A UCF Knights Tale: Intentional Efforts to Achieve Student Success

A UCF Knights Tale: Intentional Efforts to Achieve Student Success

Jacob Bonne

Director, Office of Student Success

DeLaine Priest

Associate Vice President, Student Success

University of Central Florida

Comprising 13 colleges and serving more than 68,000 students from all 50 states and more than 146 countries, the University of Central Florida (UCF) is one of the nation’s largest universities. For incoming students, UCF seeks to increase access while also maximizing academic achievement, with an emphasis on student success, retention, and completion. In 2015, the university sought to address the goal of achieving the state’s preeminence performance metrics. The preeminent designation, which now includes a 60% four-year graduation rate and a 92% first-time-in-college (FTIC) retention rate, comes with millions of dollars in additional funding. At the time, UCF’s FTIC retention rate was 88.8%, and its four-year graduation rate was 40.4%. With retention remaining stagnant for the previous three years, UCF realized it needed a new approach.

In developing its strategic plan, Collective Impact, UCF aimed to bring excellence to scale, making a greater impact on students and the community. The university used data from FTIC exit surveys, student feedback, and its Institutional Knowledge Management unit to identify barriers affecting student success and retention. In 2016, UCF established the Student Success Process Improvement (SSPI) initiative to address those barriers to student success, as well as develop methods to restructure support services and identify interventions and strategies to increase FTIC students’ retention.

Specific Targets for Student Success

Born from this initiative was the SSPI Retention Team, a collaborative task force featuring more than 30 Student Development and Enrollment Services team members. Within the SSPI, a model was created (see UCF’s website) to identify four subgroups (teams) to target areas specifically affecting student success: enrollment, financial assistance, registration, and advising and retention. The subgroups worked from a framework of improvement and implementation, guided by evaluation, assessment, design, and change management. Key insights from the SSPI initiative highlighted the importance of additional course availability and enhanced financial support, while identifying challenges for students who must navigate registration holds.

At the core of SSPI was the university’s desire for data-driven decision making. With this in mind, UCF incorporated an Education Advisory Board (EAB) predictive analytics platform called the Student Success Collaborative Campus, enabling advisors, faculty, and staff to determine which students needed interventions and providing a communications platform. Using the EAB platform, the newly developed Office of Student Success used historical institutional data to identify six high-priority subgroups of students: (a) those reporting low high school GPAs (2.0-2.49), (b) off-campus residents, (c) select on-campus residents, (d) minority males, (e) those who earned a specific grade in UCF’s first-year seminar, and (f ) first-generation and/or Pell-eligible status.

The SSPI Retention team crafted outreach and interventions, used primarily throughout the spring and summer to support students not registered for the upcoming fall semester, while also considering the aforementioned subgroups. Prior to registration, the team identified outreach strategies tailored to individual subgroups. Significant work was done to address student holds, for example, as holds have a multiplicative (rather than summative) effect, and students could become frustrated or disheartened while attempting to resolve a hold if another was in place. Through collaboration with academic colleges and campus partners, UCF implemented the following strategies to address holds:

• increasing the threshold for financial holds from $100 to $500 to reduce the number of students with holds because of small financial balances;

• temporary hold lifts for parking tickets, or other administrative holds;

• temporary hold lifts paired with payment plans for students with housing balances; and

• follow-up communication and advising support for students.

Informing Students Strategically

To connect with students, UCF developed communication plans using various modalities. Outreach via calling campaigns and text messaging has been integral to assisting students with complex or multiple holds. In one mid-summer campaign, the university received a 42.4% response rate from students via text on the first day, which allowed staff to craft further strategies and interventions. Buy-in from university leadership was critical, as college deans and associate and assistant vice presidents helped call and text unregistered students. Such calls from administrators represent an escalation of previous campaigns by peer mentors and academic advisors. This further highlights UCF’s aim to provide students with a sense of belonging.

Identifying a strategy to deliver students the right information at the right time, in the right way, and by the right person was critical to ensuring success. Students who indicated they were not returning to UCF received an exit survey to gain further insight on their experience. Some of the reasons FTIC students cited for not returning to the university included: finances, difficulty making friends or feeling isolated, homesickness, and the institution’s geographical location. Through analysis and review of risk indicators, UCF is collaborating with campus partners to support students and alleviate these factors for not returning. For the 2018-2019 cohort, efforts to reach targeted populations were structured around key areas of financial aid, engagement, and academic success.

Grants Provide More Outreach

Another strategy UCF used to address retention was completion grants, which specifically target FTIC students at risk for being dropped from courses because of non-payment or other financial concerns. For the 2017-2018 FTIC cohort, 93 students were identified as at risk for these reasons. Through consultations and outreach by the Registrar’s Office, financial aid, and the Office of Student Success, 91 of the 93 enrolled in courses for the fall semester, and 35 received grants to help cover costs.

Additional outreach and support for students at risk of being dropped from classes for non-payment will become standard practice moving forward.

Ultimately, the efforts across UCF have proven fruitful. The university’s full-time FTIC retention rate rose above 90% for the first time with the 2017-2018 cohort, representing an increase of 1.6% over two years. Historical trends indicate higher registration in the weeks leading up to the start of the fall semester (Figure 1). Registration rates start at increasingly higher levels each summer, and periods of rapid increase are coinciding with outreach efforts.

Figure 1. Summer-to-fall full-time FTIC enrollment trends (number of weeks prior to start of fall).

Within the same timeframe, four-year graduation rates rose to 45.7% (the 2014-2015 cohort). These increases highlight outstanding intentional work, which also includes a Think30 campaign that encourages students to take 30 credit hours a year in order to graduate in four years. Think30 employs strategic communication and marketing events, partnerships with housing, workshops, and orientation.

Next Steps

UCF’s student success story contains several important next steps. As a key takeaway from the SSPI project involved reimagining the undergraduate advising and coaching experience as a decentralized system encompassing predictive analytics and technology and including a hub for undeclared students and professional development. In addition, UCF is developing a Knight Student Success Center to scale current programs and resources. One of the center’s goals will be to identify students who need additional support and provide them a pathway to four-year graduation.

After further efforts to review risk factors, UCF also has developed a revised version of its predictive analytic high-priority model, based on two years of assessment. Using a casemanagement approach, the efforts of the 2018-2019 retention team will feature a network of liaisons at the university to provide expertise and assist with individual student outreach. This team will review and implement greater statistical analysis of risk factors, which will better highlight the foundational, rather than mitigating, causes of student attrition. Further, the team has worked to identify communication gaps as well as peak periods in the university calendar that might require synchronized efforts to reduce “noise” and provide the right message to students at the right time. Additionally, a review of university policies to identify and remove other barriers to student success is underway.

All levels of the university are seeing a renewed passion for collaboration on student success initiatives. At a recent forum, UCF’s provost shared her belief that everyone involved is integral to student success. Increased collaboration with colleges, faculty, and academic programs is a cornerstone of the SSPI. Along with leadership support, leveraging technology is critical. To aid its predictive analytics and scheduling software, UCF is implementing new methods, such as online self-scheduling for advising appointments, to minimize administrative processes while maximizing engagement time with students.

Much work is still needed to accomplish the goals outlined by Collective Impact and ensure student success. The challenges of student finances, sense of belonging, and academic success for UCF students are doubtlessly reminiscent of obstacles for students elsewhere. Through support from leadership, as well as leveraging technologies, datadriven decision making, and financial resources, UCF aims to continue fostering a culture of student success with a focus on retention and completion.

Contact

Jacob Bonne bonne@ucf.edu