Chancellor Philip Rogers on ECU’s role in helping students succeed

Thinking back to when we were in college, a lot of us remember – or think we remember – when student success depended pretty much solely on us: the students. Yet most of us also remember that professor who took an interest in us and our studies or the staff member who guided us to this class or suggested that major. If we can take those individual interactions, combine them with data and make them part of a more cohesive system, our students will be better off.

Why was it important to focus on student success during University Day in August?

We aspire to be a national model for student success, so University Day, right at the start of the academic year, was an ideal time to talk about it. Student success is a natural extension of our strategic plan – Future focused. Innovation driven. — we introduced at last year’s University Day. We’re accelerating steps to solidify and deliver on our student success agenda, so again, what better time to talk about it than the start of the year?

What are the student success priorities for this academic year, and why are they important?

We owe it to our students to be good stewards of their time and the resources they’re investing in earning their degrees. So here are five areas we’re focusing on:

• Use data to create clear retention goals for individual colleges and the university overall, and identify indicators to encourage timely degree completion.
• Build on our professional advising program, a foundational element to helping students graduate within four years.
• Start a benchmark campaign with a focus on growing the average number of credit hours earned by bachelor’s-seeking students in a given academic year.
• Make the university friendlier to transfer students and eliminate barriers to transferring credits.
• Align our fundraising goals and scholarship practices to create more scholarship offers earlier in the enrollment cycle.

What is the Chancellor’s Scholars initiative?

It’s an example of that fifth point. We’ve streamlined a couple of programs into the new Chancellor’s Scholars program that’s more robust and comprehensive, enabling us to do much more in this space. This effort will provide $2,500 recruitment scholarships that are renewable and will help students graduate on time with minimal debt and a meaningful credential leading to a prosperous and impactful career.

How does becoming a national model for student success fit into your OneECU philosophy?

We must be unified in our commitment to serve our students. Every division, department and academic college – every faculty and staff member on this campus — plays a key role in student success. That’s what OneECU is all about: collaboration, communication and a laser focus on helping our students reach their educational goals.