Q: It sounds like sharing Engage data across campus has really helped you expand on campus partner adoption of the platform. Can you share a few examples of how you work with campus partners today and other strategies you have used to keep them interested?
A: There is a team that came out of our university’s weekly retention meetings that created a path called the “Wildcat Way” on Engage. This team includes members of our Advising Support office and Analytics & Strategic Decision-making office and other departments across campus. The Wildcat Way is a path for first-year students who are considered opportunity students (an opportunity to increase grades, to get involved, or due to reports from other areas of campus) to get a little extra guidance in working their way through their experience at the institution. We can also see how students progress through the path and use a team of upperclassmen Involvement Advisors to personally reach out to students who may not be progressing.
The visual appeal of the platform has also caught the eye of a lot of our other departments. We work closely with Strategic Communication and Public Relations to promote Engage. Other departments love that the platform can also be used by prospective students, parents, and others to browse what our university has to offer for student engagement. Traditional student affairs departments are also represented on Engage—for example, we have pages for each of our residence halls in our Res Life branch. We import students into the Res Life pages before school begins so they can start seeing things going on in their residence hall right away.
We share information about Engage in monthly cross-departmental meetings, including release information. The quickness of updates and announcements has been really awesome—you can tell that the developers at Anthology really care and listen to campus feedback, and our campus partners see that too.
Our sincere thanks to Caitlyn Walsh for sharing their experiences with us. If you’d like your campus to be showcased, reach out to your consultant.