II. Ensuring Academic Success and Career Development

Goals

• Increase undergraduate and graduate completion rates in every program

• Close retention and completion gaps to achieve equitable educational outcomes for all students

• Create a career success model for our diverse population of working adults that responds to a rapidly changing economy

The CUNY School of Professional Studies has been an innovator in adult learner accessibility and academic momentum strategies, leading the University in orientation for online study, credit for prior learning, use of open educational resources, transfer credit evaluation, and debt forgiveness and finish line scholarships. We will continue to innovate, improve, and scale our student success practices to increase completion rates and close achievement gaps. Furthermore, we will strengthen our commitment to building career services models that support the unique needs of our students and alumni and the University’s commitment to economic mobility.

II. Proposed Actions and Initiatives

Early Student Success

• Implement a comprehensive, data-informed First-Year Experience (FYE) program in order to increase successful strategies to overcome learning and engagement obstacles in students’ transfer year

• Evaluate the effectiveness of current, and future, student success platforms and CUNY SPS’s implementation for their ability to increase student success in high-risk courses and term-to-term retention (EAB, Degree Works, etc.)

• Use data analysis, integrated with a new LMS, for real-time and actionable information for timely intervention to increase retention rates

• Examine student demand for counseling and wellness support and invest resources as needed

• Coordinate the School’s expanding first-year peer mentoring programs and assess them for impact on retention in order to inform expansion

Momentum to Degree

• Explore embedding stackable credentials into degree programs for career-building wins on the way to degree completion

• Examine the need for competency-based courses that students can take at their own pace as electives

• Examine undergraduate and graduate academic advisement models for strengths and weaknesses, integration with career services, and scalability

• Support the development of creative strategies for increasing use of and meaningful engagement in student (office) hours

• Continue to lead the University in credit for prior learning and transfer credit evaluation

• Explore the need and sustainability of a student financial empowerment program to help students budget for their degrees and predict financial changes and challenges

Financial Support

• Increase the School’s focus on fundraising for college affordability and student emergency needs from application to degree completion

• Build the function of the Office of Advancement to reach beyond the current CUNY SPS Foundation’s focus on scholarships and direct student support

• Grow the School’s Grants Office to increase community knowledge of and responsiveness to funding opportunities

• Explore the major donor opportunities that may result from our move to an independent college

Equitable Outcomes

• Develop a research and institutional assessment plan that reflects and advances our commitment to accessibility and equity

• Use an equity lens to examine the School’s student data to identify performance gaps

• Conduct research on CUNY SPS stop-outs to understand the reasons students leave before earning a certificate or degree

• Conduct research on barriers to enrollment (time, money, GPA, credit transfer, etc.) with special focus on underrepresented segments of learners in order to inform the equity-driven expansion of our programs and services

• Collect the ideas and perspectives of students and alumni regularly, making an extra effort to reach students and adjuncts with few opportunities to contribute to School planning

• Identify the structural and organizational elements needed to scale programs and practices that demonstrate promise in achieving equitable student outcomes

Career/Partnerships

• Leverage CUNY’s Office of Industry and Talent Partnerships to expand existing and develop new employer partnerships to attract new enrollment and provide new career pathways for our students

• Grow CUNY SPS participation (student and school-level) in the New York Jobs CEO Council EverUp Micro-Credential initiative

• Develop best practices for employee academic success in the CUNY/Amazon Career Choice Partnership

• Increase access to the CUNY SPS certificate and degree programs for InStride corporate employees

• Promote career opportunities for CUNY SPS students in organizations partnered with our PEWL office

• Determine the organizational structure and support necessary for partnerships to grow and thrive

Career/Ecosystem

• Evaluate the effectiveness and capacity of existing career services’ programs in order to be responsive to the rapidly changing employment marketplace

• Identify the gaps in and career services/tiers of support needed for students who bring a range of career readiness/advancement knowledge and skills to CUNY SPS

• Utilize the full range of functions and increase the percentage of students and alumni accessing the CUNY SPS career services management system

• Procure client management tools that will help with student assessment, networking, mentoring, and scaling time-intensive services

• Develop tools to allow students and alumni to evaluate organizations and job opportunities for employer EDI practices/outcomes and overall job quality

• Integrate innovative and data-driven support systems that could accompany our alumni and provide a support network as we strengthen and engage that community

• Explore innovative uses of our campus and shared spaces to make them more accessible and valuable to our alumni and student/alumni collaboration

• Increase faculty involvement in career services and support for curricular integration of essential workplace knowledge and skills (communication, problem solving, cultural competency, technology, etc.)

Career/Data

• Develop partnerships with organizations that provide labor statistics, forecasting, and wage data to project needs and align academic program planning, enrollment marketing, PEWL offerings, and career service systems with student and employer needs

• Evaluate all CUNY SPS and University survey tools for the information they collect—and the gaps in data—on student and alumni employment and career goals

• Examine career services data for student and alumni participation, employment status, and race and gender to identify and address gaps

Measuring Our Efforts

• Funds raised to support student financial needs

• Year-over-year enrollment at the School and program level (new and total enrollment)

• Investments in academic advisement and career services

• Metrics for total participating donors, number and size of major gifts, productivity of grants office investments/outputs in equity research

• Student engagement and satisfaction with the quality and scope of advisement, career services, and other student support functions

Fall-to-fall undergraduate student retention rate by:

• race/ethnicity; age; gender; geography; military/veteran status; 1st generation; access pathway

Six-year undergraduate student graduation rate by:

• race/ethnicity; age; gender; geography; military/veteran status; 1st generation; access pathway

Four-year graduate student graduation rate by:

• race/ethnicity; age; gender; geography; military/veteran status; 1st generation; access pathway