Winter 2020 Undergraduate Student Success Initiative Steering Committee (USSI-SC) Update

The information below serves to build upon the Fall 2019 Undergraduate Student Success Initiative Steering Committee (USSI-SC) update.

March 5, 2020 Undergraduate Student Success Summit: 

Thank you for participating and contributing to a successful event. The Summit attendance exceeded 550 participants and hosted 93 presentations across a variety of formats. We are currently compiling session information and will be posting links to all available presentations.

Work of the Curricular Excellence Subcommittee (CE):

  • A proposal is in development to advocate for continued work on transfer curriculum challenges, including Transfer Guides, Oregon Transfer Compass, and transferability of Oregon Community College courses to OSU's Baccalaureate Core and degree requirements.
  • The USSI Steering Committee presented the request to hire a Director for Baccalaureate Core. This position would provide guidance and insight, dedicated implementation responsibility and accountability (consistent maintenance, oversee periods of change and cyclical review) as well as consistent communication, and provide institutional memory and advocacy for general education.
  • Training is in progress for curriculum best practices that will be housed in the Center for Teaching and Learning in partnership with Academic Programs and Assessment, Graduate School, Ecampus and other units.

Work of the Experiential and Research-based Learning (ERL) Subcommittee:

The USSI Experiential and Research-Based Learning (ERBL) subcommittee has created three working groups focusing on a) definitions, b) infrastructure, and c) assessment. 

  • The Definitions group is developing: 
  • A framework rubric and definition to create shared language on what OSU means by ERL and to showcase the full spectrum of ERL activities.  
  • Values and principles to guide quality and represent what we want ERL to be defined by at OSU. 
  • The Infrastructure group is developing a framework for overall coordination (e.g., by a standing committee composed of members from relevant areas) and level of authority to help remove roadblocks, increase efficiencies, and expand faculty supports. 
  • The Assessment group is working with Institutional Analytics and Reporting to develop a baseline of what is currently counted towards ERL. Based on these findings, they are exploring an institutional solution to track all student and faculty participation in ERL opportunities. 

Work of the Financial Aid and Scholarships Subcommittee (FAS):

  • SNAP Coordinator: A formal proposal was submitted to the USSI-SC for a SNAP Coordinator. Financial pressures and food insecurity are significant roadblocks to OSU students. New regulations regarding SNAP eligibility make benefits more accessible to students. These benefits could add an additional $2,300 in resources for eligible students. Having a full-time SNAP Coordinator to help students access these resources. 
  • Prioritization Framework: We have developed a potential prioritization framework that people around campus can evaluate and decide where to focus their efforts. 
  • Scholarship Best Practices: Submitted a proposal that includes a set of best practices for awarding scholarships. Including: use of systems, written procedures, avoiding conflicts, optimizing timelines, pool and match. 
  • Scholars Requalification: Investigating a proposal to allow for scholars requalification. Many incoming students receive scholarships that have renewal criteria. Currently, if a student loses their scholarship there is no way for them to rehabilitate their academic record and requalify for that scholarship.
  • Stewardship: We are evaluating best practices involved in stewardship. 

  

Updates on FAS work started Fall 2019:

  • Financial Literacy: the College of Business has announced the opening of CAFÉ, the Center for Advancing Financial Education. They will provide financial literacy support, programming, counseling, and instruction to people around campus. 
  • Value of a Scholarship: Dr. Fuentes continues his research on the impact of scholarships to OSU retention and graduation. What has become clear is that financial supports are only one component of students’ path to success.  
  • Completion and Persistence Scholarships: these scholarship programs have been shown to be effective at OSU. We will be recommending OSU raise additional funds to support these programs. 

Work of the Faculty-Student Interactions (FSI) Subcommittee:

  • More information regarding the recommendations and actions of this subcommittee is forthcoming.

Work of the Transition Experience (TE) Subcommittee:

  • In Fall term, they explored separating Parent and Family Coordination from existing orientation efforts. The notion of de-coupling family and parent engagement from orientation programing may not be viable in the reconstituted New Student Programs and Family Ourtreach (NSPFO) unit. There will, however, be dedicated FTE to parent and family engagement and current programming re-considered. The question of what constitutes effective family engagement will be addressed, the efficacy of existing strategies assessed, and new approaches investigated. Moreover, attention to family engagement will weave throughout the academic year and not be limited to orientation events at the start of the year. 
  • Seeking ways to increase awareness and utilization of social belonging programming. Colleges with undergraduate programs were made aware of the Social-Belonging for College Students activity that aims to help all students who are new to college view challenges encountered in the transition to college as normal and improvable, so they are more able to remain socially and academically engaged in the face of challenges. The 30-minute, free, online, and empirically-tested activity consists of reading short student stories, one writing exercise, and a brief survey. Any interested units on campus are invited to contact Vicki Ebbeck ([email protected]) who serves as the liaison for the Social-Belonging for College Students activity at OSU. 

  • Social Belonging programming designed specifically for Ecampus students is under development. It is expected that implementation of the new programming will begin in fall 2020.

  • During fall term we conducted an audit with stakeholders from across campus of Welcome Week, which serves as a central early experience for students transitioning to OSU. A key recommendation from the audit was to identify dedicated personnel to assess, re-imagine if appropriate, and coordinate efforts across campus related to Welcome Week. NSPFO has transitioned to the Office of the Dean of Students. This transition created an opportunity to establish a steering committee that will focus on Welcome Week in a manner consistent with ideas generated from the transition experience subcommittee.