1. Crossing the "Last Mile" Strategies for helping students overcome graduation obstacles

2. Facts about PSU Fall 2011: 23,222 Undergraduates Challenges: Most recent 2 year retention rate: 56.8% Most recent 6 year graduation rate: 34.8% (Data from PSU Office of Institutional Research & Planning, First-time, Full-time Frosh)

3. Context of Last Mile @ PSU Several student success initiatives Pathways to Degree Completion Address Needs of Unprepared Students Early Identification of Students at Risk High Risk Course Redesign

4. Context of Last Mile @ PSU Recently implemented Advising Initiative Mandatory orientation (Fall 2010) Mandatory frosh advising (Fall 2010) Recent hiring of additional advising staff in December 2010

5. Last Mile Committee is born June 2010 Goal: 50 graduations Departments involved Degree Requirements Academic Units Undergrad advising Student Financial Aid Bursar’s Office Faculty Senate representative

6. Resources Seed funding $51,084 in remissions (~$5,000 used) 100 students to take one 4-credit course $5,000 student worker (offered not used) $500 materials (offered not used)

7. Flexibility (with process not outcome) Limited financial leeway Reducing interest charges Flexibility with some Academic Requirements* Expired catalogs 1 credit flexibility on some Gen Ed requirements *That would have been approved with our ARC.

8. Initial cohort 768 students Canceled degree applicants back to Fall 2005 Needed an in-depth look

9. Representation by Major 1.Social Science 2.Business Administration 3.Psychology 4.Arts & Letters 5.Communication Studies 6.Art 7.Liberal Studies 8.English 9.Science 10.Political Science

10. Weighted by program size 1.Business Administration 2.Economics 3.Architecture 4.Communication Studies 5.Child & Family Studies 6.Philosophy 7.Social Science 8.Art 9.Sociology 10.Arts & Letters

11. Race/Ethnicity Breakdown 455White 97Unknown 77Asian 58Latino 55Black/African American 18American Indian or Native Alaskan 8Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander

12. Weighted Race/Ethnicity Breakdown 1.Black/African American 2.American Indian or Native Alaskan 3.Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander 4.Unknown 5.Latino 6.Asian 7.White

13. Student deficiencies

14. Academic Standing 735 Good Standing 16 Academic Warning 7 Academic Dismissal 4 Academic Support Program 3 Academic Probation 3 None/unknown

15. Last term attended Prior to Fall 200564 Fall 2005 - Summer 2006116 Fall 2006 - Summer 2007138 Fall 2007 - Summer 2008143 Fall 2008 - Summer 2009192 Fall 2009 – Spring 2010114

16. Current Financial Hold Students with Holds No Holds

17. Cross Campus Communication Developed a system to facilitate communication by many entities regarding a student’s advising. Built in Access, based on initial Excel spreadsheets of data

20. Data to Action Prioritized students 76 students who had already "completed degree" Students with <15 credits Degree Audits distributed to departments to review Departments communicated with students as needed/appropriate

21. Communication approach Delicate conversations Multi-method contacts to initial group Personal phone calls to students that were closest to graduating

22. Communication (cont) Training sessions with the campus Media coverage (video on PSU homepage, Oregonian published an article near spring graduation, student newspaper Vanguard did an article) Shared email account for incoming contacts

24. Future best practices Pre/post batch degree audits Assign responsibilities/ownership Early proactive communication with students

25. Next Steps Standardize practices across campus Expand the program to students with excess credits who have not applied to graduate Add additional capacity

26. Initial Successes From 768 130 graduated by June 2011

27. Expanding the pool Spring 2011 added our second group 221 students Also, group of students who found us 48 "manually added"

28. Final Outcomes 1037 students currently tracked Over 650 staff contact attempts 216 students graduated Graduates are disproportionately African American or Native American $4750 spent (11 students)

29. Questions & Discussion Doug Siegler dougs@sba.pdx.edudougs@sba.pdx.edu School of Business Administration James Ofsink jofsink@pdx.edujofsink@pdx.edu Student Financial Aid & Scholarships