Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different outcome can feel a bit maddening, can’t it? Sometimes, student success work can feel like we’re running in …
5 Questions with Monroe Community College: Quantifying the Impact of Academic Support Programs
As operating costs per FTE increased by 36% for Monroe Community College, retention remained flat. Expensive initiatives designed to keep students in school didn’t seem to be having the desired …
5 Questions with University of Missouri-Kansas City: Measuring the Impact of Supplemental Instruction on Persistence
Even though UMKC was seeing 1-2% bumps in overall retention, outcomes were not increasing for underrepresented minorities who are central to the school’s mission. We spoke with Barbara A. Bichelmeyer, …
Monroe Community College: How Clarity About What’s Working Has Changed Our Conversations
When we set this year’s goal to increase term to term persistence by 3 percent and our fall to fall retention rate by 2 percent, we understood that step one …
University of Missouri-Kansas City: Impact Analysis Informing Decisions to Maximize the Efficacy & ROI of Supplemental Instruction
One of the hardest things institutions try to do is to stop engaging in some of the practices that have long been part of our culture and our history — …
Change Management: The Difference Between Declining vs. Finite Resources
Colleges and universities are, generally, well-resourced. Although the statement may be unpopular, consider how well-resourced colleges and universities tend to be. Despite years of budgetary cuts, movement toward performance funding …
Change Management: Navigating Limited Resources and Understanding Total Cost of Ownership
I recently traded in my dream car for something far more reliable. The dream car had been a reward to myself for paying off my student loans, but three years …
Intentional intervention design and analytics
Intervention design and data instrumentation in the context of causal inference need to be intentional. That is, intervention, data, and associated analytics must be designed to answer specific business questions …
Measuring Impact: Recent Journal Article Details How to Scale & Evaluate Support Services
How do you know if your student success initiatives are moving the needle? How will you report to leadership on its effectiveness and truly understand if it worked or had …
Focusing on Outcomes
The idea of nudging is everywhere these days, but don’t be fooled: not all nudges are created equal. If the goal is improved outcomes, precision matters. In part 1 and …