Align academic advising systems, protocols, and training to ensure that students receive consistent, timely, and proactive support throughout their academic programs.
In the space provided, indicate your general evaluation plan, including the key performance indicators and measures for the project; how frequently you are assessing, your baseline measure, your goal or target for success and your current status.
KPIs: Improved FTFT retention to 85% by 2030.
FTFT Baseline is 69.83% for most recent cohort (FA23).
Incrementally, 3% each increase for each cohort.
Aspirational outcomes by cohort (Retention)
24-25 Cohort: 72.83%
25-26 Cohort: 75.83%
26-27 Cohort: 78.83%
27-28 Cohort: 81.83%
28-29 Cohort: 84.83 %
29-30 Cohort: 87.83%
KPI: Improved 6-year graduation rated to 60% by 2030.
FTFT Baseline is 42.9% for most recent cohort (FA18)
Incrementally, 3% increase for each cohort
Aspirational outcomes by cohort (Graduation)
2019 Cohort: 45.9%
2020 Cohort: 48.9 %
2021 Cohort: 51.9%
2022 Cohort: 54.9%
2023 Cohort: 57.9%
2024 Cohort: 60.9%
Time to Degree
KPI: Decrease time to degree to 5.1 years by 2030
Revised advisor training course in CougarView
Soft launch of new advising CRM (Target X) & offered 8 training sessions on the new platform in FA24.
We feel that to be more effective, the advising structure must be centralized. The current model lacks consistency and leads to student confusion, reduced trust, and a lack of proactive, meaningful engagement, impacting student retention and success. Additionally, the blended model may not adequately leverage data to identify at-risk students early, thereby missing opportunities for timely intervention.
We plan to completely overhaul our advising structure and improve the quality of advising offered to our students across their lifecycle as students.
We will move away from our current blended model, which sends students to faculty advisors (most majors) at the end of sophomore year. Instead, we plan to move toward a full professional model, with each advisor working with 150 students and being trained as coaches. The team must complete training that leads to becoming credentialed by the International Coaching Federation.
This is in the initial stages of planning and will be launched as part of the QEP for 2026 reaffirmation cycle. This will require a total of 40 academic success coaches. Training and development will occur in SP 25, the model will launch this summer during the orientation cycles.
Change of this magnitude is going to require significant investment to encourage support and buy-in from all campus stakeholders.
Renovations of existing space will be required to centralize this new function, which will also include career services overhaul and intentional partnership with this area.
We are engaged with the National Institute of Student Success in implementing our NISS playbook, so we feel confident we have the necessary support to complete these activities. Additionally, Dr. Rayfield is focused on student success and is in full support of this new model. She is actively engaged in securing the necessary funding to move us forward with this initiative.
We are working with the University of Kentucky to help design our program and train staff, with the hope that this model sets an example across our system. We plan to become an ICF credentialed program that can offer training to other institutions who want to improve outcomes for their students in this space.
