KSU has identified courses that are high enrollment courses with significant DFW rates and will continue to ensure that sufficient sections are offered to meet student demand, offer targeted academic supports to achieve greater impacts, and engage faculty in learning communities focused on course redevelopment.
This project is aligned with one of our “Top 5 Strategies,” which is to expand faculty knowledge and practices that support student success.
KPIs:
- DFWI rates
- Course enrollment and fill rates
- Early Alert engagement
- Midterm Grade reporting engagement - ASPIRE Priority
- Supplemental Instruction/Tutoring attendance
- Faculty engagement in learning communities around first year courses
Baseline measure (for each KPI):
- Fall 2023 DFWI rates:-MATH 1111- 35%; MATH 1113 - 40%; MATH 1190 - 43%
- Fall 2023 Course enrollment and Fill Rates: MATH 1111 - 4,287, 95%; MATH 1113 – 2,069, 96%, MATH 1190 – 1,632, 99%
- Early Alert engagement Fall 2023: MATH 1111 - 71%; MATH 1113 - 84%, MATH 1190 - 81%
- Midterm Grade engagement Fall 2023: MATH 1111 - 39%; MATH 1113 - 64%, MATH 1190 - 44%
- Fall 2023 Supplemental Instruction /Tutoring attendance: SI 11,915; SMART 10,059
- Faculty engagement in learning communities around first year courses Fall 2024 – 17 participants, representing 15 different departments
Goal or targets (for each KPI):
- Fall 2027 DFWI rates- MATH 1111 30%, MATH 1113 30%, MATH 1190 30%
- Fall 2026 Course enrollment and Fill Rates – No enrollment targets set fill rates are MATH 1111 99%; MATH 1113 99%; MATH 1190 99%
- Fall 2027 Early Alert engagement – MATH 80%; MATH 1113 90%, MATH 1190 90%
- Fall 2027 Midterm Grade engagement - MATH 1111 80%; MATH 1113 80%, MATH 1190 80%
- Fall 2026 Supplemental Instruction/Tutoring engagement – 10% increase over baseline
Fall 2026 Faculty engagement in learning communities around first year courses – 36 different faculty who have participated in “Block Champion” training, at least one representative each from each critical course department
Overall undergraduate student enrollment in Fall 2025 increased by 7.5 percent (FA 24 42,840 → FA 25 46,069). Enrollment in critical mathematics courses also grew. MATH 1111 enrollment rose by 6 percent (FA 24 4,787 → FA 25 5,083) with a 98 percent fill rate. MATH 1113 enrollment remained steady (FA 24 2,138 → FA 25 2,137) with a 93 percent fill rate, and MATH 1190 enrollment increased by 11 percent (FA 24 1,684 → FA 25 1,876) with a 98 percent fill rate.
DFWI trends across the academic year show incremental but sustained improvement. From Fall 2023 to Fall 2024, DFWI rates declined in MATH 1113 (40 % → 38 %) and MATH 1190 (43 % → 39 %), with a modest increase in MATH 1111 (35 % → 37 %) due primarily to higher withdrawal rates. Across all critical courses, D and F grades declined from 16.6 percent in Fall 2023 to 13.2 percent in Spring 2025, while withdrawals increased from 9.9 to 13.2 percent. The overall DFWI rate remained steady near 26 percent, reflecting a redistribution within that category—fewer failing grades and more timely withdrawals.
Faculty engagement in early alerts and midterm grades has continued to strengthen. Early-alert participation increased from 71 percent in Fall 2023 to 75 percent in Fall 2024, reaching 85 percent of critical-course sections in Spring 2025. Midterm-grade submissions rose sharply: MATH 1111 (39 % → 78 %), MATH 1113 (64 % → 73 %), and MATH 1190 (39 % → 76 %) between Fall 2023 and Fall 2024, and reached 80 percent overall and 83 percent for critical courses in Spring 2025. These increases allowed faculty to provide clearer feedback earlier in the term and enabled students to make informed academic decisions. The USG withdrawal deadline extension further reinforced these efforts by giving students more time to act on performance data before the end of the term.
Academic support utilization also expanded. Supplemental Instruction (SI) participation increased 8.8 percent (FA 24 12,963). Within the critical math sequence, 385 students attended 1,830 SI sessions in Fall 2024, and 344 students attended 1,445 sessions in Spring 2025. SMART Center visits increased 23.9 percent overall (FA 24 12,468) and 4.8 percent in critical math courses (FA 24 5,464), with unique student visits up 17 percent (1,198). Students who used SI or SMART services multiple times consistently achieved higher grades and lower DFWI rates than their peers.
KSU’s ASPIRE Top 5 strategies—embedded within the institutional strategic plan—emphasize sustainability and accountability across colleges. Most colleges have included early alerts and midterm grades in their strategic implementation plans, and several deans now incorporate these measures into annual faculty reviews. Academic Affairs provides biweekly and end-of-term updates on participation rates to maintain consistency and promote continuous improvement.
The KSU Strategic Plan continues to guide this work, with most colleges embedding related initiatives into their Strategic Implementation Plans (SIPs) to ensure measurable progress. Early-alert and midterm-grade participation are now standing expectations across colleges, and several deans have incorporated these metrics into annual faculty evaluations. To sustain momentum, Academic Affairs provided regular updates on participation rates during submission windows, maintaining consistent, data-driven engagement with associate deans and faculty throughout the year.
Goals for 2025–2026 build directly on this foundation. The SMART Center and Supplemental Instruction programs will remain central supports for first-year students in high-enrollment courses, each targeting a 6 percent increase in visits over the Fall 2023 baseline. Colleges will expand the use of these data in departmental reviews and course redesign efforts to identify patterns in DFWI reduction and student persistence.
Academic Affairs, in collaboration with Data Strategy and Institutional Research, will integrate real-time dashboards into college-level planning to disaggregate outcomes by course, modality, and student population. These dashboards will allow faculty and academic-support teams to refine interventions and document how structured feedback, tutoring, and peer learning collectively strengthen first-year momentum.
CHALLENGES:
Strong enrollment growth in Fall 2025 (46,069 undergraduates) expanded the university’s impact but also amplified familiar challenges related to class size, scheduling, and faculty workload. Higher demand in gateway mathematics increased pressure on peer-educator staffing in tutoring and SI, requiring ongoing resource adjustments to maintain access and quality. While faculty participation in early alerts and midterm grades continues to exceed expectations, sustaining engagement and course quality across hundreds of sections remains a concern. In addition, D and F rates have declined, but overall DFWI percentages have stabilized near 26 percent, underscoring the need for more targeted, section-level analysis to identify instructional and structural factors that influence student outcomes.
SUPPORT NEEDED:
Additional benchmarking in terms of both policies and data from other USG institutions on similar initiatives would be helpful.
