January 18, 2018

Minutes of the meeting of SubCommittee Chairs of the Retention Committee

Meeting called to order at 3:00 PM

Attendees: Ted Mahavier (chair), Kayla Holloway, Amy Smith, Alberto Marquez, Daniel Bartlett, Joe Nordgren, David Short, Jackie Jensen-Vallin

Reviewed minutes from previous meeting

Discussion of committee changes

Kayla cited challenges of different organizational structure in each college

            -challenge of designating committee members

Discussion of need for Director of Advising (not an interim role) 

Daniel cited lack of single authority over advising at LU

Ted cited the issue of students earning two degrees, core completion issues, restrictions of coming financial aid changes

-discussion about matter of students graduating with one degree and then returning for the second

-double majoring vs dual degrees

Amy/Jackie – Faculty Engagement

Discussion of awards – Michael Saar researching options

Evaluative testing – subset or campus-wide requirement?

-plan to use ALEKS system (also for Engineering Boot Camp)

-discussed concerns about testing creating enrollment barrier

-MRS – discussion of using ALEKS to replace MRS and use for placement

STEM only?

Ongoing case by case testing for placements

Discussion of books and curriculum for math and co-requisite classes

Amy working through CTLE on approaches for larger class sizes; chairs have reviewed for possible courses.

Met with Terry Mena about faculty and communication, messaging. Interest in pushing career readiness and get students to use career services earlier.

David stated AdAstra can identify available rooms; large rooms are underutilized, so plenty of available space.

Discussion of faculty load w/ large enrollments –what constitutes FTE?

Jackie discussed working with STARS on providing support for co-requisite sections

Ted (for PJ) -- Outreach

Working with Craig Escamilla in Business

Reaching out to dual credit faculty

Discussed establishing articulation agreements with LIT, LSCPA, and LSCO

Discussion of FTIC shared with LIT (model similar to UT-Tyler and Tyler Junior College) for lowest scoring conditional admission students

Kayla – SSC/Advising

Discussion of handoff issues between UAC and colleges/departments

-Challenge of having a different process for each area

Cited having multiple consultants review advising operations at LU over recent years

Discussion of staff, personnel, and advising agreements, as well as how advising is defined, various roles, and responsibilities.

Discussed training for SSC – need established baseline needs and roles, agreed upon across LU

Ongoing meetings with department chairs for success markers (Comm. Department has set these)

Alberto – Data Analysis

Met with Greg Marsh to discuss need for dashboard – identify what the needs are

-There are opposing needs and demands; a single dashboard likely won’t meet needs. There’s a lack of agreement among chairs about needs.

-There’s some resistance to the new demand

-We need someone to do data-mining—dedicated to looking at retention data

Discussion of what is needed to get people on board

-Who will implement dashboards? We need someone with full responsibility.

-How to get people across campus to buy in and learn new methods

-The day to day goals of chairs not the same as our committee goals

Adjourned at 4:00