office of Academic Affairs. The Center plans to promote strategic inclusion and growth of service-learning offerings by presenting campus leaders with data which correlates long-term academic success indicators (grade point average, retention and graduation rates) with students taking one or more service-learning courses. The Center for S-L is also creating a comprehensive “Service-Learning Project Archive” webpage through LibGuides, which will help both promote S-L teaching and provide stakeholders the ability to review and assess the success of past S-L projects.

Lessons Learned

Academic year 2019-20 presented the unique challenge of the new Covid-19 environment where the emphasis of the safety of our stakeholders has been heightened. In spring, courses were disrupted with the sudden move to an online-only educational delivery. The Center responded by researching and equipping S-L faculty with the tools necessary to continue providing students with the experience of service-learning through effective online teaching strategies. This fall, the College boasts 27 S-L courses, the most since fall 2016. Another area of growth includes the move to a fully virtual S-L Symposium. This virtual event will continue to be offered annually, even after the in-person presentations can be safely hosted in a live, in-person Symposium event. The quick alteration to a virtual event allowed the Center the opportunity to rethink S-L events and how S-L work is presented, and these insights led to a Service-Learning Project Archive which is currently in development.

Priority Work

Endeavor Project

Description of Activities

Endeavor is moving forward. A new committee will be developed this semester to begin implementation in conjunction with our 2021 QEP.

Activity status and plans for 2020

The Steering Committee made the following recommendations for next steps:

• • Designing a visual model (e.g., a sea star with each of its five arms representing one of the core competencies),
  • Working with academic units and student support offices to align current programs, activities, and outcomes with the core competencies, 
  • Creating a corresponding tool and process to evaluate newly proposed initiatives, and
  • Developing marketing campaigns targeting current students, prospective students, and the community.

The recommendation of the steering committee is attached, along with the initial prospectus.

Lessons Learned

N/A

Priority Work

Repository of Undergraduate Research Opportunities

Description of Activities

Undergraduate research opportunities often vary in nature and availability based on the discipline. In fall 2020 the Director of Service-Learning and Undergraduate Research will meet with Deans and Department Chairs to compile the undergraduate research opportunities for our students.

Activity status and plans for 2020

While the information has not been collected yet, we anticipate consolidating this data by the end of the term, and having a repository ready and available to students by Spring 2021.

Lessons Learned

N/A

Priority Work

Development of Academic Focus Area / Career Infographic

Description of Activities

Similar to the Career Pathways chart from the Florida College System, this artifact will connect Academic Focus Areas and degree programs with jobs, salaries and other information related to career pathways.

Activity status and plans for 2020

COMPASS has obtained the “Crosswalk” document that connects Academic Focus Areas with degrees. The office has begun collecting salary and job title data for majors listed on the Crosswalk. Once all the data has been collected, COMPASS will work with the Office of Advancement in the design, development and production.

The final product will allow a student to explore not only majors associated to a specific focus area, but the potential jobs and salary ranges associated with those jobs in an effort to help students make purposeful choices for their future.

Lessons Learned

N/A

Priority Work

Enrollment Policy Review

Description of Activities

The College Enrollment Committee committed to do a full review of administrative policies that connect to various stages of the enrollment management process (Admission requirements, financial aid regulations, SAP, academic standing protocols, etc.) to identify any institutional policies/practices that may impede a student’s ability to be successful. 

Activity status and plans for 2020

The review began with an analysis of admissions procedures, including test score requirements and communication plans. The committee was moving toward a recommendation of eliminating the test score requirement when the COVID-19 pandemic shut down occurred in March. The institution’s CRM launched, and the communication flow to new and prospective students has been redesigned. We are currently in the process of working Financial Aid, Bursar, and immunization communications into the flow. 

The onboarding of a new admissions application software has simplified and clarified the beginning of the admission process. Newly launched in September, we have not been able to measure the impact of the new application on how students are now answering “problem questions” on residency, VA education benefits, and previous Dual Enrollment credit. 

Other work on the review of practices/policies have stalled in light of the shift of focus due to the pandemic.

Lessons Learned

This is a comprehensive and time-consuming process that requires input from constituencies across campus. Input from all areas is needed for success. We are just now taking this charge up again and are utilizing the Scholastic and Academic Standing Committee of the Faculty Senate to assist in this process.

Priority Work

Gateway2Completion

Description of Activities

Review/discuss academic policies and their impacts on students (particularly policies impacting first-year students, although most of these policies impact students beyond the first year); make recommendations for change to the applicable offices

Activity status and plans for 2020

We created a final exam policy so that students who had 3 or more final exams in a single day could request to reschedule one.

We reviewed potential definitions for “high risk” courses for which we would pay special attention in the future and realized that that definition was too narrow. Instead, the Deans Council defined “high stakes” courses as those courses that have enrollments of at least 100 students per year and serve as prerequisites for other courses. The list of “high stakes” courses was then identified and special effort will be made moving forward to improve success rates more generally in all high stakes courses.

Our Academic Standing policy was updated, specifically the policies regarding “academic warning” in an effort to bring academic standing closer in alignment with satisfactory academic progress. See Section 3.1 for more information.

We reviewed the use of different types of GPA at the College (institutional versus cumulative) and made changes to be more consistent.

Lessons Learned

While we updated our Academic Standing policy, we also realized that significant work was needed on the procedures surrounding academic standing. We continue to work in the improvement of processes and procedures.

Name

Title

email

Johnny Evans

Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs

jevans@ccga.edu

Jason Umfress

Vice President for Student Affairs & Enrollment Management

jumfress@ccga.edu

Michelle Ham

Vice President for Business Affairs

mham@ccga.edu

German Vargas

AVP for Academic Student Engagement

gvargas@ccga.edu

Laura Lynch

AVP for Faculty Affairs

llynch@ccga.edu

Michael Butcher

AVP for Student Affairs, Dean of Students & Title IX Coordinator

mbutcher@ccga.edu

Terral Harris

AVP for Financial Aid

tharris@ccga.edu

Robert Bleil

Interim Chair, Department of Arts and Humanities

rbleil@ccga.edu

Tanya Cofer

Chair, Department of Mathematics and Data Science

tcofer@ccga.edu

Niki Schmauch

Director of Academic Support

nschmauch@ccga.edu

Ronald Harding

Senior Research Associate

rharding@ccga.edu

Brian Weese

Director of Career and Academic Advising

bweese@ccga.edu

Patricia Morris

Associate Director of Career and Academic Advising

pmorris@ccga.edu

Kimberly Burgess

Assistant Director of Admissions Operations, Staff Assembly Chair

kburgess@ccga.edu

Brian Pope

Professor of Psychology, Faculty Senate Chair

bpope@ccga.edu