It takes a campus
Understanding how our student success initiatives work together to help our students succeed.
Lory-Ann Varela is the assistant vice provost for academic support and enrichment in the Office of Undergraduate Education.
With the help of our faculty and staff, we in undergraduate education and across the university can improve the academic journey experience for our undergraduate students while moving the retention and graduation meters.
Currently at CU Boulder, we are designing resources for faculty and staff to use to intervene and support as many students as possible. One such resource, the Grade for Student Success initiative, builds off the work of the Center for Teaching and Learning and a group of faculty members to provide best teaching practices and resources in Canvas.
We also have the College of Arts and Sciences Residential Academic Programs (RAPs) faculty and some mathematics instructors piloting an initiative to take attendance and offer early grading assessments. The idea is to provide accurate and timely feedback that helps students correct their learning strategies, consult with instructors, form study groups with classmates and reach out for academic tutoring support.
For years the university has sent requests for instructors to use , or progress notifications, to students who have challenges with their course performance. The students receive a letter from their college or school indicating the course of concern and the list of initial resources students can connect with. Advisors conduct additional outreach to make sure students have the resources and an opportunity to talk with someone. Course alerts letters encourage students to connect with their faculty to discuss course expectations and resources.
Finally, the university has worked the past several years to strategize an overall early alert program plan that is currently being piloted by the College of Arts and Sciences, College of Engineering and Applied Science, and Program in Exploratory Studies. This campuswide and multi-office effort uses a dashboard where we look at predictive analytics, course alerts, advisor meetings, Canvas class grades, and other relevant data to be able to prioritize additional messages and outreach to students. We hope to continue to evolve in how we use data to help inform our intervention strategies and how we create communication systems to coordinate support and outreach.
Our goal is to create a culture of care and community support for our students that is rooted in the belief that everyone is capable of learning and being a part of our Buff community. Thus, we are using multiple intervention strategies all focused on student success. Ultimately, we need everyone engaged in supporting our students to help them engage in learning and feel like they belong to our campus.
Lory-Ann Varela is the assistant vice provost for academic support and enrichment in the Office of Undergraduate Education. Email Lory-Ann, at lory-ann.varela@colorado.edu, with any follow-up questions.