Predicting the Need for Academic Support Services

1. Predicting the Need for Academic Support Services Academic Enrollment Planning Subcommittee Joan Becker, Vice Provost for Academic Support Services

2. Focus and Developing Metrics • Focused on estimating the increases in academic advising, tutoring/academic support, career services, disability services, and library resources and services needed to serve an additional 749 students. • Where available, used national benchmarks—National Academic Advising Association’s (NACADA); National Association of Colleges and Employers—to assess gaps in services or compared to peer institutions. • Where not, used trend and cost per student/contact hour data to predict the increase in the need for service.

3. Academic Advising • Focused on the University Advising Center—responsible for undeclared advising in CLA, CSM, and CM • Metric: Student Caseloads • Used the National Academic Advising Association’s (NACADA) average caseload of 300 students per professional advisor as the benchmark

4. Academic Advising

6. Academic Advising • FY 10 Investments in the UAC: 2.5 advisors (1 growth; 1 advising pool; .5 international re-organization) • FY 10 Investments in CLA and CSM: 2 advisors CLA and 1 CSM (advising pool) • Issues not addressed by the Growth Committee • Is 300 to 1 the right caseload benchmark? It’s the average; NACADA recommends lower loads for special populations. • Major and college-based advising. • Space • UAC: inadequate waiting space at peak times; have run out of office space, unable to accommodate future growth. • No or inadequate space for college-based advisors.

7. Tutoring • Tutorial programs include: • Subject Tutoring • Math Resource Center • Reading, Writing, and Study Strategies Center • ESL Center • Graduate Writing Center • Individual and group tutoring; workshops • Metric: looked at the number and percentage of students served and contact hours over time to determine average percentage of students served, cost per student, and average cost per contact hour.

8. Undergraduate Tutoring

10. Graduate Student Tutoring

11. Tutoring • FY 10 Investments: $68,000 increase • Issues not addressed by the Growth Committee • Are we using the right mix of delivery modes—individual, small group, workshops, supplemental instruction? • Do students have access to enough tutoring? Current policy for one on one subject tutoring is one hour per week per course. • Space: atrium tutoring area is becoming too busy and too noisy.

12. Making progress, but not meeting demand or need

13. Disability Services • Metric: determined the number and percentage of students served 2006-09; then calculated the average percentage served and average cost per student.

14. Disability Services • Accurately projecting costs is very difficult. • Number of students registering with the Ross Center fluctuates • Number and kinds of courses (lecture, seminar, clinical, practicum) each student takes fluctuates • The kinds of accommodations needed and cost per student varies widely—for example, in FY 09, the average per student cost for testing accommodations (test proctoring) was $112 per student; for interpreting for students with hearing impairments it was $14,316 per student. • FY 10 Investments: $68,000 increase

15. Career Services • Metric: compared staffing and operational expenses in relation to National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) benchmarks.

16. Career Services • Career Services has been under-funded for many years and the addition of more students exacerbates this problem. However, the Growth Committee as unable to directly link the situation in Career Services to new student growth and recommended that attention be paid to these needs in the regular budgeting process. • FY 10 Investments: 2 career specialists (advising pool)

17. Library Services • Metric: compare expenditures per FTE and staffing patterns to peer institutions • UMB expenditures per FTE are well below those of our peers.

18. UMB student to reference librarian ratios are higher than those of peers.

19. Library Services • Like Career Services, the library is an area that has been under-funded for some time and the addition of more students exacerbates this already existing problem. • Growth Committee recommended that attention be paid to these needs in the regular budgeting process. • No new funds allocated to address these issues—new funds were allocated to offset increases in the cost of library materials.

20. General Education • Need to assess the impact of growth on • Availability of courses to meet requirements—ENG 101/102, FYS/IS, quantitative reasoning, diversity, distribution • Writing Proficiency Requirement • Requests for waivers of requirements • Number of students not making academic progress

21. Strategic Questions • Are we working as “smartly” as we can? What are the best ways to use technology to better manage service delivery and to more pro-actively communicate with students? What are the costs and benefits? • The number of students taking all their courses on-line is increasing. Currently, very few academic support services are available on-line. What are the most effective ways to deliver these services on-line? What are the costs associated with development and implementation? • What impact will Mass Transfer have on the extent to which transfer students will need general education courses? For students who bring in the transfer block, what will the impact be on their ability to meet the WPR?