Advising

Improve coordination and consistency of advising in the first year by requiring all departments and programs to use the model developed in the Advising Center and by increasing the number of professional advisors.

Program focused on associate level students, placed in learning communities, an additional requirement of a UNIV transition to college course, and embedded support services. The goal of the program is preparing students to transition or transfer to baccalaureate programs.

Academic alert allows instructors to refer students facing challenges in the classroom. The program is designed to proactively intervene with students early in the semester. The program functions utilizing three support programs, including Flight Support and Behavioral Intervention. Alerts are followed by outreach from academic success coaches or academic advisors who work individually with students depending on the individual needs of students.

This initiative centered on training advisors to help students create fuller schedules (15 or more hours) and complete Area A requirements within 30 hours, aided by the use of scheduling tools and success markers in Navigate.

Supporting student success is the major focus of all the momentum initiatives at MGA.  By building efficiencies into our advising processes, offering peer mentoring to our students, and enhancing our academic support resources, the student success teams that include our professional academic advisors, the Student Success Centers staff, and the academic success coaches, continue to work towards this goal.  This activity closely aligns with the following MGA’s ASPIRE/POISED goals: 1) To increase the number of qualified applicants for the Pre-licensure Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN) and

To combat lower graduation rates, KSU will focus on four initiatives aimed at supporting new students.

1. The President’s Focused Learner Program

The President’s Focused Learner Program (PFL) is a KSU initiative seeking to assist incoming students at risk of “Murky Middle” GPAs with their ability to navigate the academic and personal well-being factors often necessary for a student’s academic success. The PFL Program spans all majors at KSU.

The Faculty Mentor Program at Gordon State College pairs first-year students (students under 30 credit hours) with faculty in the student's major area/area of focus. Faculty mentors act as part of the student's success team. They provide professional and career guidance and encouragement and help connect students with campus resources. All tenure-track faculty members serve as faculty members. Faculty mentors act to provide services and support that complement the services offered by GSC's professional academic advisors.

Gordon State College completed its last advising redesign three years ago. Before the redesign, we had five advisor/faculty members who taught our first-year experience course and served as advisors for students enrolled in those courses. These advisor/faculty members held a hybrid role at Gordon. With our redesign in 2020-2021, we adopted professional advising for first-year students. Under our current system, advisors do not teach. They advise their advisees full time, and the first-year experience course is taught by teaching faculty.

In freshman orientation classes each 1st-year student will be required to complete an assignment designed to encourage the use of stepping blocks data.  Based on an academic major of interest, students will research common jobs associated with the major as well as the job market and the salaries associated with these positions.

All incoming first-year students were connected post-NSO with online information and communication from their top 5 engagement choices via the Panther Involvement Network - PIN. During their in-person NSO event, each student attended a 'Panther Connect' session to dive deeper in their top desired involvement opportunity, where they were able to connect and share contact information with students that possess similar interests as them.