Reason For Action
AIM Statement
Redesign how USU engages and supports students to persist, complete a meaningful credential, and realize a strong return on investment.
Design and implement a holistic, student-centered, and data-informed approach to understand how academic, financial, and personal supports interact over time to influence student success – and align, coordinate, and optimize those supports into a coherent system that improves student progression, completion, and post-graduation success.
Key Requirements
Solution must:
- Map how students experience the student success system across the student life cycle from admission through post-completion to evaluate where services overlap without added value, operate in silos, or fail to connect at critical student moments.
- Identify high-impact combinations of supports and gaps where students are underserved (i.e., not “did x program work” but “what combinations of supports produce the highest success rates?
- Propose and implement a redesigned model based on identified student success pillars that: tailors student support to student need, aligns timing with predictive behaviors or milestones, and connects affordability strategies with academic support strategies.
- Develop a student success measurement framework that guides the build out of data infrastructure and analytics development.
- Develop and deploy an actionable predictive retention model across student success pillars.
- Analyze cost-to-impact relationships in the student success system.
- Move from student services program evaluation paradigm to student success system analytics.
Multi-Year Initiative Roadmap
Year 1 - Critical Transitions
- First-Year Experience & Belonging (including Housing & Residence Life)
- Transfer Students: transfer student pathway from application through Year 1, and test-out options
- Student Financial Support Experience
- Academic Progress & Career/Experiential Learning
Year 2 - Support Model & Student Populations
- Success coach/success team model
- “My Chart” for Students– Part 1
- Graduate students
- Associate degree & Technical Education students
- Exploratory students
Year 3 - Expanding Reach
- Online students
- International students
Year 1 Initiatives (Design Events)
The summit identified four Year 1 design events, each focused on a critical point in the student journey. Each has a draft charter with problem and aim statements and scope boundaries.
| Initiative | Problem Addressed | Aim |
|---|---|---|
| First-Year Experience & Belonging | The transition to college can be overwhelming, making it hard for first-year students to build a sense of belonging and connection – leading to isolation, lower engagement, reduced retention, and added strain on employees. | Create a coordinated, intentional first-year experience – spanning orientation, housing and residence life, activities and communication – that supports the transition to college, builds connection and belonging, removes barriers and strengthens engagement. |
| Transfer Students | Transfer students face complex, fragmented, and inconsistent processes that cause confusion, delays, and added cost, create rework for employees, and limit USU’s ability to attract and retain transfer students. | Develop a coordinated, transparent, student-centered transfer process – from the decision to transfer through the first year – that removes barriers, reduces administrative burden and rework, and supports successful enrollment and degree progress. |
| Student Financial Experience | The financial experience is fragmented across the student lifecycle; students don’t always get accurate information or support when they need it, and financial support isn’t consistently connected to academic progress. | Redesign the financial experience from admission through one year after graduation with clear, timely, actionable information and support, integrated with academic and student support systems to improve affordability, persistence, completion, and post-graduation outcomes. |
| Academic Progress & Career/Experiential Learning | USU lacks a systematic, integrated approach to career readiness, making it hard for students to see how academic choices and experiences connect to post-graduation success. | Create an integrated experience that connects academic progress, career development, and experiential learning throughout the student journey, with clear milestones, relevant opportunities, and timely support that help students complete and achieve meaningful outcomes. |
Meet the Team
Executive Sponsors
Kris Winter
Vice President for Student Success
Chris Corcoran
Provost
Facilitators
- Design Summit Facilitator: Nicole Schrubb, Executive Director of Talent Management and Organizational Effectiveness
- Design Events Facilitator: Jillian Morley, Organizational Development Specialist III
Team
| Name | Title | Location |
|---|---|---|
| Andrea Hunt | Associate Vice President - Statewide Campuses | Moab |
| Jacob Van Den Akker | Director of Advising - Statewide Campuses | Logan |
| Jennifer Duncan | Dean of Libraries | Logan |
| Katie Jo North | Associate Vice President - Strategic Enrollment | Logan |
| Kelsey Romney | Professional Practice Extension Associate Professor, College & Career Readiness | Logan |
| Kevin Webb | Director of Leadership - Student Involvement & Leadership | Logan |
| Nate Trauntvein | Associate Professor – Kinesiology & Health Science | Logan |
| Polly Conrad | Director of Student Experience - Analytics Solutions Center | Logan |