Mapping and actioning for the commencing student’s journey – a 12 month commitment
Mandy Bishop
Manager (Student Transition and Study Skills)
Deakin University
Becoming a successful university student takes time, and it takes longer for some than others. Along the way the student faces a number of administrative and academic challenges, strives to develop sustainable networks with staff and peers, and faces hurdles which can test their confidence and resolve about themselves as a ‘university student’. Deakin University has recognised that, while the journey isn’t the same for everyone, there are a number of common elements which can be addressed through a longitudinal approach to supporting student transition. Deakin’s ‘transition timeline’ maps the issues and themes over a twelve month period and, most importantly, assigns responsibility for action to support student success. The needs of different cohorts are recognised and incorporated into the plan. By engendering the commitment of academics and faculty support staff, support services, IT, library staff and the student association around a common strategy, Deakin believes it can make a real difference to the successful transition of its new students.
This session will provide an overview of Deakin University’s on-campus and off-campus student timelines, the assignment of key responsibilities, and some examples of how the strategies have been put into action.
Mandy Bishop - Bio
Mandy Bishop, Manager, Student Transition and Study Skills, Deakin University.
After eight years of supporting Deakin University students to make the transition to employment, Mandy changed focus two years ago to support the inbound transition of students in a new role as Manager of Transition and Study Skills. Deakin has committed to a whole of institution approach to transition and the manager’s role involves working with academics, administrative and divisional staff to develop and implement student-centred programs. Qualified in education and management, Mandy has applied her experiences from the University, Further Education and school environments in this exciting role.
A strategic framework for co-curricula transition programs
Dr Wayne Clark
Director of Student Administration
University of Auckland
In much of the tertiary sector, particularly outside the American Sector, a first year focus with an emphasis on transition and retention is not embedded in the core curriculum. The advantages of embedded transition programmes are that every student must interface with a first year seminar or structure, resulting in direct institutional experience and contact. Where a first year programme and transition strategies are not embedded in the curriculum, the first year experience commonly remains a loosely organised, under-acknowledged or under funded “Add On” with little apparent value, and limited participation. First Year Experience Practitioners in non academic roles must therefore rely on alternative methodologies to initiate a collegial and persuasive approach to transition and retention in order to transform institutional thinking and practice.
Focusing on planning and strategies to make the First Year Experience indispensable in environments where a transition program is not embedded in the curriculum, therefore presents an exciting challenge. The width and breadth of research support material and expertise available is hard to ignore.
Strategic development and implementation of centralised transition programmes that are not driven by academic requirements or by content adds a second tier to the challenges facing first year practitioners. A centralised and supported strategy and commensurate structures, concerned with and focussed on campus socialisation, institution-student engagement and building the social equity that sustains students in their learning environment, is a new and challenging approach to transition and retention.
This session will offer opportunities to share how one can identify themes to establish a strategic and operational framework for planning, implementing and evaluating a transition strategy and programme from a non academic and centralised perspective. The discussion will consider high level strategising on first year program development from various non academic perspectives and how these contribute to establishing a value proposition. Topics such as a focus on using key operational elements to strengthen and enhance non curriculum, student services based transition to strengthen the value proposition and establish a brand/identity for transition, research-led models for driving the value proposition and how research can be a key institutional driver to underpin and to justify a First Year Program outside the curriculum will help us explore strategies to inform and influence governance and demonstrate how the key institutional drivers, research (and finance) almost always get the favourable attention of university senior management … and keep more students enrolled and engaged than we did before.
Dr Wayne Clark - Bio
Dr Wayne Clark is the Director of Student Administration at the University of Auckland, New Zealand’s premier research University. He has twenty five years experience in education, mainly in the management of tertiary education. Wayne has a PhD in Education Management, been CEO of a Polytec and has held senior management positions at three universities. Wayne is well known figure in the Australasian, European and North American student retention research arena.
Wayne has led a team that implemented a transition strategy based on the success of early research into first year attrition and developed various models for improving transition and retention. The results of this research and innovation are significant to all practitioners closely aligned to improving the first year student experience, and new evidence adds weight to a growing body of experiential and research capital. He has recently (November 2008) been awarded Good Practice Publication Grant by the New Zealand National Centre for Tertiary Teaching Excellence to “share good practice across tertiary education sector.” He will be assisted in this workshop by Bill Crome, who not only works alongside Wayne in Student Support and Student Affairs, but also shares Wayne’s enthusiasm and passion for “getting things right for students.”
