Inter American University of P.R. -Ponce Campus Hobsons University 2015

2. Inter American University of P.R. - Ponce Campus

3. Inter American University of Puerto Rico Institution Overview
● Non-for-Profit 4 year institution founded in 1912 by Rev. John Will Harris
as an elementary and secondary school.
● First bachelors degree class in 1927
● First institution to receive accreditation from the Middle States Association
of College
● The system is comprised of 9 campuses and 2 professional schools
○ Law School and Optometry School
● We serve as a bridge between North America and Latin America
● 40,000 undergraduate students plus graduate students including doctoral
degrees.
● Represents 21% of the entire state university's students population and
35% of the students registered in the state private universities.
● Ponce Campus was founded in 1962 - (5,500 undergraduates students)
● Academic offerings :Certificate Programs, Associate's Degrees,
Bachelor's Degree, Master's Degree and one Doctoral Degree

4. Student Success Program (How it Started?)
The institution identified the need for a retention focus program/office
• Applied for a Title V Grant - granted at the end of 2011.
• 2012 – we evaluated
o Banner Relationship Management ;
o Jenzabar; Retention Software,
o Starfish Retention Solutions
• Choose Starfish and started the implementation
• In 2013 the CIAR started faculty training with the use of the new
retention
• Went live in January 2014!

5. Student Success Program (How it Started?)
Starfish implementation
a) Student populations included in roll out? First roll-out pedagogy department
b) Faculty/staff audiences of focus? Even though we rolled out the system for
everybody we are focusing more to first time, full time bachelor's degree
students
c) Implementation team: me, IT Director and the Chancellor as needed
d) Which modules and features? Starfish EARLY ALERT ™, Starfish CONNECT ™
● Appointments
● Notes
● Progress Surveys
● Request Help
● Services
● Success Plans
● Flags, To Do's, Referrals and Kudos
● Academic Plans (Next Fall Term)
e) What systems did you integrate? Blackboard and Banner

6. Student Success Program (How it Started?)
f. What were your goals? Increase the institution's retention rates and
decrease graduation time. (data)
g. What was your rollout strategy?
• Sent promotional materials to faculty
• Spoke at faculty meetings
• Weekly training sessions
• Academic Deans and Chairs – encouraged participation
• Rolled out to full campus after first term – using the easy “progress
survey”

7. Starfish Progress and Results
Adoption rates?
b. System activity? So far we had between 68 and 82 faculty members using the system actively
for the last 3 terms, 78% Full Time and Part Time faculty buy in.
Total Items raised for the first term was 2,884, the second term we had 9,282 items and the third
13,078. This numbers includes Flags, Referrals, To Do's and Kudos.
c. Outcomes data?
Before Starfish
After Starfish
For our last cohort out of 704 students that
started in term 201410: 532 (76%) continued
studying in our institution.
Cohort
201410
Base Retained in
Ponce
campus
Retained in
other of our
Campuses
Persistence
Rate on
Year
201410 704 517 15 532
100% 74% 2% 76%

8. Lessons learned
What went well? Challenges?
• Keeping faculty members motivated using the system
• We give them awards!
What are you changing in year 2?
• Get more part-time faculty participation
• Automatic flags – targeting students with >69% avg.
grade

9. Future plans
• Start using Academic Plans. Using the new and revised program
sequential so that our students can have a road map of the courses they
need to take and what courses they have already taken.
• The Tutoring center started using Starfish for the first time this past term
scheduling appointments with the use of CONNECT ™ - for the next term
they are dumping the file system they use.
• Security office is going to use Starfish to gather students information more
easily and faster in order to get a hold on students when they receive a
report, also we are implementing the use of the student's id card picture to
upload to Starfish

10. Rocking the Boat:
Early Alert as a
Campus Disrupter
David Hao
Associate Dean, Student Success
Houston Baptist University

11. Session Goals: We Will…
 Explain who we are as an institution and the needs that
pushed us to expand Early Alert dramatically on our
campus.
 Briefly describe our process in selecting and
implementing an Early Alert software.
 Share our internal structure of personnel, resources, and
committees built to support the Early Alert project.
 Outline the improvements made, weaknesses exposed,
and challenges on the horizon as we move into our first
year of 100% program implementation.
 End promptly to leave time for questions!

12. HBU: Who Are You?
 Private, Christian, four-year
liberal arts college in the
heart of Houston
 2,100+ undergraduates in
40+ majors
 800+ graduate students in 16
programs
 45% on-campus residents,
55% commuters
 Nationally ranked: 6th most
diverse university in USA
 16 NCAA Division I athletic
teams
Hinton Center, Houston Baptist
University

13.  Supervises ASC, Testing
Services,
504/Accommodations,
Title V staff, First-Year
Success Coaches
 First Generation Success
Program (Gen1)
 Title V grant
administration
 Early Alert committee
chair
 Doctor of Jurisprudence,
Boston College; Member of
the Texas Bar
 MA in Higher Education
Administration, Boston
College
 BBA Economics Major,
Baylor University
 Married, 2 sweet
daughters

14. A Brief History of Early Alert
at HBU
 Fall 2007-Spring 2014: SARS!
 SARS ALRT: academic-
related flags raised
manually by faculty
 Academic concerns only
 Student receives auto
email alert; flag is
“closed” only if the
student attends tutoring
in the ASC
 No other outreach or
intervention
 SARS GRID: tutor
scheduling system
 Used by the ASC only
 Admin had to
build/change all tutor
schedules manually
Okay… it’s not THAT bad

15. A Brief History of Early Alert
at HBU…
 Spring 2014: Student Success
Emphasis
 University-wide refocusing on
student success and retention
 Goal: increase freshman fall-
to-fall retention (usually
around 63%) by 3-5% in one
year
 Decision to overhaul Early Alert
process to provide more
holistic support, focusing on
first-year students
 Invest in new alert software
and expand its use to more
areas of campus
 Require faculty participation
 ASC moved from Academics
into Student Life
 Software Search: Our
Parameters
 Integrates with other
university systems (Banner,
Blackboard)
 Connects Early Alert to
appointments (ASC and
faculty)
 Clean, intuitive interface
for faculty, staff, and
students
 Holistic early alert flagging
for academic and non-
academic issues
 One-stop shop for student
attributes
 Connects students to
faculty/staff in their circle

16. A Brief History of Early Alert
at HBU…
 Our Pick: Starfish Retention Solutions
 Fully integrated appointment system
(tutoring, office hours, advising)
 Student attributes imported from
Banner
 Roles imported from Banner
 Grades & assignments imported from
Backboard
 Complete ASC tutoring setup (available
for all university services)
 Attendance feature
 Tracking types: notes, flags, kudos
 Success Scores (leading & lagging
indicators)
 Mass faculty progress reports
 100% customizable configuration
 Renamed HBU Navigate for campus
branding

17. Early Alert Infrastructure
 Early Alert Committee
 Representatives from faculty,
Financial Aid, Athletics, Student
Life/Student Success, ITS,
Residence Life
 Drives all decision-making and
policy for HBU Navigate
 Intervention Committee
 Representatives from faculty,
Residence Life, Student Life,
Student Success Coaches
 Handles all student
interactions; reports back to
Early Alert
 Administrators/Configuration
leaders
 Faculty Training Subcommittee
 Key Campus Allies
 Advising Committee
 Project Day One Committee
 Information Technology
Services (ITS)

18. Disrupter: What Does That
Mean?
 Highlights weaknesses in
policy and process
 Replaces weak processes
with newer, stronger ones

19. Disrupters: Improvements
Made
 Allowed us to generate a list of students with
particular attributes/flags/success scores to watch
 Created workflow for reaching out to students without
holds who haven’t registered
 Advising process overhaul (appointment signup, email,
notes/outcomes)
 Progress Reports generate faculty participation,
tracking items
 Athletic coaches can monitor student progress
 Kudos!

20. Disrupters: Weaknesses
Exposed
 Attendance data storage
 Blackboard’s attendance plugin not compatible
with Banner or Starfish
 Attendance policy
 “mandatory” vs. MANDATORY
 Financial Aid implications
 No universal academic dishonesty policy
 No faculty development/training beyond first-time
faculty orientation

21. Disrupters:
Challenges Ahead
 Missing advising resources
in HBU Navigate
 Live document storage
 Detailed course mapping
 Academic Dishonesty
policies and flagging
 Full faculty buy-in and
satisfactory explanations
of all configuration
choices
 Sisyphus: Our work is
never done!

22. Thank
You!
David Hao
Associate Dean, Student
Success
Houston Baptist University
dhao@hbu.edu

23. TARLETON STATE
UNIVERSITY
Founded 1899

24. Distinguishing Characteristics
• 19 to 1 Student to Faculty Ratio
• 93 Programs of Study
• 115 Year Old Institution
• Over 11,000 Students Enrolled
• 61% Female Student Population
• 90% of Freshman Students Live on Campus
• 3,129 Total Employees

25. Tarleton Statistics
• 8.0% African American, 14.0% Hispanic, 72.9% White, 4.4% Other, and
0.7% International Students Compose Our Student Body
• Graduation Retention Rates: Full-time 4 Year 26.8%, Part-Time 4 Year
4%, Part-Time 6 Year 23.1%, Full-Time 10 Year 53.2%, Part-Time 10
Year 33.3%
• Graduation Rate for 2 Year Transfers is 62.2%
• Average Time To Bachelor’s Degree is 5.2 Years
• Average School Credit Hours to Degree: 141
• 77.7% of Bachelor’s Degrees Awarded to “At-Risk” Students

26. Starfish – A Lesson in
Collaboration!
Before:
Qualtrics Survey Tool
• Emails to Deans to Contact Department Heads to forward to
Faculty to have them go to URL to enter errant students
identification numbers and them select concerns from a menu
and then submit .
• 23 faculty members were faithful in using this early alert
System – of over 700 faculty reporting about 500 students
a semester

27. Starfish – A Lesson in
Collaboration!
Before:
Comma Delimited Files
• Data downloaded, spread sheets made, emails of students
retrieved, contact emails composed, emails sent and waiting
begins for student responses
* 15% student response rate semester after semester

28. Starfish – A Lesson in
Collaboration!
Before:
Faculty Feedback
• More email addresses to look up, more emails to compose and
send regarding student responses or lack there of and then the
process starts all over again in a 4 week time period prior to
mid-terms only.

29. Starfish – A Lesson in
Collaboration!
After:
• Starfish was purchased in September of 2013.
• Implementation Team was notified in February of 2014 consisting of IT,
Financial Aid, Enrollment Management, and Student Success.
• Implementation Team met every other week to work out the kinks for
production.
• We went to production April 2014 for a soft Summer Roll out
• Faculty training for Fall 2014 FYS faculty
• Still working out the kinks in Spring 2015, but preparing for a full roll-out
for Fall 2015

30. Starfish – A Lesson in
Collaboration!
Anticipated Outcomes
• Faculty love:
• ease of use,
• ability to recognize their students from the picture
• the attendance function
• Cohort feature is popular with advisors that have large groups of students
athletics, honors program, suspension students, advised admission and
students in remediation, first generation students.
• Students love the kudos!
• Early Alert staff can process referrals and actually close the loop with
delighted faculty.

31. Starfish – A Lesson in
Collaboration!
Unanticipated Outcomes
• Implementation team learned BANNER-ese
• IT used Starfish as a model for other software implementation (first time a
project manager was used with a software implementation – IT has since
hired a full-time project manager
• Departments on the Implementation Team came to know and appreciate
each other’s work

32. Starfish – A Lesson in
Collaboration!
Unanticipated Outcomes
• Financial Aid recognized the attendance function as a possible
method for faculty to easily report “last day attended” for federal
reporting
• Faculty think that using Starfish is FUN!
• 20% of the students are responding to the early alert and kudos
emails.
• Deans are requesting presentations of the program at their monthly
department head meetings.
• Center for Instructional Innovation is hosting faculty training.

33. Starfish – A Lesson in Collaboration!
Hopes for the future:
• We have 3 administrators of the program who work to manage
referrals and “closing the loop”.
• We hope to expand to use in the Academic Advising Center in the
Spring of 2016.
• Reports from Starfish will be used for quick access to research data.

34. Starfish – A Lesson in
Collaboration!
Brenda Faulkner, Ed.D
Tarleton State University
Director
Center for Academic Readiness and Success
faulkne@tarleton.edu
254-968-9957

35. Questions?