Author: usucoalition

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Collaborating for Change Launched: Watch it Here

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The Association of Public and Land-grant Universities (APLU) and the Coalition of Urban Serving Universities (USU)  launched Collaborating for Change: Analyzing New Approaches for Student Success, Thursday, March 31 from 2:00-4:00 p (EST) at the National Press Club. Goldie Blumenstyk, senior writer at the Chronicle of Higher Education, moderated presentations from three public urban universities.  Mark Becker, President of Georgia State University opened the event. Featured institutions and university representatives include: Mark Rosenberg, president of Florida International University (FIU), and his team will discuss far-reaching efforts that include a focus on gateway courses and deep roots into the Miami-Dade public schools … Continue reading Collaborating for Change Launched: Watch it Here

Collaborating for Change, Student Success, USU Member StoriesLeave a comment

Georgia State University’s Dollars & Sense Retention Efforts

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 Georgia State University (GSU) is taking a leading role in response to dramatic demographic shifts in the Southeast United States.  Located in downtown Atlanta, the university enrolls more African American, Latino, Asian American, first-generation and Pell Grant students than any other institution in the state of Georgia, says Timothy Renick, Vice Provost and Vice President for Enrollment Management and Student Success. Driven by a commitment to the success of its students in life, school, and career,  the university has seen its graduation rate increase by 22 percentage points over the past decade. Georgia State University’s progress has come from an innovative approach … Continue reading Georgia State University’s Dollars & Sense Retention Efforts

Collaborating for Change, Diversity, Student SuccessLeave a comment

The Transition Coaching Program at the University of Illinois at Chicago

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Transitioning from high school to college is rarely seamless.  Many students experience a great deal of anxiety related to financing their education, keeping up with college-level coursework, creating new support networks, and leaving the familiar behind. So when leaders at … Continue reading The Transition Coaching Program at the University of Illinois at Chicago

Collaborating for Change, Student SuccessLeave a comment

Siri, Help Advise Portland State University’s Students

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  When Portland State University (PSU) Provost Sona Andrews proposed bringing Siri onto the PSU advising rolls she captured immediate attention. Academic advising in higher education is partly a numbers game, with a 2011 National Survey of Academic Advising by NACADA, the global organization for academic advising, finding the median case load for a full-time adviser to be 296 students.  The numbers have since risen. According to Apple, Siri fields one billion information requests a week, roughly 99,000 questions per minute.  Advising PSU students would be a breeze. With the futures of more than 23,000 undergraduates on their minds, leaders … Continue reading Siri, Help Advise Portland State University’s Students

Collaborating for Change, Diversity, Student SuccessLeave a comment

Florida International University’s High Tech Fix for Gateway Courses

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Florida international University (FIU) knew it had a teaching problem.  It even had a solution.  Bringing the two together was the dilemma.  That’s where UT3, University Transformation through Teaching, came into play. Supported by FIU’s Transformational Planning Grant (TPG) project, … Continue reading Florida International University’s High Tech Fix for Gateway Courses

Collaborating for Change, Public Higher Education, USU Member StoriesLeave a comment

Meet Seven Urban Serving Universities Collaborating for Change

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  They are not a club but enjoy a unique membership as part of a higher education cohort collaborating nationwide to transform their institutions from the inside out. They are seven, public, urban research institutions engaged in the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities (APLU) and the Coalition of  Urban Serving Universities (USU) initiative funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMFG), Collaborating for Change. The seven institutions embarked on a journey with the Transformational Planning Grant (TPG) project directed by the USU/APLU Office of Urban Initiatives.  They are: California State University, Fresno, Florida International University, Georgia State University, Portland State … Continue reading Meet Seven Urban Serving Universities Collaborating for Change

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New Report & Implementation Guide Urge Use of Micro-Grants to Turn Would-Be College Dropouts into Graduates

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In an effort to prevent low-income college students nearing graduation from dropping out, the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities (APLU) and the Coalition of Urban Serving Universities (USU) today released a  report and implementation guide, “Foiling the Drop-Out Trap, Completion Grant Practices for Retaining and Graduating Students,” detailing how universities can use micro-grants to ensure such students complete their degree. A key element of the report is a how-to-manual designed to help campuses and stakeholders explore, replicate, or scale similar retention and completion grant programs on campuses across the country. The completion grant programs detailed in the report target … Continue reading New Report & Implementation Guide Urge Use of Micro-Grants to Turn Would-Be College Dropouts into Graduates

Collaborating for Change, Institutional Partnerships, Public Higher Education, Student Success, USU Member StoriesLeave a comment

Urban Serving Universities Collaborate to Transform Higher Education, Strengthen Cities

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In 2014 a cohort of seven public urban research institutions embarked on a bold journey of transformation with the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities (APLU) and the Coalition of Urban Serving Universities (USU) in the Transformational Planning Grant (TPG) project funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMFG). Their goal, reinvention; spark institution-wide reflection and engagement, planning and redesign, that disrupts inefficiencies related to access, diversity, student costs, retention and degree completion and replace them with evidence-based, promising practices that maximize student success and can be scaled and replicated by other institutions. The outgrowth of this multi-year collaboration … Continue reading Urban Serving Universities Collaborate to Transform Higher Education, Strengthen Cities

Collaborating for Change, Diversity, Public Higher Education, Student Success, USU Member Stories1 Comment

Small Grants Produce Big Results to Push Students Across the College Finish Line

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Nearly everyone has had, or will have, an unexpected financial need. The car breaks down.  A child is hurt on the playground.  And as frustrating as the unexpected bill may be, redirecting a few hundred dollars from the budget to cover it won’t cost you your college degree- not unless you’re among the millions of low income students dropped out annually by unmet need. Ironically many of these dropouts are students in good academic standing, only a semester or two from graduating.  They’ve spent years “plugging away, taking the right courses, getting the right grades,” said Tim Renick, Vice Provost and … Continue reading Small Grants Produce Big Results to Push Students Across the College Finish Line