Academic Affairs Annual Report 2020-2021
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2 Academic Affairs Annual Report 2020-2021 I. Strategic Enrollment Management Since 2018, Sonoma State has experienced a general downward trend in enrollment. Impacts on that trend include demographic changes, new patterns of college-going with students staying closer to home, and outmoded recruitment tools and strategies. In addition, Sonoma State’s enrollment has been affected to some degree by the fires that have occurred in Sonoma County and the surrounding regions for the last four years, reducing our out-of-region enrollment. In fall 2020, the pandemic had a significant negative impact on first-time, first-year (FTFY) enrollment, particularly for students who live out-of-region. In response to the threats posed by declining enrollment and COVID, Sonoma State finalized its first Strategic Enrollment Management Plan (SEM) during this past year, supported by consultation with the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admission Officers (AACRAO) and aligned with Sonoma State’s Strategic Plan 2025. As a federally designated Hispanic-Serving Institution, we are committed to increasing our service to Latinx, Black, Indigenous, and Asian and Pacific Islander communities, as well as low-income students, with the intentional goal of serving a majority of students from historically underrepresented and Pell-eligible populations. Our SEM plan originally had a 10-year time frame, but we narrowed the scope to the period from 2021 to 2024 in recognition of the likely volatility of enrollment for the next few years. We have chosen to aim for modest yield targets over a shorter period, while focusing on enrollment strategies that position us for long-term, future growth. During the last year, personnel changes in the Registrar position and in the leadership of the Office of Strategic Enrollment have led to renewed strategic thinking about enrollment goals, increased use of technology, increased outreach to high schools and community colleges, and increased marketing efforts 3 supported by new leadership in the Office of Strategic Communications. Clearly, Sonoma State is in a period of rebuilding as we work to attain our budgeted FTES target. Strategies for managing continuing enrollment during this rebuilding phase include the successful use of EAB Navigate in the Division of Student Affairs to encourage 90% retention rates among continuing students from one semester to another. As of the most recent report, we have 91.5% of our students re-enrolled for fall 2021, a rate that belies the assumption that COVID-19 would negatively impact continuing enrollment. Major strategies for new student recruitment include relieving impaction, recruitment scholarships, and outreach to community colleges, among others. For fall 2022, we have ended impaction for four majors, and we have plans to end impaction in at least three more majors for 2023. In addition, we have implemented a $400,000 recruitment scholarship program, and 368 of the students who received scholarships have deposited. In an effort to focus more on our service region and more on transfer enrollment, President Sakaki, Provost Moranski, and Senior AVP for Strategic Enrollment Lopez have met with 11 community college presidents from Los Angeles and across Northern California, and we believe those renewed connections and collaborations are partially responsible for transfer deposits having reached a ten-year high for fall 2021 (an increase of nearly 30% over last fall’s total transfer deposits; see below). Deposits for first-time first-year (FTFY) students are only slightly higher than last year, so our primary recruitment focuses include gradually increasing our FTFY numbers while continuing to grow transfer and PBAC populations. 4 II. Graduation Initiative 2025 Under the joint and collaborative leadership of the divisions of Academic Affairs and Student Affairs, Sonoma State continues to make important strides toward reaching our GI 2025 goals. The key tenets of our recently-implemented Strategic Plan 2025 - student success; academic excellence and innovation; leadership cultivation; and transformative impact - now permeate throughout the University. We are proud to have been commended on the impact of our strategic plan in the findings of WSCUC following our Special Visit in March 2021. Sonoma State remains fourth in the CSU system for first-time, first-year graduation rates. At 39.5%, our four-year graduation rate is moving toward the 2025 goal of 54%, and that rate is up 10.2 percentage points from our starting position in 2011. To reach our six-year graduation rate target of 75%, there is room for improvement as we hold at 60.1%, up only 1.5 percentage points for the 2011 first-time first-year class. We continue to rank number one in the system for our two-year transfer graduation rates – 62.4% in two years and 84% in four years – and number nine in the United States for graduation of transfer students overall, according to The Chronicle of Higher Education. This year our Graduation Initiative working group placed special focus on impaction with the goal of easing students’ entry into the major of their choice. We worked closely with programs to make data-informed decisions about program needs. This resulted in the elimination of impaction for Biology, Business and pre-Business, Communications, and Liberal Studies - Hutchins, which are among our top ten most popular majors. We further modified impaction criteria for Nursing, Psychology, and Kinesiology to ensure transparency in admissions requirements for new and continuing students. SSU’s Graduation Initiative working group placed an additional focus on evaluating and revising registration holds, as part of our commitment to reducing administrative barriers to student success. We significantly reduced the number of holds, began work toward standardizing the timing of holds, and improved communications to students by integrating the 15 most heavily used holds into our EAB Navigate (“LoboConnect”) Mobile App. In a partnership between faculty and advisors in Student and Academic Affairs, we implemented Progress Reports through LoboConnect to identify and intervene with students who were struggling in the first few weeks of high D/F/W courses. Fifty-eight faculty responded, which is well-above the national average. Fifty-three unique students were identified and nearly half (21) these students responded by connecting with their advisor. The Learning and Academic Resource Center (LARC) moved all tutoring and Supplemental Instruction (SI) services online with no lapse of service or academic support to students. The SI program supported 44 courses with approximately 11,520 student contact hours. The Tutorial Program provided student support to approximately 371 students across more than 50 courses. The Writing Center provided support to approximately 351 students through 1,277 one-on-one appointments. Under the direction of the Center for Academic Access and Student Enrichment (CAASE) in the Division of Student Affairs, our Summer Bridge cohort was, once again, the largest in SSU history, with 261 5 students - 161 from the Educational Opportunity Program (EOP) and 100 from PUERTA (our Title 3 grant in support of Latinx students planning a teaching career). New this year, and with continued support from the Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria, these students earned a unit of course credit by successfully completing the Summer Bridge Program, starting them on strong footing for their first year. We have made significant strides in addressing one of the contributing factors affecting graduation rates: increasing the number of first-year students who complete a full-load (15 units per semester) from 34% to 63%. Looking at early indicators for academic behaviors that help most with closing the equity gap, we have increased the number of first-year, first-generation students that advance to sophomore status in 1.5 years by 5 percentage points (67% to 72%). SSU is proud that we continue to make good progress in closing the six-year graduation equity gap between first-time first-year students who come from underrepresented groups and those who do not. This gap has been reduced to 1.8% from our starting position of 7.8% in 2009, down 2.4 percentage points in the last year alone. This ranks us third in the CSU. SSU continues to move forward in closing the Pell equity gap, down 2.2 percentage points from last year and down 6.7% overall. Our latest cross-divisional efforts to reduce equity gaps include: ● Expansion of Summer Bridge to include DREAM Center and Seawolf Scholars students. Programming will now earn students 6 units of credit which include fulfillment of GE area F, the CSU’s new Ethnic Studies requirement. All Summer Bridge students will receive a $250 book voucher and access to technology, e.g., laptops/chrome books, noise cancellation headphones, and/or hotspots. ● Seawolf Technology Program prioritizes BIPOC students to receive laptops/chrome books, noise cancellation headphones, and/or hotspots. ● More retention and continuing student scholarships are earmarked for BIPOC students, especially those participating in clubs, programs, and/or organizations. 6 ● Center for Teaching and Educational Technology provided workshops covering evidence-based teaching practices known to reduce or eliminate equity gaps and improve BIPOC student success, which include assignment scaffolding, fostering a sense of belonging in the classroom, cultivating a growth mindset, and modeling reading comprehension and study skills. III.