Student success and relationship planning models: Part two

Read part one: A retention and graduation planning model

In part one of this blog series, I introduced you to the concept of a student success relationship management model which spanned the lifecycle of your students. Please take a quick look at the model which is also reproduced below.

I promised to expand upon the retention planning framework in this second part to discuss more about pathways to completion, milestone achievement, milestone measurements, strategies, and action plans which are part of a typical planning approach.

Before we talk about those things, I wanted to share a comment I received from a reader about understanding the students we are trying to serve in our student success relationship management model. This comes from Tyson Schank, enrollment manager at Metropolitan Community College – Maple Woods:

“With today’s students (whatever generation you want to lump them into), they have largely grown up in the Millennial culture of instant reward and recognition for things that older generations never gave much thought, such as participation trophies for youth soccer instead of just for the ‘winners.’ Now, as I watch the ‘gamer’ generation of students in our Student Center play video games, I think about the ‘trophies’ they earn in the gaming realm. You play a video game and, after you complete certain goals or challenges, you unlock access to additional features that other gamers may or may not have. It feeds their need for instant gratification, but it also motivates them to keep playing the game. In a way, we do this in the recruiting world as the admissions acceptance letter is like earning a ‘trophy’ which is tangible recognition for a student.

“I think we could find a way to use this model to keep students ‘playing the game.’

“When students hit our identified milestones, we should not only recognize them immediately for it, but we should allow that milestone to ‘unlock’ new perks to them. It’s like a VIP club which demonstrates accomplishment and can be a source of pride in peer-to-peer relationships. The hope would be that this achievement begins to be modeled by their peers and they all decide to keep playing the game. Maybe parents can be involved in certain levels of ‘trophies’ to add some Facebook bragging rights for mom and dad so the student gets additional reinforcement.”

I think this is a valuable perspective to have. In order to recruit and retain students, we need to think like those students, to understand what they value, how they respond to challenges, and what is motivating them to move toward completing their educational goals. Keep that in mind as we continue our discussion about a retention planning framework which includes pathways to completion, milestone achievement, milestone measurements, strategies, and action plans.

Retention planning framework

Pathways to completion

There are six major elements inherent in a retention and graduation planning approach which should serve to feed your student success relationship management model. First, it is important to be aware that not all students enter on the same pathway to graduation or completion. For example, students who are undecided or have two or more developmental education needs, are awaiting admission into selective programs or in accelerated programs, or who have other needs and goals are all on distinct pathways with different steps to take. Attention should be paid to each pathway (with institutional performance indicators), milestones along the pathways, measurements to inform milestone achievement, strategies, and action plans used to manage the strategies.

Key institutional performance indicators for all pathways

I believe that you have both key performance indicators and what I call milestone achievement measurements which I discuss below. Key performance indicators would be the “re-yield” or retention outcomes from term to term leading to graduation and completion for any and all pathways to graduation. They should be used to guide your goal-setting efforts within your student success relationship management model.

• First-year, fall-to-spring persistence
• Second-year return (official retention rate)
• Third-year return rate
• Fourth-year return rate
• Four-year graduation rate
• Fifth-year return rate
• Five-year graduation rate
• Sixth-year return rate
• Six-year graduation rate

Milestones

Each pathway will have its own set of milestones which must be achieved to maintain momentum toward graduation and completion. Again, I based this section on Leinbach and Jenkins’ 2008 article, Using longitudinal data to increase community college student success: A guide to measuring milestone and momentum point attainment. While it’s not possible to list all milestones which must be achieved, I can categorize them for you here in five broad areas:

• Connection to campus
• Financial stability
• Academic success
• Sustained progress/commitment toward degree
• Commitment to institutional mission, vision, and values

Milestone measurements

Milestone measurements represent data which will measure the attainment of milestones leading to completion. They will need to be collected and included as appropriate in a dashboard/scorecard. Again, there are far too many to list here, but some example data items per milestone might include:

• Connection to campus
  • Satisfaction assessments
  • Motivational assessments
• Financial stability
  • $0 balance
  • Yearly completion of FAFSA process
• Academic success
  • Mid-term grades
  • Semester GPA
• Sustained progress/commitment toward degree
  • Credits achieved
  • Long-range degree plan

Strategies and action plans

In order to inform strategy and action plan development to support milestone achievement, you should conduct a current state assessment to determine which practices and processes are still working and what is missing to better feed your student success relationship management model in all parts: intake, first year, and beyond.

 I realize these two posts cover a lot of information, but if you take away just two key points, it should be these:

1. Students enter distinct graduation or completion pathways which have milestones which must be achieved to maintain momentum.
2. These milestones and associated measures require us to enact student success relationship management approaches (strategies, action plans) during intake, year one, and beyond, in order to re-yield the class, term after term until graduation occurs (key performance indicators).

I had a lot of fun discussing different ways to conceptualize student success planning, and I hope you did too. I would love to hear your thoughts. I am also happy to further discuss any strategies for re-yielding students and putting more students on the optimal educational pathway. Please e-mail me, and good luck with your own student success initiatives.