Early Leader in the Analytics Movement
Strayer University was an early leader in the analytics movement in higher education, and was the among the six beta institutions to first partner with Civitas Learning in 2012, working together even prior to the full launch of the Student Insights Platform® or action apps. Working closely with Civitas Learning’s data science team, data was gathered and compiled from disparate sources, and modeled to reveal powerful predictors of student success. Strayer was early to prove the most important predictor of success was not based on income or demographics, but on engagement and student work effort in the class. They have helped test and iterate Civitas Learning apps as they were developed and deployed, and continue to be a strong partner and thought leader in the analytics space within the Civitas community. Read more about their work increasing student engagement and successful course completion in this Learning Brief:Improving Engagement
Strayer became a founding user of Civitas Learning’s Inspire for Faculty® app, which allows online faculty members to observe trends in an individual student’s engagement, intervene with a well-timed email or other tailored intervention, and then track the impact of that activity. Through a concerted series of Engagement Challenges, Strayer found significant spikes in engagement and persistence on the part of both faculty and students when faculty used the app. “The early success we saw with Inspire for Faculty was the motivating force behind many of the subsequent activities we’ve since undertaken around improving online faculty engagement for student success,” said Schaefer. “If we can move online faculty interactions to the same level of human interaction as on-ground faculty have, we are humanizing and changing the culture of online teaching and learning.” – Joe Schaefer, Chief Technology and Innovation Officer, Strayer Education, Inc.
Joe Schaefer
Chief Technology and Innovation Officer
Strayer Education, Inc.
Improving Teaching and Learning
There’s no magic bullet, but in my 20 years of teaching, this app is the closest thing to one I’ve seen.” – Michael Curran Professor, Strayer UniversityAnother key outcome of Strayer’s early Engagement Challenges was the identification of champion faculty who displayed much higher than average engagement using the Civitas Learning tools. The data pointed to outlier faculty who outperformed the norm in engagement – and thus, student outcomes – and allowed Strayer’s data analytics team to deep-dive into their practices and share them with all faculty looking to improve outcomes while developing their own online teaching style.

Michael Curran
Professor, Strayer University
Improving Course Scheduling
“The data are showing us where to place our bets – where we can have the most potential for positive student impact. This is critical because we have to get to powerful, effective, interventions at scale while running multiple tests and pilots.” – Joe Schaefer An ongoing deep-data project at Strayer University involves research into the courses where students are not earning a sufficient percentage of credits for the amount of credits attempted. Chad Nyce, Senior VP of Academics, leads a project to improve course completion and persistence through to graduation by monitoring an elaborate system of course-specific data and making optimized adjustments.
Chad Nyce
Senior VP of Academics
Strayer University

Brian Jones
President
Strayer University
Improving Mindset in the First-Year Experience
Data make evident the importance of a successful first year, and at Strayer University, Schaefer and team have found that a large percentage of the overall university dropout rate occurs in the first term. To bolster a strong start for the first 11-week term, the University has launched a unique first year experience. While it is too soon to point to statistically significant results, the work merits attention. “Some schools have orientation programs. Others have first year experiences,” says Schaefer. “Foundations of Success (FOS) goes one step further.” Strayer University students enroll in a cohort of eight classes – two at a time over four terms. Students take the remainder of the standard academic curriculum with other students, but the FOS courses are taken as a cohort, helping students create a sense of community and build confidence. At the same time, students enrolled in Foundations of Success benefit from the instruction and commitment of their first faculty member, who dually serves as their coach, mentor and advisor for their whole first year. This unique relationship encourages them to not only consider and pursue their academic goals, but their larger personal and professional goals as well. “In the first FOS course students create a plan for their whole lives,” said Schaefer. “If you are a 35-year-old, you don’t have time to bounce around. Most of the students will be in their early 40s by the time they graduate, and do not have as much time to see return on investment from their education in their careers.” To help students do that, specific steps to mapping their future are approached in an 11-week framework. Weekly, they think about their current job, future aspirations, and what they’ll need to be qualified. They look to their personal life to identify where their support structures are and determine who will be there to help when obstacles have to be overcome.Improving Workforce Development with Strayer@Work
Maximizing their experience and knowledge with adult learners, Strayer University formed a separate business unit named Strayer@Work. Designed to bring education and business together, Strayer@Work harnesses the power of both to solve the social and economic problems presented by the skills gap across the U.S. “This is important because business and education have operated in parallel universes for decades,” said Strayer@Work CEO Kelly Bozarth. “Across the U.S., we spend 500 billion a year on post-secondary training – we are matching dollar for dollar what we spend on post-secondary education just to get people ready for their jobs after they graduate,” said Bozarth. “We want to use our expertise to decode what employees need to be successful. With our experience we are positioned to be at the forefront of solving this problem.” Strayer@Work executes on that mission in three primary areas. The first is through a Skills Diagnostic. They go deep into a corporate partner’s work and uncover what skills employees really need. “Let’s take sales,” explains Bozarth. “What we have found in our research is that there are typically 25 signature skills that a sales person needs to be successful.
Kelly Bozarth
CEO, Strayer@Work
Improving Content and Mastery
Innovation is a tenet of everything Strayer University does. Not only is this present in the institution’s operational activities but in its academic strategies as well. Dr. Andrea Backman, chief academic officer and provost, shared insights into some of the ways that Strayer constantly iterates and improves its delivery of academic programs for the benefit of its students.Strayer Studios
“Strayer Studios is the equivalent of an internal creative agency,” said Backman. “We take content recommended by our faculty and produce it in a way that is multi-media, engaging and very relevant to students.” The Studio team of 25 creatives includes filmmakers and producers who find ways to use the power of narrative to contextualize learning for students, through educational stories.
Dr. Andrea Backman
University Provost and Chief Academic Officer