Communications

Reflecting on Undergraduate Studies Contributions Leading to AAU Membership

July 2023

The University of South Florida (USF) recently received an invitation to join the prestigious Association of American Universities (AAU) for top-tier research universities. This has been a USF aspiration for the last 16 years and it is an incredible accomplishment for all faculty, staff, students, and all involved.

There are AAU membership indicators that are used to assess current and potential new members. Research funding and faculty scholarship are heavily reviewed and other factors are also reviewed such as Pell enrollment, undergraduate graduation rate, Pell recipient graduation rate, and the graduation rate gap. Increasing the graduation rates are the factors are where Undergraduate Studies made an impact. 

As academic units within the Division of Student Success, the departments of Undergraduate Studies have been heavily involved on the ongoing university enhancements to the academic student experience to increase graduation rates for all students.

Leading the start of this work to join the AAU was President Judy Genshaft and Provost Ralph Wilcox whom emphasized the goal of AAU at every fall address and kept the aim of being invited AAU at the forefront. An achievement like this takes years.

The Office of Undergraduate Studies  in the planning stages of the “Student Success Movement” in 2009-2010. Over 100 faculty, administrators, staff, and students came together, brainstormed, strategized, and planned to increase USF graduation and retention rates and overall revitalize the student experience. Through the years the plans were implemented, tweaked as needed, and additional plans were made.

The efforts of Undergraduate Studies departments have been present throughout the student success journey. Here are some of the initiatives we have been involved with.

• The university went fully to a professional academic advising model to improve the student-to-advisor ratio.
  
  
• In 2011, Degreeworks was launched to assist with tracking course completed and courses needed to graduate
  
  
• Several new university policies were designed to enhance graduation rates and reduce student debt. These included posting mid-term grades, Degree Progression and Completion Deadlines for Undergraduate Students
  
  
• Increased first year experience efforts by developing additional Living and Learning Communities, enhancing Orientation, Week of Welcome, and Academic Foundations courses. The most recent program for first-time-in-college students is New Bulls Scholars who are predominantly first generation college students from across Florida.  
  
  
• Increased Academic Progress Rates (APR) through enhanced tutoring, academic advising, mentoring and other services for Athletes through the enhance programming in the Athletes, Academic Services Center.
  
  
• Student veteran success was bolstered with the addition of new mentoring and employment programs leading to one of the top five programs in the country.
  
  
• Led the redesign of courses for more effective pedology
   
• In 2012, the Academic Success Center expanded to the entire second floor of the library and the number of tutoring and writing services increased. This expansion also included the formation of the SMART Lab which continues to assist students in math courses.
  
  
• In 2012, the Office of Academic Advocacy started with two people to assist students experiencing barriers to graduation. Freshman retention was added to the duties of the growing academic advising staff.
  
  
• Create an office to connect students with faculty-mentored research, undergraduate research, an annual conference to showcase their work.
  
  
• In 2014, USF enhanced it's internal modeling to predict first-year persistence by adding a predictive analytics platform to generate predictors of persistence for all students. Now USF has its own proprietary predictive modeling which assists academic advocates to identify students who may be experiencing academic difficulties.
  
  
• Finish in Four campaign where the academic advocates with students to successfully graduate on time.
  
  
• High Impact Practices built into USF's Enhanced General Education. 
  
  
• Student Support Services continues to graduate students at strong four year graduation rates 70 percent and above.
  
  
• The university’s 2015 Quality Enhancement Plan was the Global Citizens Project aimed to prepare students to lead meaningful and productive lives while experiencing intensive learning experiences. 
  
  
• In 2016 a program called Fuse started leading to a partnership with eight community colleges for students to receive their Associate degree at one of these community colleges and received guaranteed admission to USF to complete their Bachelor's degree. This lead to clear pathways to transfer to USF.  This programming led to the creation of the Office of Transfer Student Success which provides over 15,000 touchpoints with potential and current transfer students.
  
  
• Two degree options were created that led to an increase in baccalauareate degrees for students who may not have otherwise earned a bachelor's degrees. These were the Bachelor of Science in Applied Sciences and the Bachlor of General Studies.

This touches on the efforts that Undergraduate Studies departments have contributed towards becoming a member of the AAU.

Undergraduate Studies has persevered through this trajectory of student success initiatives and remains committed to the work of every student receiving the right assistance at the right time so they can graduate on a timely basis.