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Helping students succeed is the goal

Iowa Central introduces new program to with that end in mind

Iowa Central Community College provides quality educational opportunities in the classroom and outside of the classroom. As we continue to work toward our mission and increase our continual improvement processes, Iowa Central Community College is going above and beyond to ensure our students have the tools necessary to succeed. Beginning in March 2017, we will have a state-of-the-art student onboarding portal. This portal streamlines our processes and has been proven to increase the success rates of students entering community colleges.

Education Advisory Board Navigate is a student portal that will walk all students entering Iowa Central Community College through career exploration, degree selection, advising, and scheduling. This portal will not take away from the one-to-one student service we are known for. This will be an avenue for students to explore the variety of opportunities we have at the college and see the options they have with careers, schedules, and courses.

Did you know that we enroll approximately 900 students per year who have no idea what they want to do? These students are the students we see struggle to find a path and fit in at the college. They are the students we see walk out our doors every year.

Did you know that we typically have over 1,000 students who are first-generation students? Studies show first-generation students are less likely to succeed simply because they are overwhelmed and do not know where to turn for support. These two groups of students are real here at Iowa Central Community College. They are not a statistic and they are not a number. Our goal is to increase their opportunity to succeed and break the cycle. EAB Navigate has the tools necessary to make this happen.

Individuals entering college often feel overwhelmed and struggle to make the decisions necessary to succeed. The options are many and the choices made are completely up to the individual. Coming to college can sometimes feel like wandering through a maze, going from door to door and hearing new information at every stop. Navigate takes away the maze and provides students with a straight path. Students will have the opportunity to explore different career paths and find the “Best-Fit Program.” The portal will provide not only career options, but also information regarding the job opportunities in our area, annual pay associated with the degree, and scholarships available that pertain to the field of study. All of this is now available in just a few quick clicks. Even better, they can access all of this from the computer or phone as often as they want.

Once students have identified the path they want to follow they immediately begin building their schedule. Students will not be enrolling in classes without the assistance of an advisor, but they will have the ability to design a schedule that best fits their needs. Navigate provides the option of scheduling in transportation time (if the student lives out of town), work hours, study hours, and any other items that could potentially become barriers to students successfully completing their courses. The use of the Navigate scheduler provides a picture of what a student’s day will actually look like. We see students drop classes, completely withdraw, or fail out of college because they did not have a true understanding of what four hours of school, four hours of work, one hour of drive time, and three hours of studying actually looks like in one day. Students who have a color-coded calendar in front of them can easily see that type of schedule makes success pretty difficult.

Students have the ability to build out their entire schedule for the program they picked. Each student can customize their schedule for every semester before they even begin. Another advantage of the Navigate portal is the real-time information. Students who make the decision to withdraw from a class can go into Navigate and their schedule will be up-dated right before their eyes. This will show students the potential setbacks associated with not finishing a class. Oftentimes students make decisions about the courses they are taking without completely understanding the consequences. Navigate will automatically rework their schedule so they can see that withdrawing or failing even one class could prolong their time at Iowa Central Community College by a full year.

So, you may be asking yourself what is in this for the faculty, staff, and administration at Iowa Central Community College? Well, our main focus is student success. No matter what is going on we want our students to leave our institution having met their goals. The EAB Navigate portal has an advisor side where we, as faculty, staff, and administrators, can monitor the progress of our students. Navigate has the ability to track students from the minute they sign in to the minute they graduate. This provides a great deal of data in terms of student success. As the institutional effectiveness executive director, I will be able to see exactly where students are stalling out and identify any areas where students may be struggling. I will also be able to see the areas where we are having the most success. Navigate will provide quality data that will make tracking our students success not only easier but also more reliable. We will know exactly what is going on with our students and not have to do the guess work anymore.

Faculty, staff and administration will be able to reach out to students via email and/or text message right from their Navigate screen. Similarly, students can reach their advisors with the click of a button. Navigate offers scheduling so students can log in and schedule a meeting with their advisor that fits into his or her schedule. The establishment of “campaigns” allows us to reach groups of students with the push of a button. Oftentimes we struggle to reach different “groups” of students and are forced to try to contact each one individually. Navigate allows us to reach out to multiple students with similar characteristics (program of study, student senate, etc.) with click of a button. Each student in the campaign gets a personalized note, but the person sending the message only has to send it once.

EAB Navigate is the cutting edge for the student on-boarding process. The individuals who created this platform did so with the help of community college students to ensure the product they were building would fit the needs of the population. The individuals at EAB acknowledged the one-size-fits-all standard does not pertain to community college students. This portal and the processes within were designed by EAB but have been built by a team here at Iowa Central Community College. Our team has worked endlessly in the development of this portal to ensure that each segment is exactly as we see fit. This portal is not about changing everything we do. We are simply inputting what we do and making it easier, more student friendly. We are taking the maze of student enrollment and putting them on a straight path.

Three major areas we are constantly monitoring and reporting are enrollment, retention, and graduation. As the institutional effectiveness executive director here at Iowa Central Community College I can tell you that we are doing great things. Our success rates are rising, our job placement is amazing, and we continue to strive to help each student succeed. The EAB Navigate portal provides us with a comprehensive tool to help increase the success rates of our students, and will provide an avenue for further exploration of what we do great and what we can do better.

Stacy Mentzer is the institutional effectiveness executive director at Iowa Central Community College.

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