ConclusionThe “positive restlessness” in evidence on the UM-Flint campus calls for an ambitious, focused agenda that once and for all puts student needs first, and moves this campus forever beyond fracturing turf wars. We believe UM-Flint hungers for the bold initiative we are proposing: it was implicit in the CAS Task Force Report on Academic Advising in 2009; it is more explicit in UM-Flint’s 2011-16 Strategic Plan. It has been further reinforced through this Steering Committee’s process of information gathering, sub-committee reports, and Town Hall meetings.

Coordinating and integrating existing units that are now situated in Academic and Student Affairs will require historic strategic effort and good will. While it will be challenging to target programs for a diverse student body and a high proportion of non-traditional students presenting a wide range of needs, we have already learned much about best practices from successful initiatives undertaken at other colleges and universities nationwide—as well as here at UM-Flint.

Yet, the opportunities for measurable increases in student success—academic, personal, and professional achievement and retention—far outweigh the challenges. The Student Success Center will reduce duplication and overlap among departments providing similar student services. It will improve collaboration among academic and service departments, and strengthen local community and university partnerships.

The Steering Committee strongly believes this is a moment we cannot afford to squander. We have an opportunity to enact our three pillars of student centeredness, academic excellence, and civic engagement. Our message to students and all stakeholders is clear: through great decision-making and powerful implementation, we mean what we say. When our students succeed, UM-Flint succeeds. As do we as faculty, staff, and administrators. As does our community. That is what a Student Success Center is all about.

Mary Jo Sekelsky, Co-ChairChris Waters, Co-ChairLyndsae Raleigh, Administrative supportTonya Bailey

Bob BarnettJacob BlumnerJon DavidsonMichael FarmerJan FurmanMike KasselLinda KnechtVahid Lotfi

Aimi MossD.J. Trela Jan Worth-Nelson

ContributorsFawn Skarsten and Tendaji Ganges

Student Success Center Steering CommitteeReport and RecommendationsJuly, 2012

Student Success CenterSteering Committee Membership

University of Michigan-Flint

Office of the Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs

(810) 762-3434

and

Office of the Associate Provost and Dean of Undergraduate

Studies

(810) 424-5376

University Pavilion

303 E. Kearsley St.

Flint, MI 48502-1950

See the complete Strategic Plan document at:

www.umflint.edu/strategicplan

MissionThe UM-Flint Student Success Center encourages and enables every student to achieve academic excellence, attain personal well-being, and possess a deep sense of community.

VisionThe UM-Flint Student Success Center will institutionalize the University’s mission of a student-centered learning community; facilitate and coordinate collaboration among students, faculty, staff, and community partners; conceptualize, design, and implement a systemic, systematic, and coordinated approach to maximizing student learning; enhance the life skills of all members of the diverse student body that comprise the University of Michigan-Flint community; and improve the University’s retention and graduation rates.

IntroductionIn October 2011, the offices of the Provost and Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs and Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs convened a group of faculty, staff, and administration and charged them with developing a student success initiative that “best fits the needs and mission of our campus in a manner that is both aspirational and achievable.” Inspired by that charge, the Steering Committee met, studied the literature, convened sub-committees, identified best practices, and held two lively Town Hall meetings that attracted a wide range of campus stakeholders. We believe we identified an effective strategy and series of tactics for fostering greater student success at UM-Flint over a multi-year period. We also believe our recommendations will be best achieved by establishing a Student Success Center housed in Academic Affairs, but functioning in close partnership with Student Affairs and other offices currently providing support to our students.

Our recommendation to establish a Student Success Center grows, in large part, out of UM-Flint’s 2011-2016 Strategic Plan. “Over the next five years,” the Strategic Plan stipulates, “we must take a more holistic view of increasing the student population and proactively prepare for the continued growth we believe is essential to our long-term health as a campus. Responsible enrollment also means effective retention and degree completion: ensuring students have an educational experience that makes them want to stay, and giving them the support they need to complete their degrees in a timely

Student Success Center ConditionsNational higher education scholars offer a rich literature supporting our recommendations. In his 2011 article “Fostering Student Success in Hard Times,” George Kuh, et al., identifies four institutional conditions that must be present in order to foster a culture that supports student success. They are:

Kuh’s Condition 1. An ethic of positive restlessness permeates our faculty, staff and administration. “The … institutions we studied possess a deep and abiding commitment to critical reflection. Rarely satisfied with their performance, they engage in ongoing efforts to improve. Most important, they are restless to be better in ways consistent with their mission and educational philosophy.”

We at UM-Flint are deeply committed to our students and their success. Enrollment has increased substantially over the past seven years, and is a justifiable source of institutional pride. During the same period, our full-time freshman to sophomore retention rates have remained at a stubborn 70%. There is an emerging consensus—embodied in our Strategic Plan—that this record isn’t good enough. In addition, we have not experienced a sufficient increase in graduation rates and also have not set out to define, track, and intervene in other—less tangible, yet measurable—aspects of student achievement. While the 2011-16 Strategic Plan identified the lack of a holistic view of student achievement at UM-Flint, it also generated momentum for such a perspective. In short, we have institutional momentum and the “positive restlessness” necessary to do better.

Kuh’s Condition 2. Data about students and their success increasingly inform deliberations and decisions about the curriculum and other institutional priorities. “What sets our high-performing colleges apart is that they have evolved from collecting and assembling data to using evidence to guide changes that promise to improve student engagement, learning, and persistence.”

UM-Flint is considerably more data-driven than it was ten years ago. We are increasingly collecting and analyzing information that helps us make the best decisions concerning institutional issues ranging from academic assessment,

campus marketing and fiscal sustainability, to program development and program review. We must apply this kind of best practice methodology to our efforts to enhance student success. While our record here is good, it needs to be better. We currently study our students’ presenting success variables that are closest to our fingertips. Those most commonly cited are high school grade point average, ACT scores, and internal placement examination scores. We have a good sense of our students based on these variables. Missing from the informed analysis, however, is a deeper look at how trends in presenting credentials and experiences impact students’ academic and co-curricular achievement at UM-Flint.

Kuh’s Condition 3. Academic and Student Affairs staff collaborate to foster student success. “Rich learning opportunities exist outside the classroom. To get more students to take greater advantage of these opportunities … requires collaborative efforts involving faculty and staff. Goodwill among colleagues typically is not enough to launch, let alone sustain, such efforts. Rather, bridges must be fashioned over organizational chasms between academic and student affairs. This is easier to do when the institutional mission and strategic plan emphasize student learning and success and when senior faculty and staff are focused on these ends.”

Several Steering Committee members have loyally served UM-Flint for decades. We may be more aware than our junior colleagues that historically, effective collaborations between Student and Academic Affairs have been difficult to foster, let alone sustain. All of us on the Steering Committee regardless of the length of our service believe emphatically that, in the interests of our students and their success, such resistance must end. Our recent history suggests the transformative power of the collaborative bridges we have built. The 2004-05 and 2010-11 Strategic Planning processes were increasingly integrated, collaborative endeavors, drawing on the expertise, professionalism, and passions of UM-Flint faculty, staff, and administration. Though the 2005-10 Strategic Plan set ambitious enrollment targets, through a variety of collaborative efforts this goal was achieved.

Kuh’s Condition 4. Campus leaders work assiduously to increase the numbers of faculty and staff who understand the importance of and become committed to student success. “At … high-performing colleges and universities, influential campus leaders endorse student success unequivocally and take action to promote it.”

All four conditions are robustly in evidence at UM-Flint right now. This suggests it is the right time within the right context to move forward. We live in a busy world with increasing demands on our time. Not every initiative or proposal can be given the attention it may need or deserve. Inevitably, our leaders’

public statements and positive actions identify their priorities for the institutions they lead. For our vision of a Student Success Center to work, we need, at a minimum, the unequivocal support of our Chancellor, Provost, Executive Officers, and Deans. How we define student success needs to be clearly articulated so as to be universally understood and widely supported by all faculty and staff. We also need to look at the role of Chairs, Program Directors, and their support staff to identify strategies that might be unique to particular programs’ requirements. We need to ask the right questions, and be willing to act on the answers we find.

RecommendationsRecommendation 1: The University adopt the principle that since our work is centered on the academic success of our students, the Student Success Center be housed in Academic Affairs, reporting to the Associate Provost and Dean of Undergraduate Studies.

Recommendation 2: Foster development and implementation of High Impact Practices across the university that are proven to promote student success.

Recommendation 3: Executive officers approve a revenue agreement based on documented improvement in FTIAC (and other) retention efforts. Funds would flow to the Student Success Center to provide a funding base and support a clearinghouse for both ongoing and innovative ideas and practices related to student success.

Recommendation 4: FTIAC retention should improve at the rate of 3% per year through 2016 to achieve the Strategic Plan’s goal of 85% persistence.

Recommendation 5: In year one (2012-13), the Academic Advising and Career Center report to the Associate Provost and Dean of Undergraduate Studies. The reporting structure for additional offices is studied, and a national search be undertaken for a permanent Director of the Student Success Center. This individual should possess credentials that would lead him/her to be a tenured member of the faculty.

Recommendation 6: A Steering/Advisory Committee be appointed by the Associate Provost and Dean of Undergraduate Studies. This Committee would include representation from key partners, and would work to ensure that high impact practices, applied throughout the university, result in enhanced student success, a fiscal plan for 2013-18 is developed, and exploration of a permanent physical location for the Center occurs.

Recommendation 7: We recommend the study of timely and effective coordination of services to students continue.

Recommendation 8: We recommend regular faculty and staff forums in which Student Success strategies are shared, discussed, and refined.

manner.” The plan calls for enrollment growth to nearly 10,000 from Fall 2011’s 8262 ten-day count. Also, full-time freshman to sophomore retention is mandated to move from the current 70% rate to 85%.

A Student Success Center will be a powerful and necessary institutional tool in achieving our goals, and can take UM-Flint to the next level academically.