#DUG Retention Alert System – Mott Community College

Presenting: Troy Boquette – Executive Dean of Student Services / Phaedra Bartlett, Trisha Nelson, and Dan Thomas, Counseling and Student Development.

  • Mott CC: Flint Michigan – 12,000+ students / 80% receive financial aid / 60% F & 40% M.
    • Flint Michigan: most violent city per capita in US / High unemployment / drastically decreasing population
  • Cross Functional Team:
    • Academic Affairs / Student & Administrative Services / Other – needs to be cross functional
      • AA includes Academic Operations / Planning, Research & quality / IT
      • Student & Admin Services: Counseling, Financial Aid, Registrar & Registration and Resource Administrator
      • Other: Accounting
  • Retention Alert Timeline
    • Started 2010-2011 – Fall 2011 – Winter 2012: ITS Computer Support Services (goes LIVE) & Counseling Retention Management Team (Training Counselors & developmental (Education Faculty) / Follow up with Retention alert student referrals / explore MCC & Community Resources)
  • How it works:
    • faculty login to WebAdvisor – log into class roster and “click” on a student and then a link at the bottom of the screen and they can select “contribute retention info”
      • Issue types:
        • Academic issues
          • failed test
          • not turning in assignments
          • cannot read
          • does not understand assignments
        • attendance issues
          • missed 1st day of class
          • comes in late
          • leaves early
          • stopped attending
        • college readiness (non-academic) & Civility
          • texting during class (even though they have been asked not to)
          • disrupting class
          • improper comments
          • overly withdrawn
        • Life issues
          • Lost his/her job
          • homeless
          • transportation problems
          • court issues
        • Personal Issues
          • lost relationship
          • medical problems
          • psychological problems
        • Student dropping one developmental course
          • Needs to drop (specific course)
        • unusual / changed classroom behavior
          • student has become withdrawn
          • student has started acting inappropriately
        • other
    • There is a detail screen in that info screen so that they can get a detailed report
    • ANYONE who has access to Datatel can SEE these screens  (concern about confidentiality??)  The only ones who have access are the Retention Team (3 counselors and lead) – when a case is created the information on the student is sent to a Retention Counselor
    • They chose counselors for the initial process because they know how to deal with the personal issues, etc. – when a faculty member puts in an Alert then a counselor can understand and find out the reason – do not require that the faculty member “speaks” to the student and don’t reference the faculty member.  Also, once a case is created the faculty member may NOT hear back from the Retention Team
    • Example protocol – attendance – counselor looks at the transcript – may email and say “Hi, you missed your first class” but if this is a first semester student then the counselor may call the student – they look at the student and the student history to decide what the next step
    • College Resources
      • College Resources
        • Labs / Learning Center & Disability Services / Public Safety Dept & 3P Program / MCC Library & Public Services / Student Life: Student Services / Career Resource Center (slide moved ahead)
      • Community Resources
        • YWCA / New Paths (ex-offenders) / Resource Genesee (helps person locate services in the area – call 211) / Flint Student Housing for UM-Flint, Baker College, and MCC students / Genesee Area Counseling Assoc / Salvation Army
  • Exploring the Batch Process Reports to Identify “at risk” students (laundry list of data)
    • Look for the group of students that are most at-risk and calling them in advance to reach out to them – NOT waiting until they are missing class… reach out and be proactive to share the resources that are available.
    • Utilize the BATCH reporting in many ways to grab specific groups of need
  • MCC Retention Alert Flowchart
    • Top: Executive Dean of Student Service
  • Training faculty pieces
    • The developmental faculty & counselors – training the Advisors in the spring
  • GOAL: RETENTION … helping them finish and meet their goal – no hard data yet, just a pilot program
  • Questions
    • ? How are you paying for this – took part-time faculty counselors and made full-time but don’t know when this goes to all faculty  – not sure how to do it as it grows and hoping for funding – Another school has made Most of their new student life positions to have a Student Retention component to it (i.e. their RDs have a specific student retention component including counseling,etc. and constant contact with their residents – part of their responsibilities)
      • other schools are using admin staff doing the initial contacts vs. the counselors – because of cost, using more High Tech vs. “touch” – also Perks on the portal, positive
    • ? how do you avoid students feeling like you are invading their policies?   During Orientation they do let students know that they will be reaching out to them and that they do monitor attendance
    • ? Any part of it with correlation with safety on-campus?  Anything that shows that there is a security issues. This is NOT a safety & security issue.
    • ? Another school piloting Retention Alert – they are concerned about what language is used because this is part of the students academic record.  They have specific language in their manual.

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