December 04, 2020

1. Approval of minutes from 06 Nov meeting

Brendan approves minutes. Rachel Hoover seconds. Minutes unanimously approved.

2. Discussion of role of Council with regard to LU Strategic Plan

Role is advisory. Any recommendations will go to Katrina Brent and she will present it to the Strategic Plan Advisory Council.

Who is in charge of 1^st Year Experience, Cardinal Communities (CC)? Over 800 students are enrolled in CCs. Rachel Hoover has that data. What are CCs doing? CC is under new leadership. Note from Biology: Department only allows particular faculty to do CCs.

3. Discussion of retention and persistence

Math courses are causing students to leave Lamar. Math courses in the core and calculus classes for STEM students.

Not much information in past meeting minutes identifying specific stumbling blocks. There needs to be more discussion of increased student support and removal of stumbling blocks. The reorganization of the Math department helped with stumbling blocks and cost little money. History department is flagged as a stumbling block. Inquiry to find out the process of what happens when a student is flagged as a concern. What does Advising want from the Academic Departments? Advising has resources but there is a great divide between services and understanding.

STARS is working on written goals and mission statement. Rachel Hoover will share the survey from STARS. Create a Campus announcement regarding successes of STARS. Also, STARS has organized presentations with their Success Ambassadors regarding services. There are case studies in STARS to tell students’ stories. Ask departments to send in those case studies. Rachel Hoover can share those case studies.

Undergraduate Advising Center (UAC) is looking at retention and ramping up outreach efforts. Kayla Holloway will provide the exit survey information from UAC. Navigate is being used for student outreach too. Giving resources to students who owe money, assistance with transcripts, increased communication, Cardinal Success Coaches. Cardinal Coaches serve as liaison with UAC to find what is going on with colleges. There are different reasons why students are not returning but getting gains from reaching out to students. 60-70% of students not returning to Lamar. Are we collecting that data? UAC created a survey finding why students are not coming back however, a low number of students are filling out the survey. Institutional Research can pull information on students who:

• Transfer to another college
• Stopped college altogether
• Academic issues
• Financial issues
• Personal
• Poor grades

Greg Marsh can look at past data to create a sample survey but will have to do preliminary work.

For faculty who do not instruct students to look at Lamar email; students may not realize they are receiving emails from Lamar. Most faculty do not have access to student data. Faculty are not told how to use Navigate and they have to figure it out themselves. David Short can deliver student data if you let him know what specific information you’re looking for. “Closing the Loop” message of Navigate so faculty can see what’s going on with at-risk students. Send this information every semester to Deans and Department Chairs. It’s worth sending out to all faculty too. UAC will revisit how they send out those reports. Talk with academic departments who have large number of freshmen and show them how to use Navigate and create Pilot programs.

What can Lamar do to support first generation students?

Follow-up on additional trainings with UAC.

Using Provost Kick-Off and Center for Teaching and Learning Enhancement (CTLE) events to gather data and find resources. UAC has events like that. Faculty know what items to share at these events. Kayla and Rachel Hoover can work on how to market these events.

4. Discussion of prerequisites

What are most repeated courses? What are most failed courses? Does this make students likely to leave Lamar? Levi Morris in Enrollment Management may have this data. There are reports based on major in Navigate.

Action Items

• Send reports to Jeremy and he will disseminate the information to the Council.
• Rachel Hoover will share STARS case studies of students and surveys from STARS.
• Kayla Holloway will provide the exit survey information from UAC.
• Institutional Research can pull information on students. Greg Marsh can look at past data to create a sample survey but will have to do preliminary work.
• Levi Morris in Enrollment Management may have data regarding numbers on most repeated courses and most failed courses.