{"id":1969,"date":"2019-01-14T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2019-01-14T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.mtsu.edu\/blogtest\/spring-2019-student-success-update\/"},"modified":"2026-04-15T15:40:16","modified_gmt":"2026-04-15T20:40:16","slug":"spring-2019-student-success-update","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mtsu.edu\/president\/spring-2019-student-success-update\/","title":{"rendered":"Spring 2019 Student Success Update"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 20px;\" class=\"sharethis-inline-share-buttons\" ><\/div><p>Our ambitious Quest for Student Success has provided an effective\u00a0roadmap to guide our efforts to improve retention and graduation.\u00a0The Quest has helped redefine and refocus our efforts and investments\u00a0in recruitment, advising, and classroom teaching to better meet the\u00a0needs of our students.<\/p>\n<p>Driving those increases are a number of new\u00a0initiatives created over the past few years. One of those is the Office of\u00a0Student Success.\u00a0While MTSU has always targeted at-risk populations for support, the\u00a0Office of Student Success now is boosting every student\u2019s chance to\u00a0succeed. Working collaboratively, the University has overhauled\u00a0student advising, developed fresh options for academic help, and\u00a0redesigned courses that are traditional stumbling blocks to\u00a0graduation.<\/p>\n<p>At the same time, it\u2019s using predictive analytics\u2014an approach more commonly associated with health care than\u00a0higher ed\u2014to fight attrition in a highly surgical way. Predictive data can help identify students who are at statistical risk of\u00a0attrition even if they don\u2019t fit any traditionally \u201cat-risk\u201d population. Armed with this knowledge, faculty and advisors can\u00a0watch these students to spot any problems early and get them back on track.\n<\/p>\n<h3>Here are some updates from that office:<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>MTSU is one of 130 institutions\u00a0that have joined together to\u00a0increase student success as part\u00a0of the Association of Public and\u00a0Land-Grant Universities (APLU)\u00a0\u201cPowered by Publics\u201d Initiative.\u00a0This is the largest collaboration\u00a0in history designed to increase\u00a0access and degree completion.\u00a0The initiative includes the creation\u00a0of 16 \u201ctransformation clusters\u201d\u00a0of change-ready universities.\u00a0Our participation in this initiative\u00a0complements student success\u00a0work already underway at MTSU.<\/li>\n<li>Under the leadership of Provost Mark\u00a0Byrnes, work continues to revise and\u00a0update MTSU\u2019s Quest for Student\u00a0Success 2013\u20132016. Input is being\u00a0solicited from across the University\u00a0for the revised Quest for Student\u00a0Success: with Distinction 2018\u20132025.\u00a0Current members serving on the\u00a0Quest committee include:\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Mark Byrnes<\/strong>\u00a0,\u00a0provost (committee chair)<\/li>\n<li><strong>Joe Bales<\/strong>\u00a0,\u00a0vice president for\u00a0university advancement<\/li>\n<li><strong>David Butler<\/strong>\u00a0,\u00a0vice provost for research\u00a0and College of Graduate Studies dean<\/li>\n<li><strong>Jeff Gibson<\/strong>\u00a0,\u00a0Theatre and Dance professor\u00a0and chair<\/li>\n<li><strong>Pippa Holloway<\/strong>\u00a0,\u00a0History professor and\u00a02018\u201319 Faculty Senate president<\/li>\n<li><strong>Mary Hoffschwelle<\/strong>\u00a0,\u00a0History professor\u00a0and MT Engage director<\/li>\n<li><strong>Faye Johnson<\/strong>\u00a0,\u00a0associate provost for\u00a0strategic planning and partnerships<\/li>\n<li><strong>Marva Lucas<\/strong>\u00a0,\u00a0University Studies professor\u00a0and chair<\/li>\n<li><strong>Susan Myers-Shirk<\/strong>\u00a0,\u00a0History professor\u00a0and General Education director<\/li>\n<li><strong>Ken Paulson<\/strong>\u00a0,\u00a0College of Media and\u00a0Entertainment dean<\/li>\n<li><strong>David Schmidt<\/strong>\u00a0,\u00a0vice provost for\u00a0international affairs<\/li>\n<li><strong>Deb Sells<\/strong>,\u00a0vice president for student\u00a0affairs and vice provost for academic\u00a0and enrollment services<\/li>\n<li><strong>Rick Sluder<\/strong>,\u00a0vice provost for student\u00a0success and University College dean<\/li>\n<li><strong>Chris Brewer<\/strong>\u00a0and\u00a0<strong>Sylvia Collins<\/strong>,\u00a0of Institutional Effectiveness, Planning,\u00a0and Research<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Our campus-wide tutoring initiative\u00a0has added ePortfolio tutoring to its\u00a0menu of offerings. In addition, mobile\u00a0portability is an option for classes that\u00a0meet in areas without a designated\u00a0nearby kiosk.<\/li>\n<li>Supplemental Instruction (SI) remains\u00a0a core component of MTSU\u2019s\u00a0comprehensive approach to learner\u00a0support. This program is in its third\u00a0year at MTSU and reaches into 119\u00a0individual course sections across five\u00a0academic colleges in the current\u00a0academic year. This large and\u00a0nationally recognized program has\u00a0grown to support thousands of\u00a0students in 14 of MTSU\u2019s most\u00a0challenging and commonly attended\u00a0courses, delivering nearly 10,000\u00a0hours of academic support through\u00a0approximately 6,000 student contacts\u00a0in the previous 2017\u201318 academic\u00a0year. Similar impressive numbers are\u00a0being compiled during the current\u00a0academic cycle.<\/li>\n<li>A record number of participants (444)\u00a0attended the Scholars Academy\u2019s\u00a0Freshmen Summer Institute this past\u00a0August. For at least the last four years,\u00a090 percent of Scholars Academy\u00a0students registered for the spring\u00a0semester. By the end of the semester,\u00a093 percent of the Fall 2018 cohort\u00a0registered for Spring 2019. The Fall\u00a02018 cohort also had 275 students\u00a0(62 percent) earn a grade point\u00a0average of 2.75 or above,\u00a0with 123 of\u00a0those students (28 percent) achieving\u00a0Dean\u2019s List status.<\/li>\n<li>Letters were sent to 520 freshmen\u00a0over the holidays encouraging those\u00a0students to participate in our national\u00a0award-winning REBOUND program.\u00a0Historically, those students who\u00a0qualify (having earned less than a\u00a02.0 GPA their first semester) and\u00a0participate in the program stand a\u00a050 percent-better chance of returning\u00a0to MTSU for their second year than\u00a0do students who qualify for the\u00a0program but do not participate.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Our ambitious Quest for Student Success has provided an effective\u00a0roadmap to guide our efforts to improve retention and graduation.\u00a0The Quest has helped redefine and refocus our efforts and investments\u00a0in recruitment, advising, and classroom teaching to better meet the\u00a0needs of our students. Driving those increases are a number of new\u00a0initiatives created over the past few years. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":331,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1969","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mtsu.edu\/president\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1969","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mtsu.edu\/president\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mtsu.edu\/president\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtsu.edu\/president\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtsu.edu\/president\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1969"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtsu.edu\/president\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1969\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3173,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtsu.edu\/president\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1969\/revisions\/3173"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtsu.edu\/president\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/331"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mtsu.edu\/president\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1969"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtsu.edu\/president\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1969"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mtsu.edu\/president\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1969"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}