The Education Advisory Board Launches National Student Success Summit

WASHINGTON, Nov. 7, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- At the inaugural national summit of the Student Success Collaborative™ today in Washington, DC, the Education Advisory Board, a division of The Advisory Board Company, will convene 75 thought leaders from more than 50 institutions to share their experiences in integrating predictive analytics into existing campus-wide student success initiatives. 

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"With revenue sources in decline, pressure from government entities mounting, and a proliferation of new academic options for students, the country's stagnant graduation rate has never been more in focus. Our members are demanding innovations—technology and otherwise—that will help improve student outcomes," said Andrew Rosen, General Manager. To address this critical topic, the Education Advisory Board is convening influential provosts and other academic affairs leaders for a series of discussions on the future of student success and the critical role that data and analytics will play in improving such key performance metrics as retention, completion, and time to degree.  

One of the Summit's sessions will feature Tim Renick, Vice Provost of Georgia State University (GSU).  GSU earned national recognition for raising its graduation rate by 22 percent over the past 10 years despite a decrease in state spending per student and an increasingly at-risk student population.  Mr. Renick will share with other attending Student Success Collaborative (SSC) members how his institution has used insights from SSC data to redesign courses, improve supplemental instruction, and overhaul advising as part of a comprehensive student success strategy aimed at successfully navigating the transition to Georgia's new performance-based funding for higher education. 

"Georgia State has made student success its highest institutional priority, and our participation in the Student Success Collaborative has been a critical step in advancing this commitment," says GSU Vice Provost Tim Renick.  "Through the SSC platform, not only are we more quickly and consistently identifying students who are at risk, we also are making their interactions with advisors more meaningful and persuasive through the use of analytics.  I look forward to sharing some of Georgia State's strategies for maximizing the impact of the SSC and to learning from the other members of the collaborative." 

The summit will also include presentations by leading Education Advisory Board researchers on a range of topics related to student success.  These sessions will cover best practices in enhancing revenues through targeted enrollment analytics to recruit and retain key student segments, as well as the benefits of embedding career guidance into early academic advising, a topic of growing importance given the pressure higher education institutions face to help increasingly debt-ridden students graduate and quickly find gainful employment.

As a part of the summit, a small number of members will present short case studies on how they are integrating SSC's analytics platform into a broader student success strategy, including Nancy Giardina, Vice Provost of Student Success at Grand Valley State University. 

"At Grand Valley State University, we have implemented several initiatives to improve retention and graduate rates, but recently we have focused on providing our academic advisors with additional insights to help students make strong academic decisions on a daily basis," said Nancy. "The analytics from the Student Success Collaborative allow us to be proactive with individual students and use objective course performance data to help them identify the best path for academic success and degree completion."

The meeting is open to members of the Student Success Collaborative, a group of institutions from around the country that are using the Education Advisory Board's proprietary technology to improve institutional outcomes through predictive analytics, milestone tracking and best practice research.  To date, the project includes institutions from more than 30 states and is serving more than one million students. 

About Education Advisory Board  
Education Advisory Board provides research, technology, and consulting services to more than 575 college and university members across the United States, Canada, and Europe.  Through its innovative membership model, EAB collaborates with senior academic and administrative leaders to solve their most pressing problems.  EAB offers strategic guidance, best practices, web-based software solutions, and onsite implementation services. For more information, visit EAB's website, www.eab.com.  Education Advisory Board, EAB, and Student Success Collaborative are trademarks of The Advisory Board Company.

SOURCE Education Advisory Board