Student Success

Our Work

arial view of 3 students around a table studying

Custom myPSU

The vision for the myPSU initiative is that PSU students will experience online services and resources through a single point of entry (myPSU - my.pdx.edu and myPSU mobile app) to be mobile-friendly, easy to use and useful.

Updates

  • Established a charter for pilot project to showcase how a custom myPSU could serve student needs more directly than the currently live project.
  • Established a design and technical team to craft a pilot slated for a late May 2020 demonstration.
  • Established a design direction and pilot feature set, including integration with academic services like grades, holds, academic standing, classes and weekly schedule.

Upcoming

  • Stakeholder meeting to discuss progress of custom myPSU.

Project / Program Lead

  • Brennen Florey, Assoc. Director, Web and Mobile, Office of Information Technology
  • Andrea Garrity, Senior Project Manager, Office of Student Success

Tableau Implementation

With the current emphasis on data-driven decision making for student success initiatives, the need for a visual-based BI tool is compelling. An investment in a set of cloud-based licenses allows OIT to support Tableau Online edition, which will give PSU data analysts streamlined access to the transformed data views that already exist in Cognos. This data can then be readily combined with data specific to the individual Tableau user, for example student survey data, to create ad-hoc as well as persistent solutions that can be shared across the campus. The addition of a self-service analytics tool will free PSU’s “citizen data scientists” to use the growing DataMASTER warehouse data more spontaneously and creatively.

Updates

  • Tableau cloud is connected to PSU environment.
  • Tableau configuration has begun.
  • Tableau training for PSU Trainers is scheduled.
  • Tableau questionnaire has been sent to DataMASTER user community.

Upcoming

  • Begin connecting Tableau to Banner data
  • First round of Tableau trainers to be trained
  • Data preparation of data sets
  • Prepare content to showcase Tableau's capabilities

Project / Program Lead

  • Ellen Weeks, Associate Chief Information Officer, Office of Information Technology

Curricular Pilot with AWS

PSU has a vested interest in guiding students towards degrees and courses of studies that are best tailored to student’s backgrounds and interests and also lead to timely graduation. In addition to formal degree requirements, an important source of information for students and their advisers/counselors is the collective record of successful degree completion paths from past students. Student focus groups have also reported that information from other students, or “student folklore” is an important source of information and self-guidance. The PSU AI Guided Pathways project aims to leverage this accumulated historical knowledge as a source of guidance and advice for current students. In partnership with AWS, PSU has created a machine learning solution that compares a student’s list of currently completed courses with the historical record of course lists and successful degree awards and suggests the degree major(s) that are most suitable. In addition, this machine learning (ML) algorithm can be utilized to detect when a student path deviates from the stated/declared major, and can inform capacity planning based on projected enrollment. These ML results and capabilities are likely to help both students and the university to reduce costs and increase graduation rates.

Updates

  • Data sources have been gathered
  • First review of data assumptions complete
  • Curricular Analytics tool was analyzed and may be incorporated into degree path analysis
  • Initial A.I. models have been trained and evaluated

Upcoming

  • Web-based prototype tool to be built to allow self-service degree comparison analysis
  • Work with LAS and MCECS to review a few sample degrees with Curricular Analytics tool (a tool that scores degree programs based on complexity.)
  • Present solution to Students First team when the last sprint with AWS is complete.

Project / Program Lead

  • Dennis Gilbert, Enterprise Architect, Office of Information Technology

Project Manager

  • Ellen Weeks, Associate Chief Information Officer, Office of Information Technology

Early Alerts

The purpose of the Early Alerts Scale-Up Initiative is for professional advisors and faculty to partner to identify students who might be at risk of not succeeding in selected high impact courses across PSU and provide these students with timely support as a means of contributing to student retention. In Fall 2019, Pathway Advising Directors sent Early Alert campaign requests to instructors of 373 individual course sections, which included more than 200 distinct courses from UNST and all eight schools and colleges serving undergraduate students. Of the 373 early alert emails sent to instructors, Pathway Advising Directors received 162 responses (a 43% response rate) noting that a total of 1,051 students were in need of outreach. Academic & Career Advisors reached out to each student to offer resources and support. The project team will continue to work with the Office of Student Success and the Office of Institutional Research & Planning to measure the impact of this retention-focused effort, and the initiative will continue in Winter and Spring 2020.

Project / Program Lead

  • Lynell Spencer, Pathway Advising Director, College of Urban and Public Affairs

Proactive Outreach

This project is working to support the academic advising community with developing enhanced tools and practices to proactively outreach to students who might be likely to leave PSU, including a comprehensive communications strategy for all undergraduates at PSU. We’ve developed an outreach calendar for Fall 2019 (to be replicated and adjusted each subsequent term) that provides varying levels of outreach; finalized email templates to include more supportive language for students; and practices and roles for delivering proactive outreach at scale, i.e. across advising Pathways). The first proactive outreach campaign starts in early October.

Project / Program Lead

  • Carla Harcleroad, Associate Vice President for Advising and Career Services, Undergraduate Advising Resource Center

Campus Identity Project

The purpose of this project is to gathering foundational information from students and other stakeholders to learn more about the student experience, what impediments exist with regards to the student experience, what actions
might PSU undertake to make it a better experience for all students. The ultimate goal is to create structures for students to be more successful in navigating their time at PSU academically, in co- and extracurricular endeavors, socially, and in other ways. While research efforts will likely cover a wide range of issues related to this topic, the focus of recommendations for the scope of this work will be on physical space opportunities to enhance the student experience.

Updates

  • This project is in its final stages of initiation, the contract and final proposal are close being complete.

Upcoming

  • Process projected to begin in Spring 2020 including research, focus groups, and interviews.
  • Recommendations finalized by Summer 2020 and shared with campus leadership.
  • Future work and scope for project recommendations to be determined.

Project / Program Lead

  • Dan Zalkow, Associate V.P. for Planning, Construction & Real Estate, Finance & Administration
  • Thomas Bielavitz, Interim Dean, Library

Project Manager

  • Andrea Garrity, Senior Project Manager, Office of Student Success

Student Experience Project

The Student Experience Project, funded through a grant received by APLU through the Raikes Foundation, is exploring how psychological factors such as growth mindset, social belonging, and utility value influence persistence and degree completion by evaluating student outcomes in gateway courses, conducting online surveys, and through focus groups. The aim of the project is to identify an intervention that will address equity gaps in both STEM and more broadly, engage stakeholders, and assess how the student success infrastructure supports the student experience.

Project / Program Leads

  • Gwen Shusterman, Prof Chem; PSU STEM Liaison; STEM Institute Director, Chemistry - Liberal Arts & Sciences
  • Jim Hook, Associate Dean, Maseeh College of Engineering & Computer Science

Project Manager 

  • Andrea Garrity, Senior Project Manager, Office of Student Success

TRSRC Implementation

The Transfer and Returning Student Resource Center (TRSRC) will help prospective students smoothly transition to PSU, work to create a culture of belonging for transfer and returning students, and support transfer and returning student degree completion through early and proactive academic and career advising and provision of assistance with accessing PSU resources and services. The TRSRC will guide the prospective transfer and returning student experience at PSU by serving as a bridge between Admissions and Advising & Career Services, as well as making appropriate referrals to Student Financial Services, Financial Aid, and the Office of the Registrar.

Updates

  • Built communication plan and strategy for the rollout and opening of the TRSRC to the PSU community and external community college partners, and hosted a grand opening of the Center
  • Gathered feedback on initial services and programming from PSU community, and implemented initial services and programming
  • Formed implementation advisory group comprised of members: Academic advising, Admissions, University Studies, PCC, and PSU transfer and returning student
  • Established an online presence for TRSRC, including a Transfer Resources webpage and social media presence
  • Developed and implemented training and professional development plan
  • Hired Transfer and Returning Student Advisors

Upcoming

  • Facilitate agreements with Community College Partners for offering advising services on their campuses
  • Transfer and Returning Student Advisors and TRSRC staff to engage in training
  • Collaborate and outreach to departments/units and community college partners regarding articulation agreements and other transfer resources
  • Implement tools and technological resources for the TRSRC infrastructure
  • Develop and begin implementation of enhanced services and programming
  • Draft Continuous Review and Improvement Plan to assess progress toward achieving established goals, using student success framework, data and tools
  • Provide information to the campus community on the progress of implementation of the TRSRC and next steps

Project / Program Lead

  • Randi Harris, Program Director, Office of Student Success, Director, Transfer & Returning Student Resource Center
  • Carla Harcleroad, Associate Vice President for Advising and Career Services, Undergraduate Advising Resource Center

Project Manager

  • Kara Hayes, Student Success Manager, Transfer & Returning Student Resource Center

Learning + Online

To discover and design a resource that would support students with both successfully completing digital coursework at PSU and navigating through the multiple digital tools and resources available. An important component will be thinking through the best way to connect students to the resource.

Project / Program Leads

  • Johannes DeGruyter, Executive Director, Office of Academic Innovation

Project Managers

  • Andrea Garrity, Senior Project Manager, Office of Student Success
  • Lindsay Murphy, Instructional Designer, Office of Academic Innovation

Exit Survey

In 2017, the Office of Student Success in collaboration with the Survey Research Lab surveyed students who left the university for reasons other than being academically dismissed. The survey was implemented both online and by phone, with the goal of gathering feedback from previous students to further understand why students are leaving PSU.

In 2020, under the leadership of Students First, the survey will be modified with an eye towards consistently administering to students each year. The findings from the survey will help PSU plan changes that could improve the student experience and potentially improve student persistence.

Project / Program Lead

  • Andrea Garrity, Senior Project Manager, Office of Student Success

Student Experience and Services Survey

In May 2019, a survey aimed to better understand the student experience was sent to all undergraduate and graduate students. Over 5,000 students responded to the survey, and both quantitative and qualitative feedback was analyzed and shared. As follow up to the Spring 2019 Student Experience Survey, we did a pulse survey with undergraduate students enrolled in courses Fall of 2019. The purpose of the pulse survey was to better understand the extent to which the time of year impacted student perceptions and feelings towards the university. The results have been analyzed and the findings are being shared with student success leadership. The survey will be administered in the Spring of 2020 and will continue annually as we work to improve the student experience.

Project / Program Leads

  • Randi Harris, Program Director, Office of Student Success, Director, Transfer & Returning Student Resource Center

Project Manager

  • Andrea Garrity, Senior Project Manager, Office of Student Success