tag: Student success
Blog Post
September 11, 2023
Building College-Community Partnerships for Reentry
New ECMC Foundation Funding to Support Higher Education After Incarceration
Higher education in prison programs are receiving significant attention in light of the restoration of Pell grants, but the provision of reentry support and continuing education post release has only recently become a focus of the field. From complex college application systems and financial aid processes to meeting basic needs, students face a range of obstacles that may prevent them from completing their degrees after incarceration. Building pathways that specifically support students in achieving their educational goals post-release will be…
Upcoming Event
October 5, 2023
Expansion of the TX SSPI & Assessing Potential for Impact
Texas Conference on Student Success
Throughout 2022, the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board (THECB) and Ithaka S+R collaboratively built the Texas Student Success Program Inventory (TX SSPI), an online resource that organizes information about innovative and impactful student success programs in Texas. In the second year of the TX SSPI, the inventory has expanded to include new programs, piloted new features such as Groups, changed the way new programs can be added or existing entries updated, and hosted a new rubric tool to help…
Past Event
July 12, 2023
NISTS Award Winner Spotlight
AACRAO Technology & Transfer Virtual Summit
Join a AACRAO Technology and Transfer Virtual Summit session honoring this year’s Bonita C. Jacobs Transfer Champion-Rising Star Award winners, including Ithaka S+R’s Emily Tichenor. Learn about their journeys as transfer agents, connectors, and advocates, how they’ve overcome challenges to find success, and their top tips and strategies for influencing change. Both seasoned professionals and newcomers to the transfer community will walk away with valuable insights and practical takeaways for creating and sustaining transfer-focused policies, programs, and supports. This…
Past Event
June 25, 2023
Elevating Student Voices
A Culturally Responsive Program Evaluation for First-Generation Student Success
As higher education institutions serve more diverse student populations, culturally responsive research practices and equity-based perspectives are critical to ensure program evaluation is responsive to all students’ needs. In this session at the 2023 NASPA Conference on Student Success in Higher Education, presenters from Ithaka S+R and the Kessler Scholars Collaborative will highlight promising practices for conducting a culturally responsive evaluation and share a case study example from the Kessler Scholars Program, a comprehensive support program serving first-generation, limited-income…
Past Event
June 14, 2023
The Chair’s Role in Enrollment, Retention, and Student Success
At 11 am on June 14, 2023, Martin Kurzweil will moderate a panel on “The Chair’s Role in Enrollment, Retention, and Student Success,” hosted by the Chronicle of Higher Education. Featuring conversation with panelist Allison Calhoun-Brown, the 75-minute session will explore how and why department chairs should recruit students and put in place systems that support them to remain enrolled and on track, and to complete their degrees. Register here.
Blog Post
May 16, 2023
Findings from MAAPS: A National Technology-Enhanced Advising Experiment
Postsecondary outcomes for lower-income students have been disproportionately harmed by the COVID-19 pandemic. Intensifying and systematizing evidence-based student supports is a promising practice for helping these students. While initially conceived prior to the pandemic, Monitoring Advising Analytics to Promote Success (MAAPS) is one such project that aimed to learn whether and how technology-enhanced advising could better support low-income and first-generation students and promote equity. From 2015 through 2022, the University Innovation Alliance (UIA) and its institutional members tested…
Blog Post
March 28, 2023
Rural Student Conferences Recap
From Small Town to Campus and Roadmaps to Rural Student Success
In February I attended two virtual conferences—From Small Town to Campus (February 10-11) and Roadmaps to Rural Student Success (February 23-24)—both centering on the experiences of rural students pursuing and obtaining higher education degrees. A bevy of speakers and attendees shared personal experiences about growing up rural or working with students from rural backgrounds. As these talented individuals spoke on the advantages and challenges associated with rural student success, a number of themes emerged, not only across sessions,…
Blog Post
March 23, 2023
Using Data to Uncover Barriers to Student Success and Increase Retention
One of the most significant challenges that higher education institutions are currently facing is shrinking undergraduate enrollment, a trend accelerated by the disruptions of the pandemic. Among four-year institutions, enrollment declines have been particularly acute for those institutions that admit a relatively large percentage of their applicants and are dependent on tuition for a significant share of their revenue.[1] Between fall 2020 and 2022, colleges and universities that admit between 75 and 85 percent of applicants experienced…
Past Event
March 22, 2023
Texas Student Success Program Inventory Launch
Ithaka S+R was commissioned by the Student Success Division of the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board (THECB) to develop the Texas Student Success Program Inventory, an online resource that organizes information about student success programs at Texas institutions on an easy-to-use, searchable platform. On March 22, 2023 at 1:00 pm CST/2:00 pm EST, the THECB and Ithaka S+R will host a webinar to introduce users to this new resource. In this webinar, Ithaka S+R will provide some background…
Blog Post
March 9, 2023
An Expansive Inventory of Student Success Programs at Texas Colleges and Universities
Students can face numerous barriers on their path to a degree, especially given the hardships wrought by the COVID-19 pandemic. It is therefore essential that colleges and universities provide students with the support they need to thrive on campus and complete their degrees. Student success programs play a vital role in facilitating this support through a range of innovative and evidence-based services. However, it can be difficult to access information about these programs across states and regions. This lack of…
Past Event
February 16, 2023
Lost and Found: Supporting Student Navigation Through Library-Student Affairs Partnerships
Session at DREAM Annual Convening 2023
On Thursday, February 16 at 4:30 – 5:00 pm, Ithaka S+R’s Melissa Blankstein and Borough of Manhattan College’s Jean Amaral will present a session at Achieving the Dream’s DREAM Annual Convening 2023. The session will center on college fluency—a new term that describes the knowledge and corresponding set of abilities that enable students and staff to effectively locate and use relevant college services, programs, and resources, which can help students to successfully engage with and self-advocate within the culture…
Blog Post
December 13, 2022
Building a Thriving Student Support Ecosystem
An Action Plan for Community Colleges
Community colleges have developed a variety of services to support their students’ success, but too often these offerings are siloed in different campus units, minimizing their impact. Over the past four years, Ithaka S+R has conducted IMLS-funded research to surface the most effective collaborative strategies to break down those siloes. This action plan summarizes best practices for faculty, librarians, administrators, and others as they implement these services.
Past Event
February 17, 2022
Melissa Blankstein at the DREAM 2022 conference
On Thursday, February 17, from 3:00-3:30 pm EST, Melissa Blankstein will present on “Leveraging the 21st Century Academic Library: Opportunities for Collaboration for Student Success” at the DREAM 2022 conference. Abstract How can your library best position itself to support students holistically? Current library programs often straddle both missions of academic and student affairs–how can this unique role be maximized to enhance both institutional and student success? Join representatives from Bunker Hill Community College and the Community College of Rhode…
Past Event
January 25, 2022
Melissa Blankstein Presents on Collaborating to Support Student Success
ACRL Choice Webinar
On, Tuesday, January 25th at 2:00 pm EST, Melissa is speaking at an ACRL Choice Webinar, “Leveraging the 21st Century Library: Opportunities for Collaboration to Support Student Success.” To register for this free webinar, please visit the ACRL Choice website. About the webinar The library is well positioned to play a key role in supporting student success—helping to increase student learning, develop a sense of community, provide technological resources, and act as a hub for many other services. How…
Blog Post
January 13, 2022
15 Best Practices for Basic Needs Data Collection and Management in Higher Education
Over the past two years, we have been examining how community colleges define and measure student success. Through an extensive landscape review, interviews with institutional research and effectiveness officers, and a national survey of community college provosts, it has become clear that student success is often tied to whether students’ basic needs are being met sufficiently. But collecting data on basic needs—such as…
Blog Post
September 13, 2021
What Does It Mean to Be Successful as a Student During a Pandemic?
Centering Student Experiences
Ithaka S+R has long explored how students define their own success and how academic and student support services can most effectively advance that success—and our work on these issues has only ramped up during the pandemic. When it became clear that the pandemic was here to stay, students had to face dramatic shifts to their learning, a staggering amount of communication and newly-implemented policies from their institutions, and new expectations on what it means to be a…
Blog Post
April 28, 2021
What Will it Take to Move the Needle on Student Basic Needs?
Last year, we released a landscape review delving into how different metrics of student success are currently prioritized, defined, quantified, and used within the community college sector—examining how traditional metrics of success, like those aligning with typical college objectives like graduation, retention, enrollment, and course completion, are more often prioritized and required for funding, accountability, and accreditation purposes. Subsequent interviews with institutional research and effectiveness officers provided even…
Research Report
April 28, 2021
Moving the Needle on College Student Basic Needs
National Community College Provost Perspectives
For many years, higher education data collection and funding efforts have focused on student success metrics like enrollment, graduation, retention, and course completion rates. At the same time, higher education leaders have become increasingly aware—in part because of the COVID-19 pandemic—of the vast array of challenges that college students face outside of the classroom that prevent them from fully succeeding. To shed light on the challenges and opportunities associated with the collection and prioritization of a broader set of student…
Blog Post
January 13, 2021
Upcoming National Survey of Community College Library Directors
We are excited to announce that Ithaka S+R will launch a national survey of community college library directors and those in equivalent leadership positions this February. This study is part of a three-year IMLS-funded initiative—the Community College Academic and Student Service Ecosystem (CCASSE) project—to examine the current landscape of student service provision at community colleges and the role of the library in best contributing toward student success within this ecosystem. Over the course of the project, we have already…
Blog Post
November 11, 2020
Introducing our Student Advisors
Community College Academic and Student Support Ecosystems
In 2019, Ithaka S+R began a three-year project, funded by the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), to help community colleges and their academic libraries more effectively support their students. This project, known as Community College Academic and Student Support Ecosystems (CCASSE), is part of a growing program of Ithaka S+R research focused on understanding, measuring, and increasing student success at community colleges. Our first phase of…