Case-management policy designed to ‘create relationships’ between students and advisors
BY : Melissa Wilkinson
Editor-in-Chief
Students entering STLCC next semester will have a new and improved advising experience from current students, according to Vice Chancellor of Student Affairs Tony Cruz.
Cruz announced at a Feb. 22 board meeting that, beginning this fall, each incoming student will be assigned an advisor to assist them with registration, course planning and other needs.
“When you want to see your advisor you can see someone in advising. Maybe over time you’ve got to the same person, maybe you haven’t, but there’s not a lot of structure. It’s up to the student to build a relationship,” said Cruz. “In this [new] model the advisor is the one reaching out to students throughout the semester.”
According to Cruz, this change, referred to as “case management,” was brought on after research into other successful institutions. Many schools, said Cruz, have adopted a more proactive advising mode. Cruz hopes the change will help with STLCC’s retention rates.
Julie Massey, Manager of Academic Advising, said the research was supplemented with surveys and focus groups. Non-returning, beginning and continuing students were all asked how their experience at STLCC could be improved.
“We’ve heard from students. They want to be connected to the college and staff and peers to get the support they need to stay motivated,” said Massey. “A lot of what we’re doing with the academic advising redesign is going to speak to some of the issues that were identified in all those efforts.”
The case management system, said Cruz, will change the current advising system from reactive to proactive. Currently students only seek out advisors when problems arise, but case management will attempt to prevent problems before they begin by setting up “regular interventions” with students. Advisors will be assigned up to 300 students each and manage communications through email, text and eventually a smartphone app developed by Navigate, STLCC’s new advising management software. Students will be case managed until they hit the 30 credit-hour mark, at which point they will be able to contact their advisor on an as-needed basis.
“It won’t be all students. We’re piloting this with first time college students,” said Massey. “We’ll begin to fold in [returning and transfer] students as they’re admitted to the college.”
Cruz also mentioned at the board meeting that a peer mentoring program is in the works. Although the criteria has not yet been decided, Cruz said that “qualified students,” likely those with good grades in good standing with the college, will be hired as mentors to incoming students. A peer mentor would be imbedded in a first-semester class and act as a familiar face to those students to answer questions and “navigate the waters of the college,” said Cruz.
“[Peer mentors] would introduce themselves at the beginning of that course and they would have certain touch points where they would reach out,” said Massey.
A payment system has not yet been defined, but Cruz said he plans on compensating participating students “to create a sense of obligation” through benefits such as work study.
A test of the new software, Navigate, will launch this April, with full utilization scheduled for summer of 2018. Navigate is designed to ease communication between STLCC staff and students, something that fits in with Massey’s philosophy of “students first.”
“We’ve really worked hard to learn from our students,” said Massey. “I’m excited about what’s to come.”
