Warning Initiative
Academic Advisors
Project Purpose
M State’s Academic Advising team completes First Semester Check-in appointments with new Liberal Arts and Transfer Pathway students to review and discuss their academic and career goals and develop an academic plan. Due to a decline in participation in appointment show rates and a lower new incoming student population spring term, the advising team requested Institutional Research to review data to see where advisors could have the most impact on student persistence and retention. Institutional Research presented data at an Academic Advising meeting and advisors chose to work with warning students due to the stop out rate.
The college currently has faculty advisors and professional advisors with no defined formal intervention process. Students who go on academic warning are notified via email by our registrar once grades are posted. This project is intended to better support students once they receive the initial communication of their academic standing by meeting with students on academic warning throughout the semester.
The warning initiative project purpose is to:
- Develop a proactive process to notify students on academic warning
- Help students review and modify their schedules prior to the term starting
- Connect students to resources throughout the semester
Deliverables
- Develop and implement an email campaign prior to spring term starting
- Develop and implement a texting script for employees to send out to students
- Develop and utilize a fillable success plan worksheet that any advisor can use during one-on-one appointments
- Determine a plan for scheduled outreach and meeting times with students on warning that is consistent college-wide
Project Scope
In Scope
- Developing a process plan
- Developing a communication script
- Deploying a communication plan
- Developing and utilizing success plan forms
- Developing and implementing a tracking sheet to connect students to resources
- One-on-one meetings with students twice per semester
Effectiveness Measures
Project Goals
- Increase support through one-on-one appointments between advisor and student
- Increase student persistence from spring to fall
Key Performance Indicators/Metrics
- Appointment show rate
- Students persisting from fall to fall
- Students persisting from spring to fall
Metric Review Timeline
Annually
Reporting
Results shared with stakeholders, leaders and the college community via reporting systems.
Constraints
- Short turnaround between the notification of a student being placed on warning and student group outreach before the start of spring term
- No institutional requirements for students to communicate or meet with an Academic Advisor
Financial Impact
Increased retention of students creates an increase in tuition revenue.
Summary of Results
FY21 Findings
Students Placed on Warning Fall 2020
(Registered spring 2021 after drop/add period)
| Advisor Meetings | Meetings | % | Persisted to Fall 2021 | % |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 meeting only with advisor | 64 | 40% | 23 | 14% |
| 2 meetings with advisor | 34 | 21% | 18 | 11% |
| No meetings | 63 | 39% | 17 | 11% |
Students Returning to M State After Stopping Out
(Registered spring 2021 after drop/add period)
| Advisor Meetings | Meetings | % | Persisted to Fall 2021 | % |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 meeting only with advisor | 22 | 47% | 4 | 18% |
| 2 meetings with advisor | 8 | 17% | 5 | 63% |
| No meetings | 18 | 38% | 5 | 28% |
FY22 Findings
Students Placed on Warning Fall 2021
(Registered spring 2022 after drop/add period)
| Advisor Meetings | Meetings | % | Persisted to Fall 2022 | % |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 meeting only with advisor | 60 | 34% | 25 | 42% |
| 2 meetings with advisor | 28 | 16% | 16 | 57% |
| No meetings | 90 | 51% | 32 | 36% |
Students Returning to M State After Stopping Out
(Registered spring 2022 after drop/add period)
| Advisor Meetings | Meetings | % | Persisted to Fall 2022 | % |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Met with advisor | 17 | 36% | 10 | 59% |
| No meetings | 30 | 64% | 10 | 33% |
FY21 - FY22 Findings
In fall 2021, 239 students were identified for warning appointments. When comparing this cohort to the previous year cohort, there was a 5% decrease in fall-to-fall persistence, however, when compared to the three-year average prior to a formal intervention, fall-to-fall persistence increased by 15% with this student population.
Other findings:
- The number of students placed on warning increased 8% year over year; stop out warning students increased 2%
- 58% of students on warning (2-year average) were Pell eligible (+10% compared to the college's enrollment profile, excluding dual credit and visiting students)
- 21% of students on warning (2-year average) were black (+7% compared to the college's enrollment profile, excluding dual credit and visiting students)
- 6% increase of students with one advisor meeting persisted to the next spring
- 27% of students who did not meet with an advisor persisted to spring 2022, 36% (+9%) students persisted to spring 2022 that had one meeting, and 53% (+26%) persisted that had two meetings
- 66% of students on warning met with an advisor with 44% persisting to the subsequent fall semester
- 15% drop in students meeting with an advisor
Status
Academic advisors implemented the Academic Warning initiative as part of the multi-year program addressing equity in academic progress monitoring. The advising team personally reached out to each student on Academic Warning prior to the start of spring term to offer support and assist students with revising their upcoming semester academic plans. The team also completes two check-in appointments throughout the semester to encourage a sense of belonging. The initiative was put on hold for FY23 to reevaluate how to increase student participation (95% of students placed on academic warning spring 2022 received repeated outreach, 51% of these student did not attend any check-in meetings).
Next Steps
Advising plans to review data and make adjustments after the new Customer Relationship Management system is implemented to leverage the software to send consistent communications to students in order to support student attendance at advisor meetings. A Title III grant is supporting Success Navigators for students, so the team will also explore utilizing their help to increase student engagement in one-on-one appointments or workshops to targeted student groups.
