New program launched to support student academic performance

Baylor’s investment in new technological resources to strengthen efforts to help students determine their personal strengths, succeed academically and graduate in four years, has begun to show results. The 4-year graduation rate among the fall 2012 cohort reached a record 62.7% this year. Reflecting this forward-looking approach, this fall, the University launched a program called the Student Success Collaborative (SSC) with the goal of raising students’ four-year graduation rates even higher.

The SSC combines technology, research and predictive analytics provided by the Education Advisory Board, which has partnered with more than 1,000 colleges and universities in the areas of enrollment management, student success and academic operations.

“Baylor’s investment in the Student Success Collaborative is a significant step forward in our determined efforts to help students flourish academically,” said Dr. Wesley Null, vice provost for undergraduate education and a professor in the School of Education and the Honors College. “In addition, by increasing the number of students graduating in four years, we’re assisting them in reducing student debt and entering graduate school or the workplace on schedule.”

One of the ways the SSC helps students is through giving advisors tools to create a better match between undergraduates and their major by identifying student risk based against a set of success factors for a given academic major. In addition, the new SSC provides Baylor staff with a greater ability to reach out to students who are struggling academically, allowing advisors to direct resources to specific groups of at-risk students and to monitor a student’s progress.

“The Student Success Collaborative offers a dynamic set of tools that empowers our staff and faculty to act on real-time, in-semester data about students, especially those who are at risk of not succeeding in a specific major or set of classes,” said Dr. Sinda Vanderpool, associate vice provost for academic enrollment management. “The SSC allows our advisors to be more efficient and strategic and to gain accurate measurements about which types of intervention and programs are making the greatest impact.”

The key to the program’s success, Dr. Vanderpool said, is getting students to participate. And that’s where all members of Baylor’s faculty and staff can help, she noted.

The SSC uses text messaging as the primary means of communication between Baylor advisors and students. To enable this process, students must opt in by activating text messaging in BearWeb. After logging in, students should click on “Personal Information” and then click on “Cell Phone Usage Permissions.” When prompted to “Allow notifications from student success team,” students should click “Yes.”

Dr. Vanderpool said by encouraging students to take this step, Baylor faculty and staff members will help increase participation rates and thus the overall success of the program.

“We know that students are much more likely to read text messages than they are to read emails,” she said. “With this new system, our advising community and other staff and faculty who make up the coordinated care network at Baylor will be able to text students with reminders about appointments or with other timely information. We’re excited about this new way to help Baylor students succeed, one by one.”