1. Advising Campaign for Spring 2015 Sara McConville Academic Advisor College of Health and Human Services University of North Carolina at Charlotte May 19, 2015

2.  Our pre-majors apply to the upper division of their major in or around their 3 rd or 4 th semester.  Our university has now started focusing more on the 4 th semester student by incorporating degree mapping and the Student Success Collaborative to assist moderately performing students who are borderline in matriculating into CHHS majors.  Our goal with this particular campaign is to reach the students who are not matriculating or are at risk of not being accepted into the upper division of their major.

3.  Given our university’s new focus on 4 th semester students we chose to focus our campaign on that particular group of students. Target Group: Currently enrolled pre-major students who have between 45-60 credits, are high risk, and have less than a 2.5 GPA

4.  Our Target Group resulted in a total of: 35 students:  25 Pre-Kinesiology majors  8 Pre-Social Work majors  2 Pre-Public Health majors  We split the students up between the 3 advisors in our office which resulted in the following:  Advisor 1: 12 Students  Advisor 2: 12 Students  Advisor 3: 11 Students

5.  Given our practical student numbers, we chose to send individualized emails to each student consisting of details about their current academic standing, success markers they have or have not met within their chosen pre-major and any other personal affects we found in our university-wide database for advising notes.  We were also able to spend quality time with each student and engage in intrusive advising.  By steering away from ‘blanket emails’, we feel the students felt more compelled and more of an obligation to respond to us.

6. Plan: Completed  Advisor 1 email all 12 students Email Response rate: 6 responses  Advisor 2 email all 12 students Email Response rate: 8 responses  Advisor 3 email all 11 students Email Response rate: 7 responses

10. Plan: Completed  Advisor 1 set up individual appointments with all 12 students Response rate: 7 appointments scheduled  Advisor 2 set up individual appointments with all 12 students Response rate: 9 appointments scheduled  Advisor 3 set up individual appointments with all 11 students Response rate: 8 appointments scheduled

11.  24 out of our total target group of 35 students met with their advisor and discussed plans for moving forward. Per these discussions:  13 students are moving forward with plans to change their major out of CHHS to another identified UNCC major.  7 students are currently retaking courses to raise their GPA and are planning on applying to their program in the next academic year.  4 students are transferring from UNCC to a community college and/or other university.

12.  Students who are considered ‘High Risk 4 th semester pre- majors’ are not fully aware of how out of sequence they are or that their timeline to graduation is getting longer and longer.  They viewed changing their major as a sign of weakness or failure. They lacked the courage and motivation to seek out another major/college because they felt as if they couldn’t be successful anywhere.  A majority of these students felt ‘lost’ and ‘forgotten about’ until we reached out to them.  They lacked awareness of the resources available to them on campus that could have helped them with personal/social issues they were experiencing before they became insurmountable.  They were not knowledgeable of other major options available at UNCC that could be a better fit.

13.  Hold a Focus Group with each of the 24 students who participated in this campaign to learn how this experience affected them. This would also be a way to learn how students prefer to be contacted or what about that contact causes them to respond or take action.  Perform a Targeted Advising Campaign for this particular group of students every academic year.  Use the Success Markers within each of our four majors to target struggling students before they reach their 3 rd and 4 th semester.  Reach out to students to ‘check in’ more often throughout the academic year and not just during pre-registration periods.