Affinity Group Recommendations & Proposed Metrics

View the Affinity Group Productivity Metrics infographic

 

Academic Provosts are taking the lead in determining follow-up on the work of the Affinity Groups.

 

Finances

Recommendation 1

Development of financial literacy modules that can be incorporated into a variety of formal and informal curricula and made available to System institutions.

Recommendation 2

Explore the procurement or development of tools that illustrate to students the full financial impact of dropping courses mid-semester.

Recommendation 3

More aggressive development of financial risk indicators to better identify students who need additional outreach and support beyond financial aid.

Recommendation 4

Provide academic advisors with appropriate training and resources so that they can make referrals for financially stressed students to campus, community, and government resources, when appropriate.

Recommendation 5

Explore the procurement or development of technology applications that provide referrals to university and community resources (e.g., leftover pizza in student union; emergency housing resources) to address student basic, unmet needs.

Recommendation 6

Put in place an emergency aid grant program at each UT System institution to help eligible students during unforeseen financial emergencies.

Recommendation 7

Student financial metrics should be regularly presented to institutional leadership, including deans, department chairs, vice presidents and presidents to allow greater understanding of student financial situations.

Recommendation 8

Institutions should put in place a standing interdisciplinary committee with the goal of sharing information and creating campus-wide engagement in supporting a culture of student success with a focus on student financial health.

Recommendation 9

Institutions should develop strategies to build awareness among faculty and staff about basic student support services available both on and off campus that may be of particular use to students who are struggling financially.

Recommendation 10

Institutions and faculty should actively develop a systematic approach to ensure that students have access to open educational resources (OER) for their courses or other no- or low-cost alternatives, and to provide education and training to incoming faculty, both full-time and adjunct, on available resources.

Recommendation 11

Engage student stakeholders in the review of student-institution financial interactions in order to ensure and improve readability and usability.

Recommendation 12

Institutions should regularly track the frequency of institutional contact with students who are at risk of not graduating due to finances, with the goal of improving outreach and programming, as needed.

 

Finances Proposed Metrics

  1. The percentage of first-year attrition likely attributable to finances.
  2. The percentage of students who fill out a FAFSA or TASFA, by the federal deadline (for FAFSA) and by institutional priority deadline(s).
  3. The percentage of students who leave after their first year with loan debt.
  4. Average loan debt of students who leave after the 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th year, and after graduation.

 

Advising

Recommendation 1

Educate students and advisors by creating a central portal and external website for communicating best practices in advising across the UT System.

Recommendation 2

Implement online, interactive four-year degree plan tools for all undergraduate students using a platform that works best with existing campus infrastructure.

Recommendation 3

Implement a case management model of proactive, holistic advising at each UT System institution that assigns every student to an academic advisor.

Recommendation 4

Create and manage an annual UT System advising institute that offers training on best practices and other professional development.

Recommendation 5

Develop an academic advising scorecard designed to assess and reflect the distinct phases of improvement as programs move toward implementation of advising goals.

 

 

Advising Proposed Metrics

  1. NSSE Question 13, which asks a student to "Indicate the quality of your interactions with the following people at your institution: academic advisors, faculty and career services."
  2. As UT System academic institutions implement case management models of advising, institutions should move toward the national median of advising caseloads for public doctoral institutions as provided by NACADA surveys (currently 285:1).

 

Belonging

Recommendation 1

Invite UT academic universities to develop and launch a Belonging Campaign in alignment with their existing efforts, strategic priorities and planning.

Recommendation 2

Change the administration of NSSE from annual to biannual, and enhance its use at participating UTs through identified strategies.

Recommendation 3

Continue convening a systemwide affinity group or network focused on promotion and measurement of academic and social belonging across UT System institutions.

Recommendation 4

Partnering with receptive institutions, UT System Office of Academic Affairs and the Office of Strategic Initiatives will develop a process to share annually the data generated from the Student Success Quadrant Analysis.

 

 

Belonging Proposed Metrics

  1. Academic Belonging: Percent of first-year attrition attributable to a lack of academic belonging, measured by identifying those students who are not retained at UT System academic institutions who have low unmet financial need (less than $5,500) and a low GPA (less than 2.0) upon leaving.
  2. Social Belonging: Percent of first-year attrition attributable to a lack of social belonging, measured by identifying those students who are not retained at UT System academic institutions who have low unmet financial need (less than $5,500) and a passing GPA (greater than or equal to 2.0) upon leaving.
  3. Following consultation with interested institutions, two metrics will be articulated from the NSSE questions below, identified by Affinity Group members as indirect, proxy measures for Belonging:
    • About how many hours do you spend in a typical 7-day week doing the following: Participating in co-curricular activities (organizations, campus publications, student government, fraternity or sorority, intercollegiate or intramural sports, etc.)
      0 hrs through Greater than 30 hrs
    • Indicate the quality of your interactions with the following people at your institution: Faculty
      1 Poor through 7 Excellent
  4. Belonging Campaign Participation: number of UT institutions with belonging campaigns, including equivalent initiatives focused on addressing belonging.

 

Assessment of Student Learning Recommendations

Recommendation 1

UT System should seek support from the AAC&U Value Institute for organizing the calibration and review sessions using the Critical Thinking Value Rubric.

Recommendation 2

Use a single online platform for uploading and maintenance of the student artifacts and rating data, similar to the platform used in the Multi-States Collaborative project.

Recommendation 3

Use the UT System consortium to create a custom set of questions for NSSE/SERU to strengthen and support the commitment to the three student success pillars.

Recommendation 4

Explore the development of a pre-post indirect measure that explores growth in specific aspects of Critical Thinking.

 

 

 

Assessment of Student Learning Proposed Metrics

  1. Monitor participation in High-Impact Practices, via the review of specific items already collected through the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE) and the Student Experience in the Research University (SERU). For the NSSE, these items would include questions 11 (a-f) and 12. For the SERU, use the crosswalk developed to identify comparable questions.
  2. Assess critical thinking through the review of data from NSSE items 2a, 2d, 2f and items 4, a-e, and the corresponding SERU items to assess critical thinking, analysis, and higher-order learning.
  3. Measure critical thinking proficiency among undergraduate students attending any UT System academic institution, specifically through artifacts related to a particular High-Impact Practice: undergraduate research activities.