The overarching goal of implementing the advising tool Orange SUccess is to increase Syracuse University’s retention rate by 1 percent each year over the next five years, said Kal Srinivas, the director for retention in the Office of Academic Programs, on Monday.

Srinivas visited the Student Association at its Monday night meeting to give a presentation about Orange SUccess, an advising program currently in its pilot stage at SU. Orange SUccess is intended to improve communication between all members of the SU community.

Also at the meeting, SA Vice President Jane Hong provided updates on the syllabi visibility initiative and the preferred name policy. Hong also told the SA assembly that SU officials are concerned that they will not be able to use results from the campus climate survey.

Srinivas said Orange SUccess is being used in every 100 and 200 level course in the College of Arts and Sciences, the Martin J. Whitman School of Management and University College. As of now, 928 students, 244 faculty members, 63 teaching assistants, 63 advisers and a few representatives of other campus resources have created accounts, Srinivas said.

Every school and college will implement the system in the fall 2016 semester and every faculty member and student will be in the system, she added.

This semester is devoted to training the people who will be using the system next semester, Srinivas said. She added that there will be between 20-25 training sessions in April, as well as several in the summer and fall for teaching assistants. Another training session will be held in the fall to make sure everyone who needs training has been trained, she said.

Srinivas added that she has already received a lot of positive feedback regarding how manageable and user-friendly the system is. The system allows students to be flagged and given kudos, she said.

“It’s not only the students at risk that we need to focus on, but all of our students,” Srinivas said. “Our students who are doing well also need reinforcement.”

The program is currently set up so that students can be flagged for seven factors: absence, attendance concerns, general concerns, low participation, low quiz or test scores, missing or late assignments or a notification to let the student know they are in danger of failing.

Students can also be given kudos to “keep up the good work,” if they have an “outstanding academic performance” or if they are “showing improvement,” Srinivas said.

The students themselves are also able to send notifications if they need an adviser’s help or if they need help in a particular course, she said.

Srinivas added that the program is all about providing students with assistance before it is too late.

“The overarching goal is to help students’ success, which, in itself, will help both retention and graduation rates,” Srinivas said.

Currently, students at the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry are not in the system, but Srinivas said officials are working to fix that issue.

Srinivas also said that officials are working to make sure the program is easily accessible and understood by first-year students and international students.

Also at Monday’s meeting, Hong said that so far only 11 percent of undergraduate students and 16 percent of graduate students have completed the campus climate survey. Officials are worried that not enough students will complete the survey to warrant using its results, Hong said.

The deadline to complete the survey has been extended to March 18.

Additionally, the assembly discussed the preferred name policy, a policy that will allow students to receive emails and other documents issued to the name of their choice.

Hong said she hopes this initiative will help international as well as transgender students on campus. She said that, if all goes as planned, this program will be implemented by the fall.

Hong also discussed SA’s continued work on the syllabi visibility project, an initiative SA President Aysha Seedat has been working on with other assembly members that aims to make syllabi available to students before they sign up for the class.

Seedat plans to meet soon with Andria Costello-Staniec, associate provost for academic programs, to discuss the policy, Hong said.

Published on March 7, 2016 at 11:51 pm

Contact Nina: nsleeds@syr.edu