This Dissertation in Practice applied an improvement science approach to address an actionable problem of practice in higher education: lack of assessment of student satisfaction with academic advising. The study took place in a school within a public university in the Southeastern United States. A pre-intervention assessment of the current state…

Past studies of texting interventions designed to promote college student persistence have given little attention to assessing both the fixed and variable costs of such initiatives. In addition, they typically have not assessed costs relative to the desired outcome(s). In this case study, we assessed the costs of implementing a text messaging…

This paper offers a critical review of the adopted academic advising strategies at the Durban University of Technology. It is worth acknowledging that academic advising as a scholarly practice is in its developmental stage at South African tertiary institutions. The paper draws on the experiences of the authors as academic advisors to reflect on…

Using educational advisors to facilitate the implementation of innovations in schools is a widespread, yet still relatively little studied and understood strategy in reform policies. This article reports on an exploratory, multiple case study on the support provided by external advisors to secondary schools in Flanders (Belgium) on the…

Guided pathways is arguably the most widespread whole-college community college reform movement in decades. In this report, the authors present findings from a study on the scale of adoption of guided pathways practices across community and technical colleges in three states--Ohio, Tennessee, and Washington--where there are state-level efforts to…

Monitoring Advising Analytics to Promote Success (MAAPS)is a multi-institutional project of the University Innovation Alliance (UIA) initially funded and supported by a US Department of Education First in the World Grant to Georgia State, the lead UIA member on this project. MAAPS is a large-scale randomized-controlled trial designed to validate…

Transfer students have an expectation to finish a?bachelor's?degree program in the industry standard, four years. The purpose of this study is to help?create?viable?academic partnerships with surrounding technical colleges to produce clear articulation agreements, ensuring all technical college transfers graduate with a baccalaureate degree in the…

Community college completion rates are critical metrics that need attention to improve the lives of the millions of students who attend community college annually. Many college administrators have instituted a highly structured student experience using the guided pathways framework to help students get and stay on a path to degree completion. In…

Universities promote social justice by improving student success; a university degree is one of the most powerful tools to change the economic prospects of students, their families, and communities. For students to succeed, it is vital that they are connected to the wide range of support services in a meaningful way. Unfortunately, many students…

Advising undergraduate students on how to succeed in their academics, careers, and life is one of the most common practices in higher education. Advising is also something that many institutions struggle to resource or coordinate sufficiently, potentially leaving students without needed support on their paths to successful program completion. The…

In Chicago, despite an increase in high school graduates and college enrollment, only one in four community college students graduate within three years. COVID-19 exacerbated longstanding barriers to college success faced by students from low-income backgrounds, as well as for Black, Latino, and Indigenous students. Without proactive interventions…

Community college students are an untapped reservoir of talent and including them in social work education aligns with the values of the profession. Yet these students encounter formidable obstacles on the path from a 2-year degree to an affordable social work degree. In this article, we describe the systems thinking underlying a newly instituted…

This Executive Summary provides a brief overview of the Annual Report of the Cohort 3 TPSID Model Demonstration Projects (Year 3, 2022-2023). Information is provided about the TPSID (Transition and Postsecondary Programs for Students with Intellectual Disability) projects about program characteristics, student characteristics, academics, academic…

Academic advising, if done effectively, can play a significant role in supporting student retention. However, as a relatively new field in South Africa, there is limited locally contextualised research into advising interventions and their effectiveness. So, there is a need for evidence-based approaches that will lead to more intentionally…

An increasing number of community colleges have expanded their programmatic offerings to include baccalaureate degrees. In this national, mixed methods study, we examined how and to what extent the implementation of baccalaureate degree programs has impacted academic advising policies and practices across U.S. community colleges. Survey and…