Student Success Road Map: Providing a Bridge and a Path
Tracks
King Street 6/8 Student Success
| Tuesday, October 29, 2019 |
| 3:15 PM - 3:45 PM |
| King Street 6/8 (Student Success) |
Speaker
Ms. Casey Towne
Associate Director
SUNY Oswego
Student Success Road Map: Providing a Bridge and a Path
3:15 PM - 3:45 PMFull Abstract
An increasing number of students are entering post-secondary education with knowledge gaps sufficient to present hurdles to their success. These gaps are most pronounced in mathematics and have negatively impacted students’ abilities to remain academically qualified and to complete degrees. The SUNY SUMS grant aims to retain students and to increase degree completions for incoming students who have declared a STEM, Psychology or Education major.
The SUMS grant includes multiple supports for students, some of which are available only to cohort members, other which are accessible by all SUNY Oswego students. The major supports of the grant are:
• Increased and Improved Mathematics Tutoring - available to all students
• Faculty-led Mathematics Learning Cohorts – available to all students
• Math Success Camp – available to incoming STEM, Psychology and Education majors only
Math Success Camp (MSC) is the most costly and widely tracked component of the program, bringing students to campus a week early for a residential, preparatory math camp. Student participation in MSC is ample, with enrollment increasing every year. Despite participation in the bridge program, early results in math success and retention were not as promising for cohort members as had been projected. This discrepancy between the projected and realized outcomes led to a full program review by the coordinator. It was then discovered that the current program supported students in both persistence and completion yet only through the lens of academics. In contrast, exit interviews with cohort members listed many barriers to success during their time at SUNY Oswego, very few of them being of the academic nature. Interestingly, the majority of obstacles cited were focused on the social and emotional support (or lack thereof) of the student. Building off of this knowledge, the program was redesigned with increased social and emotional supports and has been meeting outcome expectations ever since. This multi-faceted approach to retention assists students in both bridging their knowledge gaps as well as providing a path on which to navigate the social and emotional demands of college life.
The SUMS grant includes multiple supports for students, some of which are available only to cohort members, other which are accessible by all SUNY Oswego students. The major supports of the grant are:
• Increased and Improved Mathematics Tutoring - available to all students
• Faculty-led Mathematics Learning Cohorts – available to all students
• Math Success Camp – available to incoming STEM, Psychology and Education majors only
Math Success Camp (MSC) is the most costly and widely tracked component of the program, bringing students to campus a week early for a residential, preparatory math camp. Student participation in MSC is ample, with enrollment increasing every year. Despite participation in the bridge program, early results in math success and retention were not as promising for cohort members as had been projected. This discrepancy between the projected and realized outcomes led to a full program review by the coordinator. It was then discovered that the current program supported students in both persistence and completion yet only through the lens of academics. In contrast, exit interviews with cohort members listed many barriers to success during their time at SUNY Oswego, very few of them being of the academic nature. Interestingly, the majority of obstacles cited were focused on the social and emotional support (or lack thereof) of the student. Building off of this knowledge, the program was redesigned with increased social and emotional supports and has been meeting outcome expectations ever since. This multi-faceted approach to retention assists students in both bridging their knowledge gaps as well as providing a path on which to navigate the social and emotional demands of college life.
