It was standing room only Tuesday afternoon inside the
Student Union Parliamentary Room as MTSU President Sidney A. McPhee conducted
the first of three campus town hall meetings this week to share more
information about the university’s Quest for Student Success initiative.
The goal of the initiative is simple: Institute needed
reforms across the university to help students achieve more academic success,
ultimately leading to more students earning their degrees and launching
successful careers.
What will a successful initiative look like? McPhee said the
goal is for MTSU to “move the needle,” raise its graduation rate from roughly
52 percent currently to 62 percent by 2020. The president emphasized that a
year and a half was spent crafting the student success initiative, with input
from faculty, staff and students throughout the process.
“This is not President McPhee’s initiative. This is
everybody’s business,” he told the audience during the 90-minute presentation,
which included copies of the initiative given to those who wanted one and a
Q&A segment. “This is our initiative. We’re all in this boat together.”
The next two town hall meetings also will be held in the
Parliamentary Room, from 9 to 10 a.m. Wednesday, April 16, and from 2 to 3 p.m.
Thursday, April 17. McPhee also announced Tuesday that a fourth town hall will
be scheduled for a later date to accommodate those unable to attend any of this
week’s sessions because of religious observances.
Launched in the fall, the Quest for Student Success reforms
are aimed at helping MTSU students stay on track academically all the way
through graduation. The effort is in line with Gov. Bill Haslam’s “Drive to 55”
goal to extend the reach of higher education and includes a top-to-bottom
review of university operations.
Among the changes being prompted by the initiative:
- Stepping up recruitment of
students who have greater potential to succeed at a four-year
comprehensive university;
- Enhancing the academic
experience of enrolled students to better ensure their success, including
greater tutoring, enhanced advising and an emphasis on more “high-tech and
high-touch” approaches;
- And using more innovative,
data-informed best practices to facilitate success.
McPhee pointed to the pressure being placed upon higher
education institutions across the country — at local, state and federal levels
— to improve student outcomes while also addressing the rising level of student
loan debt. While acknowledging that major reforms will take time, McPhee
stressed that MTSU must have “a sense of urgency” about making changes.
A key area of focus during Tuesday’s town hall was the
renewed emphasis on advising, and the need to hire additional advising staff to
reduce the student-to-adviser ratio. While the nationally recommended ratio is
300-to-1, some MTSU professional advisers are responsible for up to 1,000
students.
McPhee asked Provost Brad Bartel to elaborate on the plan to
boost advising, with Bartel telling the audience that the process has begun to
eventually hire more than 40 additional professional advisers to be spread
across the university’s colleges based on need. The goal is to have the
advisers in place by mid-fall, said Bartel, who added that MTSU’s large
percentage of first-generation college students (70 to 80 percent) makes strong
advising critical in keeping those students on track to complete their degrees
efficiently.
When McPhee opened the floor for questions following his
presentation, Chuck Higgins, an associate professor in the astronomy and
physics department, suggested that the various committees that have been formed
to address facets of the student success initiative share information with each
other.
“Please, please let us share the recommendations that each
of these committees have,” Higgins said. “Can we share our best practices?”
McPhee thanked him for the suggestion and asked Dean Mike
Boyle, interim vice provost for student success, to set up an online location
to house the recommendations.
Economics and finance professor Bichaka Fayissa brought up
the large number of MTSU students who work full time jobs while pursuing their
degrees. Fayissa said the university must stress to students in the advising
process of the need to prioritize their educational goals and balance that with
work obligations.
“It takes two,” Fayissa said of the shared responsibility
between faculty and student. “It’s a question of priority. Students have to
participate fully in order to be successful.”
McPhee wrapped up the session with 10 key points to guide
the campus in following through with the Quest for Student Success. The 10th
point was simply, “in order to have something else, we must do something else.”
The status quo is no longer optional, he said.
“We’re not lowering the bar,” he said. “We’re actually
raising it for our students.”
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