Kennesaw State University Campus Plan Update 2019

INSTITUTIONAL MISSION AND STUDENT BODY PROFILE

Kennesaw State University is one of four comprehensive universities in the University System of Georgia and the third-largest university in the state of Georgia. KSU is a Carnegie-designated doctoral R2 research institution.  The mission statement affirms KSU’s commitment to student success.

“At Kennesaw State, we serve as a powerful example of the impact a student-centered, research-drive university education can deliver. We help students succeed through exploration, collaboration, and rigor, uniting a diversity spectrum of backgrounds and talents.  At KSU, students become the individuals who people want as colleagues and leaders.”

Two of the KSU values further exemplify KSU’s commitment to student success. 

“We are student-inspired; we believe in fueling aspiration and delivering pathways – enabling students to stretch and strive, embrace a dream, and create actionable plans.”

“We are promise-fulfilling; we believe in being committed and ready – making promises we can keep to fuel opportunity for every student and spark economic growth for the region.”

As illustrated in Table 1, Kennesaw State University enrolled 31,624 undergraduate students in fall semester 2018, a 3.4% decrease from fall semester 2017. The proportion of full-time undergraduates has remained consistent at roughly three-quarters of the total undergraduate student population. The percentage of women steadily decreased by one percentage point since consolidation; however, there was a 1% increase for Fall 2018.  In addition, there has been a steady increase in the percentage of racial/ ethnic minority identified students. The percentage of undergraduate students receiving Pell Grants increased five percentage points from 37% in fall semester 2016 to 42% in fall semester 2017. Pell grant data for fall semester 2018 were unavailable at the time of data collection.

The number of enrolled first-time freshmen decreased by 8% from 5,237 in fall semester 2017 to 4783 in fall semester 2018. The full-time student percentage has remained consistent at 97% of the total first-time freshman student population. Female students remain relatively consistent at 48% as well as the percentage of racial/ ethnic minority identified students ranging from 40-42% in the last three years.

Table 1. KSU Degree-Seeking Undergraduate Enrollment 2013-2018

Undergraduate Enrollment Profile

MOMENTUM YEAR UPDATE

Kennesaw State has made significant progress towards the implementation of the Momentum Year Plan.  In order to provide a comprehensive update of our progress, five primary areas of work have been identified.

Purposeful Choice

In May 2019, KSU’s focus areas were revisited to reduce the total number of focus areas from ten to eight.  The focus areas include art; business and management; education; engineering and math; health professional; humanities; science, computing, and technology; and social science.  To be sure all credit hours would be used toward degree completion, focus areas were designed around the General Education Core Curriculum Areas A-E.  Focus Areas were implemented in Fall 2019 and all undecided first-time freshman were advised into specific focus areas based on their interest and mathematics ability. 

University College Advising Services (UCAS), the campus advising unit serving those students who choose one of the focus areas or who find themselves in need of support choosing or changing a major after matriculation, worked closely with the other academic colleges to provide relevant information related to students who chose focus areas connected with programs within each college.  This information was provided to the colleges to ensure a connection was made with potential majors from the moment of registration.  UCAS held preliminary discussions with incoming students to place them in majors as opposed to focus areas at and before registration.  The Department of Career Planning and Development worked with UCAS to hold workshops for first-semester focus areas students to assist them in choosing a major and understanding various career paths available to them. 

In preparation for Fall 2020, UCAS will have at least two points of contact with students who have been accepted to KSU, but who have selected “undeclared” on the application.  These contacts are designed to hold conversations related to identifying the students’ academic and career interests in order to facilitate choice of appropriate majors or focus areas prior to orientation.  Information generated from these contacts will be shared with the other academic colleges in order to provide helpful projections of incoming students and create a beneficial advising experience at Orientation. 

Academic Program Maps

Academic Program Maps were revisited in summer 2019 as a result of University-wide degree requirement changes and curriculum revisions in response to undergraduate academic program audits.  Particular attention is being paid to prerequisite scaffolding, general educational core curriculum course recommendations, and more well-defined program milestones.  New templates for faculty have been created along with integrating the academic program map update process with the curriculum update process.  A pilot group of four programs are being re-worked in Degree Works with the intention of assigning maps to individual students, which will assist academic advisors and students in planning degree completion. 

Committee Approach

Kennesaw continues to use a committee approach to implementing the Momentum Year plan.  The Steering Committee operates as a strategic oversight group with representatives from all relevant campus partners, including Enrollment Services, Strategic Communication, Academic Affairs Advising and Student Success, University Curriculum, Instruction, and Assessment, and the Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning.   

Early Alert Program

KSU is expanding the approach to early alerts as part of the Momentum Year plan.  While reports were pulled only once a term in prior semesters, we are piloting a more open and inclusive process in Fall 2019.  Two academic colleges will be reviewing input from their faculty and advisors consistently throughout the term, essentially leaving the reporting window open for review on a daily basis as opposed to triggering a reporting period.  This will be expanded to other colleges in Spring 2020. 

The Early Alert program helped the math faculty identify struggling students early in their courses and mobilized the resources of the university to intervene and assist. 45% of the students who were identified in the process went on to pass the class. 

Mindset Survey

Through a collaborative effort, KSU had an unprecedented large response rate in Fall 2018 on the pre-test for the Mindset Survey with 2133 respondents.  There were 271 responses to the post-test.  KSU is in the process of analyzing the data to inform strategies for improvement.  We plan to work with Motivate Lab in Spring 2020 to develop KSU specific questions to ensure the results provide meaningful information directly related to our initiatives. 

OTHER INSTITUTIONAL HIGH-IMPACT STRATEGIES, ACTIVITIES, & OUTCOMES

QUALITY ENHANCEMENT PLAN

The Quality Enhancement Plan (QEP) It’s About Engagement will provide faculty and students with the resources, tools, support, and guidance to facilitate and engage in quality internship, undergraduate research, and service-learning experiences.  Continuous monitoring, analysis, and changes for improvement of these resources and experiences will further the University’s focus to expand and enhance engaged learning opportunities for KSU’s undergraduate students. The goals of the QEP are to

Increase the number of opportunities for students to engage in internships, undergraduate research, and service-learning in undergraduate degree programs in each of the academic colleges and the University as a whole; and

Increase the number of students engaging in internships, undergraduate research, and service-learning opportunities in undergraduate degree programs in each of the academic colleges and for the University as a whole.

Actions for implementing and sustaining the QEP fall into five categories: Creating and maintaining an administrative support structure; developing and implementing operational definitions, guidelines, and procedures; preparing faculty and students for engaged learning opportunities; establishing and sustaining strategic methods for informing faculty and students; and assessing progress for continuously improving achievement of the QEP goals.

Administrative Support Structure

An Engagement Steering Committee was formed to oversee the implementation of It’s About Engagement in addition to monitoring and advising on its progress in order to strengthen and improve it.  The committee includes the Director of Undergraduate Research, Executive Director of Career Planning and Development, Executive Director of Student Leadership and Service, Executive Director of the Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning, Director of Assessment, three faculty, and three students.  The chair is the Interim Associate Vice President for Student Success.  Another component of the administrative support structure that will be fully implemented in Fall 2019 was the addition of course attribute codes in Banner. 

Operational Definitions, Guidelines, and Procedures

Each of the three HIPs (internships, undergraduate research, and service-learning) have operational definitions and taxonomies.  The taxonomies include the attributes of a high-impact course and levels of potential impact ranging from high to highest for each of the attributes.  The promotion and use of standard operational definitions and taxonomies will advance the University’s effort in providing high-impact practices. 

Faculty Development

The Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning (CETL) will provide several faculty development opportunities to support implementation of It’s About Engagement.  This includes a dedicated flagship workshop series, engagement focused individual consultations, It’s About Engagement Travel Funds Program, faculty learning communities, Course Design Institute, and assessment of critical reflections.

Communication and Marketing

The Office of Strategic Communications and Marketing will provide university-wide communication to faculty and students to inform them about engagement opportunities.  The office will continue to promote the QEP through the KSU website, social media sites, the President’s weekly blog, the student newspaper, and the daily email digest.  In addition, CETL will develop and utilize a variety of marketing tools, materials, and channels of communication to enhance It’s About Engagement visibility and to encourage participation.  In Spring 2019, KSU hosted the National Conference on Undergraduate Research (NCUR) as a way to kick off the importance and benefits of engaged learning opportunities.

Assessment

KSU will conduct formal and informal assessment of the following four student learning outcomes (SLOs) to discern the deeper impacts of student engagement associated with HIP participation. 

• Students will cite meaningful and valuable connections of their HIP experiences to their overall educational preparation.
• Students will gain new insights on the connectedness and integration of the academic preparation of their disciplines of study to the applied settings of their HIP experiences.
• Students will build upon prior knowledge and experiences to respond effectively to the new and challenging demands of their HIP settings.
• Students will demonstrate growth in professional and personal core values and sense of self as a result of their HIP experiences. 

A rubric will be used to directly assess the SLOs.  The rubric includes educational value, connectedness insights, integrated problem-solving, and values growth.  Student focus groups will be used as informal measure of the QEP’s four SLOs.

In order to assess the two goals for It’s About Engagement, KSU set appropriate and specific college and university-wide targets per HIP by reviewing the administrative support infrastructure in each college and supporting units, the strategies identified for growth in each college Engagement Plan, and the baseline participation rates by college. 

In order to assess the effectiveness of the implementation of It’s About Engagement, the Engagement Steering Committee will use an annual evaluation instrument for faculty teaching the HIPs courses, faculty focus groups, and a debrief focus group with the Steering Committee.   

OBSERVATIONS AND NEXT STEPS

KSU made significant progress in its Momentum approach over the last year.  Focus areas were simplified and streamlined.  The Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning provided several faculty development opportunities related to momentum year and mindset.  The First-Year Seminar was restructured and the curriculum changed to include growth mindset and metacognition.  Institutional Research launched several data dashboards and a decision support gateway to provide information and analyses necessary to help faculty, staff, and administrators make data-informed decisions.  The KSU Quality Enhancement Plan, It’s About Engagement is focused on growth and development through engaged learning opportunities through participation in internships, undergraduate research, and service-learning focused courses.  Finally, an Associate Vice President of Student Success was identified to help provide a more centralized approach to high priority, high impact strategies, activities, and outcomes.

The Kennesaw State 2019 Momentum Approach Development Plan included several goals:

• Improved retention and progression rates of first-year students
• Improved communication between enrollment services, advising, and academic departments
• Reinforce a positive academic mindset
• Deepen academic engagement
• Encourage growth mindset language and practices across campus

Plans for action and change were developed and include, but are not limited to the following:

1.     Implement introductory career workshops leading to the use of YouScience, a career aptitude test, in first-year advising for focus area students.  More intentional integration of career advising and career education along with academic advising is planned for all students in Fall 2020.

2.     Special programming for students in the focus areas began in Fall 2019 with the career workshops.  Fall 2020 will include weekly highlights of majors within areas, pop-ups with faculty from majors, and the promotion of the Owls Job Shadow program.

3.     Increase pre-orientation contact points to ensure the number of students in focus areas will provide even more success regarding placing students into major upon matriculation.  Traditionally, KSU’s incoming class includes over 2000 students who enter their first year as undeclared.  Due to the intervention and education provided by University College Advising, the number of students in focus areas in Fall 2019 was closer to 300, the remainder of the incoming undeclared students were placed directly into majors.

4.     Move towards the Integration of growth mindset language across all admissions, orientation, and advising materials.  The Enrollment Services division began this change in Fall 2019 for implementation in Spring 2020.

5.     Academic support capacity in Supplemental Instruction and individualized tutoring was expanded by almost 25% in Fall 2019, with further growth expected in Fall 2020.

6.     Explore additional living-learning community opportunities.

STUDENT SUCCESS AND COMPLETION TEAM