Building a Greater Platform for Success

Steven Doellefeld, Jack Mahoney, Joanne Malatesta and Jayme Wood accept the EAB leadership award on behalf of UAlbany last week.

ALBANY, N.Y (Oct. 11, 2018) — The University at Albany was honored last week for leadership by the Educational Advisory Board (EAB), a research and data services organization that works with colleges and universities, as well as public and private K-12 schools and districts, to advance their goals.

EAB named UAlbany the winner of its Student Success Collaborative Return on Education Award. The award recognizes an institution that has seen significant and measurable results from its efforts to help students persist, graduate and thrive using EAB’s student success management system.

The Student Success Collaborative is sponsored by the Office of the Provost and is a cross-institutional partnership between Academic Affairs, Student Affairs, Information Technology Services and Institutional Research.

Bruce Szelest, the president’s chief of staff, and Jeanette Altarriba, vice provost and dean of Undergraduate Education, serve as the executive sponsors of the project. UAlbany’s implementation leadership team is comprised of JoAnne Malatesta, assistant vice provost and director of the Academic Support Center; Jayme Wood, interim director of Admissions and director of Enrollment Management Technology; Steven Doellefeld, director of Assessment; and Jack Mahoney, assistant vice president for Academic and Resource Planning and director of Institutional Research.

UAlbany's award for Student Success Collaborative Return on Education.

At UAlbany, EAB’s data analytics are used to accelerate change in university culture and student supports, Malatesta said. “Through the platform we are able to assess key student success variables leading to an increase in the early identification of at-risk students and the ability to provide targeted and timely support,” she said. “The implementation of a campus-wide student success platform provides necessary space to collaborate about shared students and greatly improves cross-campus operational efficiency and effectiveness.”

More than 40 offices and departments at UAlbany are now using the EAB platform and collectively they have utilized it to facilitate the scheduling of over 40,000 academic advising appointments, submission of more than 3,000 progress reports, outreach to over 7,000 students, wellness checks for more than 100 students, and the re-enrollment of more than 500 students.

The data analytics have been instrumental in providing extensive course analysis and identifying major migration patterns. Utilizing this information, the University has become more proactive about identifying pressure points in a student’s career and providing timely and specific support when it is most needed. Through the use of targeted campaigns, the platform was instrumental to the implementation of pilot programs in both Chemistry and Mathematics, focusing on improving student success rates in foundational courses.

In addition to improved processes and support structures, Malatesta notes that “the platform facilitates earlier connections between students and departments by providing access and information about intended majors to all major departments. Our use of data to inform how best to support students from admission to graduation, along with our continued culture change toward a collaborative student support campus is designed to directly impact the student experience and drive an increase in retention and persistence.”

Other winners of the 2018 Student Success Collaborative Awards from EAB are:

• Visionary Leadership Award: Elizabeth Lambert, Keuka College
• Collaborative Citizenship Award: University of Delaware
• Collaborative Citizenship Award: Broward College
• Technology Pioneer Award: Colorado Community College System

“The 2018 awardees, like their predecessors, excel in using technology to amplify the efforts of advisors, faculty, administrators and students and work collaboratively across campus to help more students stay in school and graduate,” said Rich Staley, EAB’s executive director. “The winners exemplify what schools can achieve with a campus-wide approach to student success, strong leadership, and an unrelenting commitment to helping more students reach their potential.”

The awards were presented Oct. 4 at the Student Success Collaborative’s summit, CONNECTED, a three-day gathering in Washington, D.C., of more than 800 leaders from the country’s most progressive community colleges and four-year colleges and universities.

Watch a video from EAB commemorating UAlbany’s success.

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