Student Success Spotlight 2014

Retention/Graduation Rate Analysis within the Major Roxanne Robbin, Department of Art November 7, 2014

Purpose Issues: 1.25% increase in Art majors – seat count and course rotations appropriate for timely graduation? 2.Complexity of offerings in Department of Art. Evidence of student and faculty lacuna in knowledge of some university policies, procedures and requirements and departmental course rotations that inhibits the most efficient path to graduation. Goals: 1.Reduce barriers to graduation. 2.Create the most efficient course rotation for the number of majors we currently have and plan for future changes. 3.Better inform students and faculty.

Process Actions: 1.Analyze Art student body by: class level, major, concentration - can we do a better job of predicting need? 2.Identify bottleneck courses, consider new course rotations. 3.Identify lower division traps for transfers. 4.Update existing roadmaps. 5.Gather information from IR, University Articulation Officers, the Curriculum Specialist and Enrollment Services, particularly with Graduation Evaluators. 6.Hold comprehensive retreat for faculty on advising. Timeline and Participants: Summer 2014, Roxanne Robbin, Chair and Meg Broderick, ASA II. Tenure Track faculty participated in retreat.

End Result Results: 1.Determined increase in majors due to more transfers. 2.Projections of classes needed by numbers in each class determined to be not possible due to high numbers of transfer students. 3.Updated and adjusted Course Rotation Plans to eliminate transfer roadblocks and increase seats in needed areas. 4.Created Roadmaps for BA and BFA students taking into account our course rotations. 5.Updated all Community College transfer courses that will appear in the newly revised Assist.org, solving a problem we had with incorrectly articulated classes. 6.Created Exit Survey for seniors. 7.Created Alumni Survey in order to build our alumni lists as well to determine how we might stay engaged with them into the future.

Lessons Learned Lessons and advice: 1.Keep current with articulation agreements. Check occasionally to make sure articulations accurate. 2.Attach Department advising sheet to Graduation Form with catalog year being utilized - aids graduation evaluators. 3.DARS report is based on the catalog year a student enters JC, and this might not be the program year for the major that is adopted by students. Only problematic for departments that have had significant changes to the major recently. 4.Evaluators assess upper division major requirements when evaluating the major for graduation, not the lower division. Pay close attention to completion of lower division prerequisites. 5.The complexity of the changes in the Art Department curriculum, as well as the many options for majors, emphases, minors, subject preparation program, etc. suggests we have faculty become area experts for advising.