SHREVEPORT – Through its partnerships with student success companies Gardner Institute and Complete College America, LSU Shreveport is part of a select group of colleges involved in nationwide initiatives to improve student retention and graduation.
“We’re an integral member of this community of practice as one of 11 institutions that have been sharing best practices for the last two years now,” said Dr. Helen Wise, associate academic provost at LSUS. “We’re part of a community of similar institutions that’ve been sharing successes and challenges in this area.
“We’ve been recognized as a leader in this field.”
LSUS turned that collaborative process on itself Thursday as the university welcomed back faculty and staff in a Campus Kickoff event just a few days before classes start next week.
The university is moving toward a centralized advising structure in which all advisors will be working out of the Student Success Center in the Noel Memorial Library on campus.
But Thursday’s professional development focused on actions that can be taken by any faculty or staff member to participate in “advising,” which in an expanded format includes mentorship and relationship building in addition to the traditional advising role.
Advising is a “constellation of practices.”
“Advising is one of the most essential roles on campus, and we’re building relationships around advising and not just be transactional,” said Angie Pellerin, associate vice chancellor for student success who noted an 8.4 percent increase in retention of first-year students. “Quality advising and early intervention directly impact persistence and completion toward a degree, and having those relationships allow us to identify students who may need intervention.
“We know that today’s students need supportive relationships and a sense of belonging, and advising is a central cog in that.”
The centralized advising structure will have the university’s first ever director of academic advising with the addition of Dr. Michael Anderson, who will standardized advising practices among advisors of different departments and colleges.
Based on student surveys, Pellerin said that the most effective advising occurs in an informal setting, like when students approach a professor after class.
One key function of centralized advising is the “one-stop shop” structure in which students can be introduced to areas like Career Services, First-Year Experience and First-Generation programs.
Part of Thursday’s welcome back event focused on methods and techniques that allow particular departments to excel in this field.
Computer science professor Urska Cvek said her department developed a formal advising tool that makes the department’s advising role more efficient.
“We were tired of spending hours filling out curriculum worksheets for students that may have 100 cred hours and been at three different institutions,” Cvek said. “So we have an advising tool that quickly creates curriculum worksheets and shares them with students through OneDrive, which creates a digital copy for the student.
“It’s a tool that can adapted to any program, and it’s been helpful as an advisor to about 30 students.”
A collection of similar ideas, something Gardner Institute senior vice president Brandon Smith often happen in “silos” at educational institutions, were collected Thursday to be shared across campus.
“This is a process that can identify and elevate those best ideas that can be replicated or scaled up to deliver results in many different areas,” said Smith, who studies institutional structures and led Thursday’s workshop. “Taking what works in specific departments and leveraging those successes across campus is a proven method.”
Clear and concise program maps, which detail classes students should take in a specific order, prepares students to take the most direct path to a degree.
LSUS chancellor Dr. Robert Smith said one familiar class will no longer be required on program maps – college algebra.
“Performance in algebra is not beneficial to a lot of majors,” said Smith, a former math professor who chaired an LSU System-wide math task force. “If you’re not going into a STEM program where you’ll need pre-calculus or calculus, there are other math classes you can take beside college algebra.
“We think students can persist in their degrees at much higher rates if college algebra isn’t a requirement.”
