How FSU graduation rates attracted the attention of Bill Gates' foundation

During a recent mid-morning, Saphicher Gonzalez sat in Florida State University's Johnston Building. With her desk abutting a nearby whiteboard, she worked out the calculus equations swirling in her head.

If she needed help, one of the tutors stood close at hand.

Inside the first-floor of the brick building is embedded the Academic Center for Excellence, a bustling refuge for students who opt for assistance from a tutor, access to a computer, or just some personal space.

Gonzalez, 19, a second-year student from Miami, is studying communications and finance, with a minor in education.

She attributes the discipline that routinely brings her to Johnston to the regimen indoctrinated in her as a freshman in FSU’s Center for Academic Retention and Enhancement, or CARE program.

CARE is an umbrella initiative that provides a full range of support for first-generation college students. Each year, nearly 400 students enroll at FSU through the program, that now includes more than 1,000 on campus.

It is one of several academic success programs at FSU designed to give students the personal attention, tutoring, coaching and support they need to stay in school.

The goal is to graduate in four years. That’s not only wishful thinking. It’s become the focus of the Board of Governors and state legislators and is a key metric by which FSU and other SUS campuses are evaluated and rewarded.

The multi-faceted approach is paying off big for the university. Its retention and graduation rates are being recognized nationally. Academic think-tanks want to learn how the success at FSU can be duplicated elsewhere.

Those interested include the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which focuses on high school and college education among its priority areas.

Students like Gonzalez are representative of FSU achieving a freshman retention rate of 94 percent — the national average is 71 percent; the state average is a distant 66 percent.

“Now, I’m taking business calculus, one of the harder classes for me,” Gonzalez said. “Because CARE had a requirement to study so often, I don’t mind studying long hours. “

She meets with her academic adviser to make sure she’s on track with her course load. The academics is a blueprint for progress.

“It made sense to come back,” Gonzalez said, referring to the variety of resources available.

First Generation college student

Dinette Joseph is a senior dietetics student who is applying to medical schools. She went to the Academic Center looking for help with chemistry. She’s also received tutoring in grammar and language.

“When I was a freshman, I would use some of the services," Joseph said this week. “It was helpful. You had to come in prepared.”

Tutors, she said, helped her process information and work out “practical problems.”

“It helps enhance your learning by giving you the tools and information to process the material better,” said Joseph, also a first-generation student.

Both FSU Provost Sally McRorie and President John Thrasher are first-generation college students. Both share a commitment to ensuring a support network is in place to ease their transition to campus.

For instance, students in the CARE program meet the same academic qualifications of every freshman entering FSU. The university retains 99 percent of the students enrolled in CARE’s Summer Bridge Program.

Many first-generation students face challenges such as not being able to rely on parents or siblings for advice on the transition to college or they come from smaller high schools that are not pipelines for major universities.

To address this, the university provides them a support team that not only advises on their academic paths but exposes them to organizations on campus where they can network and bond with students from similar backgrounds.

"At FSU, a common denominator of many of our first-generation students is their encounter with transitioning to college culture and expectations, said Tadarrayl Starke, director of the CARE program.

"Many come from smaller environments and are farther from home than typical first-generation students. Coming into an environment at FSU with over 40,000 students and adjusting to the speed and rigor of the curriculum could seem to be challenging. FSU, however, is prepared to meet that challenge through the myriad of programs and services that provide academic support and social integration into the campus community. "

Study helped create student focus

The impetus for today’s focus on student success can be traced to a study conducted 20 years ago at the request of then FSU Provost, Larry Abele.

Students responded by saying they felt the compartmentalization of student services was detrimental. Areas such as admissions, financial aid, counseling, academic affairs operated individually rather than collectively.

That led to creating the 25-member Enrollment Management Group that continues to meet every two weeks.

The goal is to bring everyone associated with campus life into one setting, where student offerings are discussed, tweaked and addressed.

“They talk very comfortably among themselves,” said McRorie, who also is senior vice president for academic affairs. “There are no silos, no barriers. That has made the difference.”

Besides CARE, other programs embedded at FSU and designed for student achievement include:

•The Academic Center for Excellence, which provides peer-assisted tutoring and study sessions, free study spaces and computers. In the 2016-2017 academic year, 17,267 students received tutoring.

•Advising First, a network of trained advisers and coaches spread over the campus whose job it is to keep students on track with course selections, one-on-one coaching and serving as sounding boards to direct them to services they need at FSU.

•During the 2016-2017 school year, advisers held nearly 80,000 face-to-face sessions, and sent out more than 854,000 advising messages electronically, according to Karen Laughlin, dean of undergraduate studies since 2003.

•College Life coaches held nearly 14,000 meetings in person with students.

Many students arrive on campus unsure what they want to study, Laughlin said. A key role for advisers is to help them focus.

“By providing students with a very structured program, we help students avoid zig-zagging," she said. "It helps save time and money.”

In addition, there is academic mapping, which allows advisers to keep track of a student’s courses, grades and requirements toward graduation.

“We started mapping in 2004, one of the first in the country to do this,” Laughlin said.

The campus ensures there's a destination for motivated students. At the Center for Undergraduate Research, 28 percent of undergrads are assisting professors with research projects. The Honors Program is designed to keep high-achieving students complete their degrees at FSU.

“The big measure for us are the retention rates, 94 percent, we’re really proud of that; among the top 15 in the country,” McRorie said. 

“We have a top 15 six-year graduation rate, but our real focus is on the four-year graduation rate. We have a four-year graduation rate of 68 percent, which is incredible."

And that success cuts across racial lines. 

“There’s no disparity among our demographic groups,” McRorie said. “Our African-American and Hispanic students graduate at the same rate.“We are the highest ranked university in the country that can say that."

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Gates Foundation eyes FSU

FSU’s model is getting attention in national academic circles.

Representatives from the Gates Foundation have visited FSU over the past year to learn more about its student success efforts.

One of the foundation’s target issues is student advancement and how universities are preparing graduates for the workplace. The focus is on what universities are doing to promote student academic advancement.

The FSU visit was part of the foundation's study, which has yet to be published and whose content is under wraps.

“Their focus is on the return of investments we make toward student success,” McRorie said, adding FSU was among a small group of universities selected. “It’s a study on what we’ve done, what investments we’ve made, both long-term and recently.”

This spring, McRorie will present on FSU’s story at the 100th-anniversary conference for TIAA, the international Fortune 100 financial services organization focused on investments in academics, research, health and government.

“They included two schools to make presentations,” she said. “They invited me to talk about FSU and they invited Cornell. They are interested in the focus on undergraduate education and so are we.”

McRorie also will address a meeting of 400 university presidents during the gathering in Scottsdale, Arizona.

“We’re getting an awful lot of national attention and it’s growing,” she said. “A large part of that is student success-driven.”

Student success by the numbers

• A 2017 study by The Education Trust showing 74.5 percent of its black students graduating in six years, compared to the national rate of 40 percent.
• An 80 percent graduation rate of all students within six years.
• A 68 percent, four-year graduation rate of all students, putting FSU in the top 15 of the country’s public research universities for both six-year and four-year tracks.

In the 2016-2017, advisers held nearly 80,000 face-to-face sessions

Advisers sent out more than 854,000 advising electronic messages

College Life coaches held nearly 14,000 meetings in person with students.

Sixty-percent of CARE students are African-American, 20-percent Hispanic, and 20-percent white or other backgrounds.

Contact senior writer Byron Dobson at bdobson@tallahassee.com or on Twitter @byrondobson.