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K-State Today

July 31, 2015

K-State Student Success Collaborative pilots underway

Submitted by Steven Dandaneau

Advisors from the College of Business Administration, College of Engineering, Global Campus, College of Human Ecology, open option advising, and the sociology, anthropology and social work department joined academic affairs and student life leaders to participate in a training July 29 provided by K-State's dedicated Education Advisory Board Student Success Collaborative consultants, Griha Singla and Kate Matthews.

These units volunteered to help K-State pilot new and powerful advising and data analytics student success tools, which are being integrated into the already much-enhanced KSIS Advisor Center. Pilot advisors are engaged in devising test projects or "campaigns" that will support universitywide student retention and graduation goals.  These initial targeted campaigns will be completed in September, the results from which will help us better understand how best to make use of the Student Success Collaborative elsewhere.

Many thanks are due to the pilot units — and to the advising teams within each — for their leadership in this new student success-oriented work  — work it is, to be sure. Outreach to targeted groups of students means time spent actively identifying and proactively engaging selected student constituencies. Based, however, on the experience of the approximately 160 colleges and universities that have used Student Success Collaborative tools, we can expect that such efforts will pay-off in terms of increased retention and graduation success. Graduation success means everything to our students.

The K-State Student Success Collaborative plans to launch a second round of pilot projects in September. The goal is to steadily train all KSIS users.

Special thanks are due to K-State's information systems office, including especially Loren Wilson and Diana Blake, but also the many information systems office programmers and technical specialists who have worked quite literally for years on the several now-completed phases of KSIS Advisor Center's restructuring and improvement.  As Griha and Kate noted during their July 29 campus visit, they have never before had the pleasure of working with such an expert, highly dedicated and purple-clad campus technical team.

Read more about the Student Success Collaborative or contact Steve Dandaneau, vice provost for undergraduate studies, at dandaneau@k-state.edu or 785-532-1097.