Student Success

Prioritize Student Success

Complementing transformative learning is Shenandoah University’s unwavering commitment to student success. Shenandoah University will dedicate its time, ideas and resources to provide the highest level of quality in career and graduate school preparation, life preparation, and degree completion.

1. Identify barriers to students’ progression and develop university-wide systems that result in retention and graduation rates that are in the top one-third of our institutional type
   1. Create innovative, flexible, and/or condensed pathways to and throughout a Shenandoah education
   2. Develop and deliver clear, consistent recruitment messaging about SU that allows recruited students to make good choices & that prepares students to embrace the unique Shenandoah University environment
   3. Use historic data to identify characteristics of successful SU graduates
   4. Use this profile to help shape admissions strategies that set students up
      for success
2. Develop a comprehensive Career Center to increase the breadth and scope of career development services and tools used by students and alumni in all of Shenandoah University’s programs of study.
   1. Create a Student Success Center to facilitate accessibility to multiple collegiate support services for students and alumni similar to those of our aspirant institutions
   2. Implement protocol that involves Career Services working with academic departments to ensure that students maximize the career value from practicum/internship/clinical experiences that are imbedded in the curriculum.
3. Actively promote and prepare students to apply for graduate school, residencies, national-level scholarships and post-graduate service opportunities.
4. Identify At-Risk populations and individual students of concern at Shenandoah University and develop interventions that improve their chances of success.
   1. Develop comprehensive university-wide practices for responding to individual students of concern
   2. Provide more aggressive presence of support services for cohort-based students, specifically for counseling & learning resources
   3. Expand coaching program to work with targeted high-risk populations as identified in recent research. Implement use of peer coaching program(s), as appropriate
5. Develop university-wide practices for identifying, recognizing and celebrating students’ achievements in academic, out-of-class, and career-related pursuits.
   1. Develop an interdepartmental, systematic approach to gathering, packaging and publishing ‘student stories’ through a variety of electronic & print media
   2. Increase use of alumni’ career success stories to assist with recruitment as well as retention initiatives
   3. Enhance visibility of high-achieving students through advising, increased programming, and involvement of honor societies such as ALD, ODK and support for discipline-related honors organizations
   4. Aggressively employ a variety of methods to increase community awareness of student and alumni achievements
   5. Establish a winning tradition in the ODAC, including competitive play at the tournament level along with high academic standards for Hornet athletics