Strategic Priorities

Students are the primary end user. Students need to be able to clearly understand how to engage with the advising tool in order to track their progress toward successful degree completion. Decisions about language and parameters are standardized across units, increasing the usability of the system for students, especially if they change or add majors in different schools. The system is intended to promote students meeting with their advisor(s) and utilizing academic support services on campus. 

The system is accessible by different users across campus, including Student Information Services (SIS), Information Technology (IT), Financial Aid and Scholarships (SAS), advisors, tutors and other student support staff. Regardless of which advisors a student sees, the information needed to advise a student will be accessible. The functional implementation of the system is still growing with the ultimate goal to improve student success and enhance the engagement between students, advisors, tutors, and professors.  

Increase the number of students through pipeline to completion

Jayhawk GPS provides clear information on progress toward degree for both students and their advisors and intervention tools to support graduation. 

Reduce average time to degree

Jayhawk GPS offers centralized storage of advising notes and course history to allow both students and advisors to monitor the path to degree and help prevent roadblocks that delay graduation. 

Assure student engagement and satisfaction

Jayhawk GPS helps students engage more closely with their academic advisors and tutors/peer mentors. This tool made virtual advising possible during the spring 2020 online transition. Without this tool, student engagement would have suffered. 

Strategies:

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

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

Strategies:

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

• 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.

• 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.

• 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

Strategies:

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

• 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.

Strategies:

• 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.

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

Objective 1: Pursue collaborations with academic and support units to promote student app downloads

Jayhawk GPS provides a companion app for students to easily schedule appointments with advisors, view enrollment holds, view their course schedule, and more. Intentional collaboration to communicate purpose and benefits will help to improve overall usage and engagement. 

Objective 2: Expand onboarding to additional student support units across campus

Continued onboarding opportunities with the Military-Affiliated Student Center and University Academic Support Centers

Objective 1: Continue expanding Progress Reporting

Continued partnership with ACCT 200 and BIOL 100 instructors for Spring 2021 and identify other key courses for further rollout

Objective 2: Increased use of data and dashboards to identify opportunities for improvement

Investigate and roll out plans for further use of Population Health Dashboards by academic leadership

Objective 1: Identify ways to increase use of communication features to improve communication with students

Expand use cases for expanding use of texting feature by advisors and support staff

Objective 2: Identify ways to increase use of communication features to improve communication between advisors and support staff

Expand use cases for expanding use of relationships, alerts/referrals and notes