Please note that: • Appointments typically decline from fall to spring due to more students preparing in fall to graduate in spring and to fewer incoming transfer/new students in spring. • The number of appointments with the advising director declined in fall 2019 because student ambassadors were trained to handle more complex situations. • The student ambassadors’ spring 2020 appointment data includes only in-person appointments before the campus shut-down; the advising director’s spring 2020 appointment data includes both in-person and online appointments for the entire semester. Student ambassadors also staffed a desk in the C2C Center for walk-in questions for 40 hours/week. In fall semester, student ambassadors handled walk-in traffic for nine weeks, from the C2C Center’s opening in early October to the end of the semester. In spring semester, student ambassadors handled walk-in traffic for six weeks, until the campus shut down due to COVID-19. NEW INITIATIVES We made progress in many aspects of Academic Coaching within the last year, including: • Expansion of student ambassador roles. Student ambassadors have been trained to handle a wider variety of situations, including more complex situations. This provides additional challenges and experiences to the student ambassadors while also making better use of the advising director’s limited time. • Adaption to remote work. Significant time was spent in spring semester retraining student ambassadors as many of our processes had to change due to COVID-19. Half of our student ambassadors worked remotely after the campus shut-down to continue advising students via phone, email and Zoom sessions. • Revamped process for application to the major. In the past year, we have converted the process of student application for admission to SBE to a fully online process. This transition was done in conjunction with the offering of a new class, Business 100—Introduction to Business. Instead of attending a mandatory workshop, students receive more in-depth information about SBE in multiple Business 100 class sessions. The students then submit their request for admission to SBE via an online tool. • Recruitment efforts. The Advising team has also become part of SBE’s strategic process for recruiting new students. In spring, our student ambassadors wrote welcome cards to all of those admitted to UWSP with an interest in our majors. Approximately 400 cards were sent to our prospective admits to UWSP for the upcoming fall 2020 term. The personal welcome cards are part of a larger plan to ensure there are five touch points (emails, letters, etc.) with each prospective student within 60 days of their application to the university. 2020-21 PLANS After a pilot during 2019-20, UWSP will be launching a new online tool, Navigate, campus-wide in 2020- 21. Navigate is an online application that allows students to track all their important school information in one place. Students have their schedules, advisors, to-do lists and even financial aid information all conveniently combined in one application. Our C2C Center Academic Coaching team will be making sure our students are taking full advantage of Navigate and will handle any transition questions. Navigate will facilitate greater tracking and communication between UWSP faculty/staff advisors and their advisees. Advisors can easily create appointments with this tool as well as send students reminders via text-messaging. The tool also provides a platform for centralized storage of notes.
ACADEMIC COACHING
Max Trzebiatowski Advising Director School of Business and Economics
The Academic Coaching team in the C2C Center is responsible for assisting students in their academic progressions and in their understanding of UWSP scheduling and registration procedures. We also assist in School of Business and Economics and campus-wide communication efforts. Students face many challenges throughout their academic journeys. We help in many ways, including prospective student visits on campus, adding/changing majors, adding/dropping courses, development of graduation plans and graduation audits near students’ final semesters. We also offer one-on-one support to students each semester to track and map their progress towards graduation. 2019-20 ACTIVITIES Overall, the past year saw many positive developments in the Academic Coaching area. For instance, student ambassadors expanded their roles in advising students and adapted to advising students remotely. In addition, the processing of student applications to SBE majors was revamped. option of meeting with the Advising team via phone or online, the number of appointments declined because some students were able to manage either on their own or with just email communication. SUMMARY Here is a summary of the number of student appointments with both the advising director and student ambassadors (student employees): Academic Coaching Activities Fall 2019 Spring 2020 Total 2019-20 % change Fall 2018 Spring 2019 Total 2018-19 Advising Director 381 278 659 -17.4% 479 319 798 Student Ambassadors 119 32 151 n/a n/a n/a 2019-20 also brought some challenges our way in the spring semester. Individual appointments with the Advising Director were down 12% from the previous spring semester, due mainly to the switch to remote learning and working. While all students had the
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Anderson Classroom to Career Center
Annual Report 2019-2020
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