Georgia Regents University continues three high impact strategies related to intrusive academic advising to keep students on track to graduate. First, our Academic Advisement Center provides dedicated professional advising support to all students who have earned less than 60 credit hours, transfer students regardless of credit hours earned, and students who are returning after prolonged absences or returning from academic difficulty. Fourteen professional advisors in the Academic Advisement Center, who specialize in one or more degree programs and areas, work with the faculty of those departments to ensure that they are providing sound advice for each major. The advisors’ knowledge of their specific programs and input from faculty create continuity of program expectations as students move from the Academic Advisement Center to their faculty advisor.
The second strategy requires that any student who wishes to change a schedule or change majors see an advisor. The advisor informs the student of how the changes will impact their choice of major, their financial aid, and the timely completion of their degree thus helping them stay on track. While we have seen an increase in change of majors, these changes have occurred earlier in the student’s career allowing them to choose the right academic major more quickly and to stay on track to graduate.
The third strategy is a strong analytic backbone that supports all our strategies to change institutional culture and drive students to success. We fully implemented GradesFirst this past academic year and begun piloting the Student Success Collaborative system from the Education Advisory Board (EAB). EAB acquired GradesFirst this year, and we are expecting the newly combined system to be piloted in fall 2015. The combined systems, now called EAB SSC Campus, will provide early intervention for students doing poorly in courses and provide analytical insight to help students select majors in which they will be successful. This new version of the system will be implemented both in the Academic Advisement Center and with faculty who advise upper division students within the major.
