Twin Cities updates (January 2018)

ASR committee awarded Campus Climate Micro Grant
One Stop Student Services’ Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee, along with partners from the Office of Student Finance, recently received a Campus Climate Micro Grant. The grant will fund name tags that include personal pronouns for public-facing One Stop Student Services and Office of Student Finance staff. This project aims to increase competence about personal pronouns and also demonstrates a commitment to creating an inclusive environment for our students, staff, and community. Prior to receiving this grant, the committee laid a foundation for this project through presentations and trainings for the Academic Support Resources (ASR) community. Opportunities to expand this initiative to other interested ASR staff may be available in the near future.

Transfer Evaluation System (TES) implementation
The Transfer Evaluation System (TES) went live for the TC campus just in time for spring orientation. Courses evaluated through TES will be available for students to explore in Transferology. If a course hasn’t been evaluated, students (or advisors and staff) can submit courses for review through the Office of Admissions Submit a course for review page. ASR will manage the routing of submitted courses to departmental reviewers and entering the outcome in DARS TA tables.

Advisor training continues on Transferology and Transferology Labs, the tools that students and advisors use to understand U of M transfer course articulation. See the new web page at http://admissions.tc.umn.edu/transfer/creditevaluation.html.

Twin Cities graduation rates
Staff and faculty around campus have been working diligently to support increasing graduation rates, with an eye toward meeting the goals set by the Board of Regents. Here are this year’s graduation rates for the Twin Cities campus:

• 4 year: 68.4% (up just over 3% from last year)
• 5 year: 77.87%(up 0.2% from last year)
• 6 year: 80.6% (up nearly 2% from last year)

These numbers represent NHS admits in the fall terms of 2011, 2012, and 2013. In the future we will continue to focus on increasing the five year rate as well as special student groups. There will also be increased focus on the fall 2015 cohort, as the Board of Regents have set a goal that we reach 82% for the 6-year graduation rate by 2021.

Expected Graduation Term (EGT) project
Beginning with NHS and NAS students admitted for spring 2018, OTR will populate an Expected Graduation Term (EGT) for students in their first term. Collegiate staff will edit the EGT as needed as students make progress toward their degrees. Once students have achieved 75% of their degree-applicable credits, they’ll be scheduled to graduate, eliminating the need for a graduation application. The goals of this project are to reduce financial aid compliance risks, provide useful data points for reporting, and to support student success goals and graduation rates. Questions or comments on this project can be directed to Adrienne Bricker (abricker@umn.edu).

Spring transfer student communication
Recently, 893 spring transfer students at the Twin Cities campus were sent a welcome letter, Q&A, a loan comparison chart and the “Why Graduate in 3 years” graphic. This is the first year transfer students are being sent the same information that traditionally has been sent to freshman parents prior to fall semester. Hopefully, by receiving this information, many of the their questions about the financial aid process and billing will be answered. We continually look to enhance the transfer student experience and keep them informed as they are an important part of the University community.

Staff news

• Anthony (Tony) Thomas began working in ASR-IT on Wednesday, January 3. Tony is a Developer 3 on the Custom Solutions team, and he is located in 160 Williamson (reporting to Kristy Davis).
• Carrie Otto will be rolling off the CS9.2 project and leaving Academic Support Resources at the end of February. You may still bump into Carrie as she will be around in a new part-time role in the U of MN Institutional Analysis department where she will focus on some strategic enterprise CRM initiatives.
• Mona Ganatra began work in ASR on December 18. Mona is a Business/Systems Analyst 3 (Transfer Details Business Analyst), and she reports to Jenni Peterson. Mona is located in 260-B Fraser Hall.
• Ruanne Pearson, Student Finance Counselor 3 in the Office of Student Finance, retired on January 17, 2018. She has been employed at the University for nearly 37 years.