University of Georgia Campus Plan Update 2020

Institutional Mission and Student Body Profile

The University of Georgia—a public, research, land- and sea-grant institution with commitments and responsibilities to the entire state of Georgia—is the birthplace of public higher education in the U.S. It is the state’s oldest, most comprehensive and most diversified institution of higher education with more than 10,000 faculty and staff members and over 39,000 students (undergraduate, graduate and professional, enrolled in 17 schools or colleges). It offers 24 Baccalaureate degrees in more than 140 areas and, pre-COVID, hosted more than 250 study abroad, exchange programs, and field school opportunities. UGA is committed to providing a superior teaching and learning environment, to serving a diverse student body, and to promoting student success.

There is no single undergraduate student profile at the University of Georgia. Rather the institution welcomes diverse students with widely varying backgrounds, interests, experiences, and challenges. The typical UGA undergraduate is of traditional age (≤ 24 years), enters as a first-year student, lives on campus for the first year, and is seeking a first undergraduate degree. In addition, UGA is admitting more transfer students each semester. In Fall 2019, the total undergraduate population numbered 29,848 students, the vast majority of whom hailed from the state of Georgia (88% vs. 11% out-of-state and 1% international). The majority of undergraduate students (94%) were enrolled full time; 57% were female; 30% (self-reported) were of racial/ethnic minority status; 19% were Pell-eligible; 7% were first-generation; and 3% were over the age of 24.

The demand for a UGA degree has risen dramatically in recent years. For the class matriculating in Fall 2019, the Office of Admissions saw a 18% increase in the number of applications since 2018 and enrolled 5,625 students, with an average ACT score of 31 and high school GPA of 4.02. The Office of Student Financial Aid disbursed a total of $396,692,539 of federal, state, institutional, and other/external programs to 29,184 unique undergraduate students (20% of whom received a Federal Pell Grant with over 200 students self-identifying as independent, i.e., former foster youth, wards of the court, orphans, homeless or with legal guardians).

UGA is among institutions with the highest retention and graduation rates nationwide; they surpass those of our comparator peers and exceed or are on par with our aspirational peers (see Appendix A, Tables 1-3). It has an exceptional first-year retention rate of 94.4% (2019 cohort) which is down from the 95.5% for the 2018 cohort—a dip that we attribute to disruptions caused by COVID-19. The average time to degree has steadily declined from 4.10 years (students who graduated in 2011) to 3.95 (students who graduated in 2020, see Appendix A, Table 4).  The six-year completion rate increased slightly to 87.2% (from 87.1%) for the 2014 cohort, and the four-year completion rate increased dramatically to 71.4% (up from 68.7%) for the 2016 cohort. We attribute a significant portion of this increase to the Double Dawgs programs that provide pathways for students to graduate more quickly from a Bachelor’s program and advance directly into a Master’s program.

This year UGA expanded the New Approaches to Diversity program to promote the recruitment, retention, and academic success of underrepresented, first-generation, rural and other traditionally underserved students. To increase affordability, we eliminated all lab and course material fees, and we tripled private financial support for graduate students who encounter unexpected hardships.

Among public universities, the University of Georgia is one of the nation’s top three producers of Rhodes Scholars (24 over the past two decades). UGA is also home to hundreds of major scholarship winners, including: 1 Churchill Scholar, 2 Beinecke Scholars, 7 Gates Cambridge Scholars, 7 Marshall Scholars, 60 Goldwater Scholars, 21 Truman Scholars, 18 Udall Scholars, 56 Boren Scholars, 5 Schwarzman Scholars, 3 Mitchell Scholars and 143 Fulbright Student Scholars.

UGA’s challenging learning environment and innovative programs continue to garner national attention and recognition. U.S. News & World Report’s “Best Colleges” edition for this year ranked UGA 15th among public universities; Kiplinger Magazine ranked UGA 16th among the 100 Best Values in Public Colleges; and the New York Times ranked it 10th in their College Access Index.

UGA’s comprehensive degree programs, in concert with its innovative learning environment, demonstrate that UGA—thanks to its faculty, staff, students, alumni, and friends—is creating leaders who are shaping the future of our state, nation, and world.

Improvement Practices

The teaching and learning environment at UGA features a large number of the high-impact practices identified by AAC&U; those most widely used include a first-year experience (our award-winning First Year Odyssey Seminar that is required of all first-year students), Launchpad (a living/learning community for first-year students focused on entrepreneurship), global learning, service learning, internships and undergraduate research opportunities.

A distinctive feature of every UGA undergraduate degree is the Experiential Learning (EL) Requirement which began in Fall 2016. Between Summer 2016 and Summer 2020, 35,152 unique students completed 89,457 approved EL activities. UGA students meet the requirement by engaging in creative endeavors, study abroad and field schools, internships, leadership opportunities, faculty-mentored research and service-learning; in addition, UGA students will now have the opportunity to gain real-world experience in connection with the new Innovation District for EL credit. With the requirement for experiential learning, UGA took the bold move of recognizing that today’s students need flexibility around what, how, where and when learning happens.

In Fall 2017, UGA made another bold move by launching the Double Dawgs pathways to enable students to earn both a bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree in five years or less. To date, UGA has approved 217 Double Dawgs pathways and has 1,108 unique students enrolled in the pathways. We attribute the dramatic rise in the four-year completion rate to the impact of the Double Dawgs pathways and will continue to track these students to measure and assess the impact of this rigorous program.

The 2017 President’s Task Force on Student Learning and Success made a number of recommendations to enhance teaching and learning on campus, including the wider adoption of strategies to promote active learning in more courses and the renovation of traditional classrooms to accommodate active learning and other evidence-based pedagogies. To support this recommendation UGA has spent over $2.5 million to transform traditional classrooms into active learning spaces. In addition, the Active Learning Summer Institute has trained 55 faculty in active learning strategies, prompting course redesigns in 55 courses/sections across the curriculum affecting 27,552 students (see Appendix B, Table 1). Highlighted here are results from CHEM 1211 and 1212, both of which have dramatically decreased their DFW rates through the implementation of active learning strategies and the use of PLAdawgs (UGA’s peer learning assistants sponsored through a STEM grant from the USG). Between Fall 2016 and Spring 2020, the DFW rate in CHEM 1211 decreased from 34.5% to 13.1%; even more remarkable was the decrease in DFW rates for CHEM 1212 over the same time period: from 44.8% to 7.9% (See Appendix B, Table 2).

The PLAdawgs program has put peer learning assistants in several other STEM classes with positive results. Through Propensity Score Matching, students in sections of STEM courses with PLAdawgs were determined to have performed statistically significantly higher (between 0.02 and 0.13 better, on a 4.0 scale) than their counterparts in sections taught by the same instructor but without the peer learning assistants. Based on these results, we hope to be able to expand this program.

Despite the size of its student population, UGA maintains small class sizes, having on average 31 students per class with a 17:1 student-to-instructor ratio. The Small Class Size Initiative (SCI) is keeping that ratio low. The SCI reduced class sizes by hiring additional faculty and creating more than 300 new course sections in high-demand classes, bottleneck courses and courses that historically have had high failure rates. This allowed us to increase overall enrollment in several of those courses while simultaneously reaping the benefits of small class size in terms of student success. For example, the Mathematics department received SCI funds to add sections of pre-Calculus and Calculus classes with enrollments capped at 19. The results are excellent (see figure to left and Appendix B, Table 3). UGA students in MATH 1113 are failing or withdrawing from these courses at rates below the national average; equity gaps for race and gender are narrowing (note in particular that the DFW rates for Black/Latinx/Multiracial students are now on par with that for White and Asian students); and more students are progressing into the next course in the sequence on schedule and completing it successfully. The SCI is also producing positive results for PHYS 1211 and ENGR 1120 in both of which we were able both to increase overall enrollment and increase the class GPA. In addition, with the smaller class sizes the percentage of incompletes steadily declined in PHYS1211 and the withdrawal rate declined in ENGR1120 (see Appendix B, Table 4).

Although we are still seeing equity gaps in several STEM courses, the early gains in Math, Chemistry, Physics and Engineering offer models going forward, as does our targeted peer tutoring in STEM courses which we instituted this year. Assessment data for that program shows that peer tutoring is having a very positive impact; for example, in Fall 2019, students who attended 10+ sessions experienced an increase from their self-reported midterm grades to their final course grade of, on average, 1.8 for MATH and 2.0 for CHEM on a 4.0 scale.

Clearly UGA has built a vibrant, world-class learning environment which, thanks in part to innovations such as the Experiential Learning requirement, Double Dawg pathways, and other special initiatives, is attracting the very best students from across the state and nation and around the world. It is equally clear that they are flourishing here.

Momentum Update: Observations and Next Steps

Section 3.1 Existing Momentum Work

Purposeful Choice 

Transparent Pathways 

Academic Mindset

General Overview and Observations 

The Orientation Intake Survey is working exactly as planned, has been supported by New Student Orientation and fully embraced by our academic advisors. The UNIV curriculum is also very effective at not only informing students about academic mindsets but also equipping them with the tools to develop a growth and entrepreneurial mindset. We still have some work to do to take full advantage of the meta-majors, but that work has begun. UGA faculty and staff have adapted to the disruptions to instruction caused by COVID-19 and have undertaken a number of innovative strategies to engage students in a more remote environment. The eLC Experience “course” has been a timely and effective tool to put in the hands of students to help them be successful and to navigate this changing learning landscape.

Section 3.2 Follow up from Momentum Summit III - “Campus-Wide” Momentum Approach Activities (Beyond the Classroom)

Purpose

Mindset

Pathways

Student success initiatives “beyond the classroom”:

Increasing financial access: an important focus of our recently completed $1.2 billion capital campaign was to remove financial barriers for our students. Donations to the campaign created over 500 endowed scholarships, totaling a commitment of more than $77 million to help students from low-income backgrounds earn a degree.

Success: this year the Division of Student Affairs launched the Office of Student Transitions Student Transitions to provide dedicated support, in coordination with campus partners, for key times of student transition, offer additional targeted transition support for identified student populations and create new transition programming, including a Student Affairs program for new students to help them succeed, grow as individuals and find their place at UGA.

Student Success and Completion Team