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Recommendations

The project team has reviewed the collected data and information, including comments and suggestions on the initial report from over 100 members of the university community (25% of responses were from undergraduate students, 12% graduate students, 20% faculty, and 40% staff), to inform the following recommendations for improving student success at UNT.

While this list reflects much of the feedback received from the community, recommendations are limited to those within the scope of the project’s focus on student success. Feedback and recommendations that fall outside our scope will be shared with the appropriate division/department. The project team also acknowledges that implementation of any recommendations would be dependent on available resources and at the discretion of university leadership.

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Academic Support 

Providing support to students through their academic journey is critical to their success.

Short Term Strategies

  • Improve processes and interventions surrounding the current Early Alert system to include academic areas when students exhibit academic warning signs, such as poor attendance, low grades, or missed assignments.
  • Deliver earlier (pre-orientation), consistent messaging about academic readiness and placement requirements, especially for critical areas like mathematics. 
  • Form a Student Success Outcomes Team to analyze data on student performance and identify barriers to success. This team should implement evidence-based strategies and collaborate with departments to enhance student outcomes.

Long Term Strategies

  • Expand the academic support services offered by The Learning Center (tutoring, supplemental instruction, etc.) as well as other campus and department-based tutoring centers (Writing Center, Math Lab, etc.). Ensure robust online tutoring options are available, particularly for fully online students. 
    • Ensure there are enough trained personnel in student success-oriented roles with a focus on supporting students.
  • Expand the current Summer Bridge program to include pre-college courses in math, reading, and writing, as well as workshops on skills for college success. 
  • Utilize existing campus courses like UCAR and college-embedded FYE courses to develop a comprehensive, credit based First-Year Seminar course to support academic success and provide a pathway for early intervention.
    • Course should include comprehensive well-being components.

Advising

Providing timely access to qualified academic advisors who can give accurate information is critical to the success of undergraduate students.

Short Term Strategies

  • Foster collaboration between advising offices across campus by developing a shared resource to promote best practices and innovative solutions to address the advising challenges noted earlier in this document.
  • Implement proactive advising techniques utilizing data analytics to identify student needs. 
  • Create a targeted communication plan to inform students of advising opportunities and timely advising options.  
  • Review availability of advisors in relation to the student populations being served (online, campus location). Offer varying advising appointment times to accommodate students’ busy schedules.

Long Term Strategies

  • Develop strategies to train and retain academic advisors. 
    • Expand centralized training for onboarding new academic advisors to promote a uniform standard of advising across all colleges and address inconsistencies in advisor knowledge.
  • Identify approaches to reduce processing workload and streamline processes to allow academic advisors to spend more time meeting with students. 
    • Identify better UNT systems for standardizing and automating the evaluation of transfer or other credits, as well as for processing graduation applications. 
    • Identify how the full capabilities of Navigate could be utilized to address advising and student needs. 
    • Provide prospective transfer students access to advising services.
  • Implement systems for regular collection of data to assess the effectiveness of advising in colleges across UNT. 

Communication

Communication is essential to ensure our students, faculty, and staff are fully aware of all the opportunities and resources available to them. 

Short Term Strategies

  • Promote existing resources more effectively through targeted emails, social media campaigns, and classroom announcements. Ensure resources are accessible to students at all campus locations and online learners.
  • Utilize technology and AI for more targeted communication, such as personalized notifications through a mobile app or online portal, to ensure students receive relevant information in a timely and easily understood manner.
  • Send clear and timely reminders about important deadlines, registration dates, and degree requirements via email, text, and the student portal.
  • Provide earlier and more consistent messaging about preparing to start at UNT (pre-orientation), particularly for critical areas like mathematics placement which can have major consequences for degree progression in STEM and other majors.

Long Term Strategies

  • Create a Centralized Resource Hub (i.e. student portal), a user-friendly website or mobile app that centralizes all student resources, including academic support, financial aid, mental health services, and campus events.
  • Implement standardized communication protocols and training for staff across departments to ensure students receive accurate, coordinated, and consistent messaging.
  • Provide quick access to critical information, such as kiosks located on campus that students can easily access for classroom support/locations, enrollment needs, current event location/directions, and financial aid assistance.
  • Identify opportunities for proactive messaging for academic and student support.
  • Consolidate student information from various systems (admissions, advising, etc.) to help create a unified approach to messaging and communication.
  • Look for solutions to breaking down information silos and improve cross-departmental communication to reduce cases of students being sent to multiple offices to receive assistance.

Career Connected Learning 

As an institution of higher education, part of our role is preparing our graduates to be successful in an ever-changing world. 

  • Conduct a feasibility study on every degree plan having an internship requirement.
  • Increase financial support for students in unpaid internships.
  • Leverage alumni to enhance career preparation and opportunities for students; expand alumni mentoring opportunities.
  • Leverage on-campus student employment to reimagine the worker-learner experience and help students make better connections to their future career.

Curriculum

As a large, comprehensive university, UNT offers a diverse inventory of courses and degrees. Navigating degree options and requirements, scheduling courses, and planning for graduation can be complex. Providing clear information and guidelines can assist in supporting student success.

Short Term Strategies

  • Develop new curriculum review standards and a training program for all curriculum committee members.
  • Create a Responsive Course Scheduling Task Force. As starting tasks, adopt standard time windows for course offerings and distribute high-enrollment freshman courses in the schedule to provide all our expected freshman a course schedule that places them on a successful path to degree completion.
  • Identify the best practices of UNT programs with high 4-year graduation rates and create models of success to share across colleges.
  • Explore easy-to-implement opportunities to create or expand block scheduling opportunities for first-year students.
  • Provide easy-to-find information of current and future course offerings and course rotation schedules to assist with longer-term schedule planning.

Long Term Strategies

  • Have the Responsive Course Scheduling Task Force utilize Academic Planner to predict course demand and build a schedule that accommodates student degree progression. Schedule classes more than one semester out.
  • Develop a comprehensive curriculum review structure to ensure that academic programs are thoughtfully designed to provide students with clear opportunities to achieve program learning outcomes within a 4-year course sequence.
  • Clarify degree requirements and graduation criteria in accessible language and better organize this information so that it is easier to find for students and advisors.
  • Conduct comprehensive reviews of degree requirements to eliminate redundancies in content, remove outdated requirements, include topics relevant to current careers, incorporate applications of emerging technologies, offer more hands-on or experiential learning opportunities, and emphasize critical thinking and problem-solving skills.
  • Identify courses that would benefit most from reduced class sizes and seek the resources to move to smaller course section enrollments.
  • Develop blueprints for multi-year block scheduling pathways in academic programs where many students follow similar course plans.
  • Expand online and hybrid course offerings to accommodate diverse learning styles and schedules, particularly for working students and those who face barriers to attending in-person classes.
  • Align courses with professional certifications and industry needs to increase students' motivation and sense of purpose, ultimately contributing to retention.
  • Create an inventory of credentials of value that would complement degrees offered by UNT and identify existing sources of credentials that can be promoted to students.
  • Critically review the time and day schedule of courses at UNT to support student success (i.e. consider implications of a 4-day class week for working students or effects of longer passing periods on parking and transportation issues).

Enrollment and Registration Processes

Admission and registration processes play a role in student retention and success.  

Short Term Strategies 

  • Provide effective communications that guide and support prospective students throughout the discovery, admissions, and financial processes to help navigate requirements effectively.
  • Create better lines of communication between enrollment and academic affairs to ensure course offerings accommodate enrollment numbers, especially in college readiness courses, and sections are not cancelled prematurely.

Long Term Strategies 

  • Evaluate the impact of UNT’s admission criteria on student enrollment and success.
  • Conduct a review of admission, registration, and payment deadlines and their impact on retention, resources, course availability, and student success.
  • Create opportunities for freshmen to register for courses prior to summer orientation to improve course schedule options.  

Graduate Students

Graduate students play a crucial role on a college campus by contributing to research advancements, enriching the academic community, and mentoring undergraduate students.

Short Term Strategies

  • Establish a Faculty Mentoring Training Program so faculty are better prepared to mentor their graduate students.
  • Modernize the graduate degree plan process, transitioning from current PDF-based workflows.
  • Consider a feasibility study on increasing graduate student stipends and enhancing health care benefit options.

Long Term Strategies

  • Establish a Graduate Education Enhancement Task Force and conduct an evaluation of our graduate education infrastructure, including faculty mentorship, student resources, and technology.
  • Expand mentorship opportunities for graduate students, making sure graduate students are connected to external funders and alignment with major funding agencies' requirements like the NIH and NSF.
  • Add student mentoring effectiveness into promotion and tenure evaluations.
  • Implement comprehensive digital systems, such as EAB Navigate, that provide faculty advisors with direct access to student records and degree progression metrics.
  • Expand resources for graduate students and ensure faculty advisors are promoting mentoring services. Pilot in high-priority areas like the G. Brint Ryan College of Business, College of Engineering, and College of Information.
  • Expand access to essential software platforms that can support graduate students (e.g. iThenticate, Inscribe, etc.).

Infrastructure

How the university is organized and structured supports the operation of our institution and fosters student success.

  • Evaluate the effects of parking and transportation on course attendance and student success and develop communications strategies to enhance understanding of transportation resources.
  • Obtain input from members of the university community who utilize ADA accessible parking to determine how access can be improved.
  • Improve dining options at satellite campuses (Discovery Park and Frisco locations).
  • Increase housing options beyond the first year, both on- and off-campus, keeping in mind the needs of special populations,like our returning, international, and graduate students.

Instruction

High-quality instruction is an important component to student engagement and success at UNT. 

Short Term Strategies

  • Organize a faculty development conference to include David Yeager, author of 10 to 25: The Science of Motivating Young People, as a keynote speaker and instruction-focused breakout sessions led by UNT faculty.

Long Term Strategies

  • Establish a teaching excellence strategy led by Academic Affairs that is dedicated to equipping faculty with the skills and strategies needed to prepare students for success. The implemented strategy should provide a central point of contact for faculty who are seeking teaching resources and would complement existing technology-focused resources available through DSI CLEAR. The teaching excellence strategy would fill important current gaps at UNT including:
    • Develop a program to expand resources for new faculty to help them create courses and syllabi while learning UNT’s systems.
    • Provide resources to departments and colleges on evaluation of instruction.
    • Identify high-need areas such as courses with high DFWI rates and assist with strategies for addressing those challenges.
    • Create programs to share engaging instructional practices, and collect best practices in curricular design.
    • Provide resources for the creation of development plans for faculty. 
  • Establish working groups with representation from faculty, promotion and tenure committees, and academic administrators to explore how UNT’s policies could better support innovation in teaching.

Student Financial Support

The financial burden college often places on students can greatly impact their success.

Short Term Strategies

  • Evaluate the effectiveness of communications and timeliness of customer service from financial offices.
  • Enhance efforts to connect students with part-time jobs, internships, and other opportunities to earn money while attending school.

Long Term Strategies

  • Identify ways to expand financial aid and scholarship opportunities, particularly for low-income and first-generation students and for emergency expenses.
  • Expand financial literacy programs to equip students with budgeting and debt management skills.

Student Support Services

Personalized student care, enhanced mental health services, and improved transition programs are all support services that lead to success.

Short Term Strategies

  • Increase proactive well-being programming for all students.
  • Improve access to mental health counselors and proactive mental health programming, as well as group and individual counseling in residence halls.
  • Better facilitate connections between UNT students and student groups with local community resources.

Long Term Strategies

  • Expand the Emerald Eagle Scholars program to initially include all Promise Program students, and eventually all TEXAS Grant eligible students.
  • Expand the ACCESS Mentoring program.
  • Develop extended orientation programs during First Flight, similar to the First-Gen Experience, for other groups needing additional support, such as transfer students.

Systems and Processes

Navigating university systems and processes at a large institution can be a barrier to student success.

Short Term Strategies

  • Convene a task force to identify ways to consolidate and streamline the number of systems students need to interact with at UNT.
  • Identify scalable digital solutions that will help staff and faculty free up time for more personal interactions with students.
  • Evaluate the usefulness and effectiveness of “Scrappy Says” in meeting students’ needs.

Long Term Strategies

  • Create a Student Portal that houses all platforms a student may need to access and utilize Single Sign-On.
  • Conduct a review with major stakeholders of the different systems in place and their capabilities to determine how they could be better utilized and implemented to their full potential (i.e. using CourseLeaf to plan further out for future schedules, consolidating student communications, scheduling appointments, and using predictive analytics in EAB Navigate, etc.).
  • Implement data-driven assessment methods to track the impact of interventions and programs on student success to identify what works best and allocate resources more effectively.

Conclusion

We believe a strategy informed by the above recommendations to streamline processes and alleviate some of the workload on faculty and staff will enhance the overall student experience. It is further recommended that the implementation of recommended improvements should include robust and consistent assessment to understand the impact on student success and adjust when needed. We want to express gratitude for the input from the university community in the development of these recommendations and invite your input once again prior to finalizing the student success scan report. 

The authors of this report utilized Microsoft 365 Copilot, a large language model, for assistance with analyzing and summarizing survey data.