Strategic Priorities

Strategies:

• Identify strategies and interventions to reduce summer melt and enhance communications with students post-orientation.

• Refine the multi-modal orientation model to reduce financial and travel barriers to student participation and decrease number of students participating in open enrollment.

• Identify opportunities to engage prospective students with disabilities about the support available and begin accommodations setup earlier in transition to KU.

• Improve advising and enrollment coordination/on-boarding for new students (freshmen & transfer) including a comprehensive communications plan that is personalized and available year-round.

• Expand and enhance first-year courses (e.g., UNIV, Learning Communities, First-Year Seminars), including a focus on conditional admit students.

• Collaborate with Graduate Studies to develop online and in-person writing workshops for newly enrolled graduate students designed to support their transition to graduate study.

Strategies:

• Implement the conditional admit support plan and assess outcomes.

• Engage with academic departments with high DFW rates to partner on strategies available through Academic Success support opportunities.

• Design course-specific tutoring program that allows for flexibility in scheduling (by appointment versus semester long) and size (one-on-one or group) while eliminating cost to individual student.

• Enhance and expand graduate writing support through programming and consultations.

• Develop an outreach plan that results in timely undergraduate student re-enrollment.

• Establish Jayhawk GPS as the “digital gateway to service” by incorporating all Academic Success appointment access through the app.

• Identify and implement system and tools to track experiential learning across the institution.

Strategies:

• Implement a coordinated strategy to improve student awareness of and engagement with academic support programming designed for incoming first-generation, Pell-eligible, and students of color.

• Coordinate and standardize peer academic support staff training and development in alignment with College Reading and Learning Association (CRLA) certification requirements.

• Expand second-layer engagement opportunities for students (e.g., Hawk Link, Hawk Week, SophoMORE September, course offerings).

• Identify opportunities to co-locate Academic Success units to improve student access and awareness of support services.

Strategies:

• Operationalize the Pathways model to support intentional major and career pathways for students.

• Explore solutions to major foreclosures for students in their first and second years.

• Develop a strategy to avoid toxic course combinations for exploring and pre-professional students.

• Identify a strategy to decrease the percentage of students earning credit hours in excess of minimum hours needed for degree completion.

• Partner with Academic Affairs to incorporate degree maps usage into undergraduate academic advising.

• Establish a plan and identify resources needed to support graduate students pursuing alternatives to academic careers through dedicated programming in collaboration with Graduate Studies.

• Establish a communication strategy and training resources to help students, faculty, and staff improve their understanding of the purpose of the KU Core.

Strategies:

• Leverage Jayhawk GPS Quick Polls, surveys, and nudges to monitor student needs resulting in timely, personalized referrals and reminders.

• Establish data-informed understanding of the financial needs of KU students and related strategies to improve retention and completion.

• Empower staff across Academic Success units to deliver wellness supports to students in coordinated fashion with Student Affairs, Enrollment Management, and International Affairs.

• Incorporate wellness resources into UNIV 101, OPTIONS, and orientation experiences to enhance student awareness of services on campus.

• Develop a personalized support model for students returning to KU after dismissal, withdrawal, or time away.

Strategies:

• Lead the coordination of the First-Destination Survey and leverage data to inform faculty, staff, and students (prospective and current) about student pathways after graduation.

• Establish and promote a campus-wide definition of experiential learning to increase awareness of opportunities and resources available to expand offerings (e.g., Community Engagement Consortium, Research-Intensive Course Mini-Grants).

• Create a map of career and experiential learning opportunities across the institution to identify pathways to participation for students.

• Integrate experiential learning into all Academic Success coordinated courses while ensuring courses are mapped to institutional learning outcomes.

• Reduce barriers to participation for first-generation, Pell-eligible, and students of color in career and experiential learning activities (e.g., Rising Scholars, Emerging Scholars).

Strategies:

• Prioritize training and development opportunities to increase awareness of the needs of student populations, trends in higher education, and resources to inform and improve work practices.

• Leverage annual performance review process to establish goals for each staff member that prioritize learning including one goal focused on DEIB related training and development.

• Strategically connect staff with committee service opportunities to expand representation from across units and provide development opportunities.

• Encourage staff participation in development and training opportunities available on campus including events through DEIB, Student Affairs, and Faculty-Staff Councils.

• Increase resources to expand opportunities for staff to participate in regional and national development opportunities.

• Establish student-to-staff ratios to monitor caseloads and to proactively advocate for resources to adjust to student population shifts.

• Promote and coordinate recognition opportunities available on campus or through professional associations.