08:47:50 Ready, as you're not ever
08:47:55 story. Okay. Don't act a fool when I click the Record button.
08:48:01 123.
08:48:08 Hi everyone, my name is Jenny muzzleloader and I'm here with Ashley Ruby and we're here to present our presentation, such changes and learning comments in transition.
08:48:21 As we continue to evolve here at TKL 2021. Like I said I'm Jenny Maslin I'm the director of the Learning Commons.
08:48:30 My name is Ashley Ruby I am the director of advising and academic success.
08:48:35 So you may have remembered Jenny and I presented at TKL 2019. And at the time we talked about how we worked with several contingencies at our institution to transition, our traditional Garrick College Library to the Learning Commons, in a format you see
08:48:53 it today so Since that time we've made quite a few more changes the. The purpose of this presentation is to update the community on some of those changes so I just thought we would start with a quick overview of kind of where we started and where we began
08:49:07 in 2019 so for the updates leading up to today.
08:49:11 So to begin Garrett College in a small public community. Community College. We are located in rural Western Maryland so the western most county within the state of Maryland, we're very, very small.
08:49:23 We offer various associate's degrees and certificates to students. And one thing that's unique about us is that we do have onsite residence hall so we have about 20% of our students live on campus on on residents with us.
08:49:38 And for that reason we attract students from various different areas so although we are very small and very rural. We do have a population of students from some larger cities, and that some other reasons that we attract those students are some of our
08:49:52 unique degree programs such as natural resources and wildlife technology and adventure sports management.
08:50:02 Again this
08:50:08 is
08:50:17 I just want to review what he made up of staff offices studies and Success Center are co located. So, part of the space is their space private space library space but really is not owned by either one be kind of share up into the space.
08:50:38 So the environment and Academic Success Center there's academic advising career transfer services.
08:50:45 Academic Support Services which include tutoring and testing, and all the college's retention initiatives. And in the library you'll find traditional Library Services reference services information literacy instruction and technology access
08:51:02 our changes were first driven by strategic planning at our institutions so Jenny and I were charged with adopting and implementing a Learning Commons model appropriate for Garrett college.
08:51:12 So not only did we have to do that we had to interpret what that meant. So, from the beginning we we brainstorm some ways that we could cost effectively make some changes within the traditional college library to make it a little bit more engaging to
08:51:27 make it more student centered student focused and make it sort of the hub on campus for students, faculty and staff. So we began with our branding changes so you can see some of those on the screen here at the time the library didn't really have a brand
08:51:42 it was, it was just a building. So we worked with our marketing team collaboratively to develop the Learning Commons brand. And then this sort of applied campus wide.
08:51:53 It allowed the marketing team to develop a branding guide and some standard college branding, that has been has really taken off it's been really great.
08:52:02 We also look relocated several of our services so within the building we had tutoring services but they were sort of back a hallway hidden from the general view so we move those out into the central part of the library.
08:52:16 So they're highly visible students had to walk by to get to any other part of the library so that allowed student tutoring to become much more visible.
08:52:25 We worked toward cross training many of our staff members so this benefited me probably more than it benefited Jenny has many of her staff assisted with new student advising and general advising activities which has been great, she crossed her and some
08:52:39 She cross trained some of my staff also for circulation desk coverage.
08:52:43 We also did some artwork displays in the library so collaborating with the college's art department to post student artwork and community member artwork throughout the library and Library Services evolve we added several services expanded some of those
08:52:57 as well.
08:52:59 And just overall the atmosphere and the elements within the space improved.
08:53:05 I guess you could say the culture of the library shifted. So, it became much more welcoming much more of a friendly environment.
08:53:15 Students, faculty and staff commented although some more reluctant at the beginning of our changes, they commented that you know this space has just evolved in such a great way especially you know as we continue throughout the years.
08:53:30 So one of the most impactful changes we made.
08:53:33 We're cutting our shells. So how this came about is we waited about 15,000 books from our physical collection. And this was actually done before I started before I came in.
08:53:44 So we were going to have all this empty shelf space, and we didn't really know what to do with it.
08:53:49 So we went to our facility staff and we asked if it was possible to cut our shells in half. Our facilities director says that the worst thing he ever did was say that he could do it, because now we can you know believe that they can do anything our facility
08:54:04 staff was amazing. They cut our shelves in half, and then not only were they able to cut our shells in half. They were able to repurpose the shelving so the websites that you can kind of see.
08:54:16 And some of these pictures the outsides what was left over, they actually use to repurpose and making our students center, they created some shells and table tops in there.
08:54:25 I know they've read us the wood and some of the staff offices where there's some water damage to some of the wood, they went in and fix that. And then all the metal shelves they actually sold.
08:54:36 so we were able to make some money off that.
08:54:38 But this was the biggest change, you know, physical change to the space, cutting the shelves. And really, utilizing the app, the assets of the space, we have these gorgeous windows that no one could ever see.
08:54:54 And now a new walk in the space it's really a centerpiece you can see right out the window as you can see, the West resort. And when people come in, they really want to be in this space now.
08:55:06 So of course whenever you're making changes.
08:55:09 There's going to be challenges advantages, the good and the bad. So some challenges we had, there is no Additional funding provided for this transition.
08:55:21 Ashley and I were asked to work within our existing operating budgets to fund all these changes so we had to get very creative and how we did that.
08:55:30 Also at the time, like most community colleges.
08:55:35 You know, we were undergoing budget reductions of our operating budgets.
08:55:39 So you know we were asked to make more with less.
08:55:43 Also at the time we were having staff productions, I think Ashley's department, went from maybe six staff to about for the library staff. We had just gotten a few more staff but we were still understaffed.
08:55:58 The library staff. We had just gotten a few more staff but we were still understaffed. The timeline was very aggressive. We had Middle States coming in.
08:56:03 They wanted to make sure the changes were done by then and that we had some student data to show Middle States from the trend decision. So we basically were given a very aggressive timeline to do all this.
08:56:14 And it was actually kind of mentioned before, we have a very traditional culture here.
08:56:19 A lot of people are very reluctant for us to come in and make these changes.
08:56:24 So we also had to combat that.
08:56:26 But we also had a number of really great advantages, as you could tell our existing facility was beautiful.
08:56:34 So we had a really great kind of framework to start with.
08:56:38 We also have some really innovative staff, and both the library, innovative stuff in the library and the advising center.
08:56:47 We had some new people start, they came in with fresh ideas, and we were really able to make these changes work because of these new staff members.
08:56:55 We also have new leadership, not only at the college but also in the advising center, and the library, actually moved into her director position and the advising center.
08:57:07 The old library director jr currency I just started.
08:57:11 He quickly moved into the Dean of Student Affairs position, though, and I moved into the library director position, but we also had to turn over a few other teams across the campus.
08:57:22 And we also had a new president who was fairly new.
08:57:25 We also had a number of student centered initiatives started at the college. The biggest one was the student experience committee, what this committee did was members from across the college came in and process not every single process that our departments
08:57:41 had, and then analyze those processes to see how we can improve this overall student experience at the college, those massive reports. I think they were 120 pages and about 70 pages, provided the framework that I know our Student Affairs Division works
08:57:57 off of and other divisions at the college work off of.
08:58:01 As I mentioned before we had a super talented facilities department.
08:58:10 Hey, now we can believe you know they can do anything that they can cut our shelves. We had an exceptional marketing team.
08:58:13 Again, there was a few new people that moved into that marketing team our graphic designer had just started at the college so he came in with some fresh new ideas for our branding, and it was really a collaborative effort.
08:58:25 It wasn't just, you know, Ashley and I marketing played a row facilities literal administration played a role.
08:58:32 Librarians advising staff, every single person.
08:58:37 You know, it just seemed like there's so much collaborative efforts emphasis.
08:58:42 And that is how much we spent a little over $4,000, probably about half of that was spent on charging stations, because we had a little leftover money.
08:58:52 So just imagine about $2,000 was the necessary changes that we made.
08:58:59 To make this transition happen.
08:59:02 And so, immediately within the first two years we noticed quite a few.
08:59:08 You know immediate impacts of the transitions that we made. So, first and foremost for my purposes, I immediately noticed that students are accessing tutoring at a much greater rate so student access to tutoring increased about 24% student access to advising
08:59:26 just blew us out of, out of the woodwork so student access to advising increased by over 200% since we were just, you know, much more welcoming the advising center is located in the Learning Commons building so students were coming in more frequently
08:59:43 they were stopping by to talk with their advisor, much more frequently. And our services were being utilized in a greater way reference access also increased 5% I believe it's gone up since that time.
08:59:56 So, online database increased more, much more greatly. At first, at around 24%.
09:00:02 So not only did student access to these resources increase we also noticed a rise in student academic performance measures so at our institution we look at all kinds of performance measures.
09:00:14 And a few of those are listed here so there was a 5% decrease in mid term deficiency rates. So we look at all of our students academic performance at mid term, students with deficiencies decreased by 5%.
09:00:28 Similarly, when we look at performance at the end of the semester, we look at student academic stat standing so if they are in good standing or if they lend themselves and academic probation academic dismissal continue probation or any of these academic
09:00:43 difficulties statuses so there was a 20% decrease in academic difficulty rates between 2016 and 2018 which is phenomenal for an institution of our size.
09:00:56 But of course during the change process.
09:01:00 Things don't stay stagnant, you have to continue to evolve continue to change. So we have of course more to changes since 2018.
09:01:09 And our previous changes really focused on the physical space, but since 2018, the focus was more on the people and services within the space. So, a couple of the things that we're going to kind of expand on in our upcoming slides is significant staffing
09:01:24 restructure both the advising and Academic Success Center and the library went through major staffing structures.
09:01:32 The library also acquired the College Bookstore tutoring expanded, there is more opportunity for cross departmental collaboration, outside of the Learning Commons.
09:01:44 Again, that, that thing that coven 19 thing that happened. we had to make some changes to that. And also we had to adjust and make a positive approach to change.
09:01:59 Moving forward,
09:01:59 staffing restructure.
09:02:03 This is something that no one i'm sure looks forward to however it is, it is necessary in order to evolve and change and improve. And, you know, Jenny and I went into this whole process beginning in 2017 with the lens of student success, everything was
09:02:18 to support the student.
09:02:20 So our staffing restructure within the advising academic success and I was significant.
09:02:26 When we were at our greatest staffing level, there was a director coordinator to part time advisors and personal counselor. So we've evolved quite a bit since that time so at the start of our Learning Commons transition.
09:02:44 We had a director who also served as an advisor so that was myself an administrative associate and then to academic advisors, these were two full time folks so somewhere along the lines we had eliminated the coordinator position eliminated the counselor
09:02:58 position that was prior to me serving as the director, so that structure, it worked well I don't want to say I didn't work well.
09:03:06 But it was, it wasn't necessarily what best suited our students so around this time we restructured our staff to look a little bit more like this. So while we still have a director myself who also serves as an advisor, we also still have the administrative
09:03:21 associate my colleague Nick, we transition the advisor roles to something a little bit more along the lines of a hybrid role. So you'll see at the bottom.
09:03:33 The two circles on the right we have two academic advisors who also now serve as developmental faculty members.
09:03:40 So we have a developmental English faculty member a developmental math faculty member. They also serve as advisors, they service advisors with a focus and emphasis on students in developmental coursework, students entering college with within or below
09:03:54 12 college level credits or perhaps students on academic probation.
09:03:59 We also have an athletic academic advisor. He is the head wrestling coach the assistant baseball coach. And he also is responsible for student athlete academic welfare so he also now is advising with us in my office, about two days per week, serving as
09:04:16 the athlete advisor liaison, so he has been a great and wonderful asset to us.
09:04:22 In addition to this structure, this is kind of the permanent structure of the folks that you can always find in the advising center. We've also expanded our advising team during peak time such as New Student Advising during the summer, we have some great
09:04:36 part time temporary staff, including Jenny director of the Library Learning Commons and the college's Technical Services Librarian who just began with us recently academic program directors within the college are also doing some advertising.
09:04:50 So those are the academic directors who are stem.
09:04:54 For the social and behavioral sciences and education. So they're assisting with summer advising and they also advise during the regular semester as well.
09:05:02 And then we just have some other part time temporary folks that help out as needed, but they are, they serve multiple roles within the college, they really are ingrained in the college support structure.
09:05:12 So this this tapping structure has been in place for about 18 months now.
09:05:16 And while there are growing pains with any restructure like this, we have all come to really enjoy working with one another and support the students in a, in a bit in a way that I think is necessary for the type of student that a community college attracts.
09:05:32 So the library.
09:05:36 Before I started the library staff when it was at peak was about four full time to part time staff members.
09:05:43 A year ago, we were at one full time and part time staff members. So to kind of go along the lines of that, the instructional librarian position was eliminated in March 2019.
09:05:57 So from March 2019 to December, 2020.
09:06:02 There was a solo library and just one MLS professional, which was me.
09:06:10 I will say starting in, you know, the summer of 2020, we had some additional staffing come in, which I'll talk about a little later. But another library position was not added until January 2021 which was our Technical Services Librarian.
09:06:26 So we went from, you know, I think at the time at peak, there's three professional librarians dropped all the way down to one. And then, since 2019 2022 2021 We're finally back up to two professional librarians.
09:06:41 And this is Stephanie rd versus library and advisor and advisor.
09:06:50 So as I talked about a little bit before the library acquired the College Bookstore.
09:06:56 In July, 2020.
09:07:01 So, we had the library was moved under a new dean, it was looked at fiscally to see how it was working, and as a college they decided to eliminate the physical bookstore, and we're kind of trying to figure out, you know, where would be a good place to
09:07:15 put you know the online services of the bookstore. And of course I was like I, you know, send them to the library. So we were able to create this brand new position, the full time bookstore manager position was combined with our part time library circulation,
09:07:32 assistant position to create this new position of E Campus Library circulation manager. So the circulation library assistant position was a 29 hour a week position, it was eliminated.
09:07:45 And this bookstore manager, who was already in the position transitioned into this new role.
09:07:52 And again, this was made for a number of reasons. All again focusing around student success. One was cost savings. But the big one was that for years you know the library was asked to increase hours but you know you can't increase hours if you don't have
09:08:06 staff. So we were actually able to add on weekend hours with this position, and provide a little bit extra cushion in our evening hours is also provided a lot of additional cross training opportunities.
09:08:20 Lewis, who is our circulation manager. She also assists the advising center she'll make calls for them. We call them care calls to remind students of advising appointments and things like that.
09:08:31 She's also cross trained myself and the Technical Services Librarian on some of the E campus duties and books to her duties. So again it's centralizing the services, and making things a little bit more accessible for our students.
09:08:49 So where did all these services go you eliminate the physical space.
09:08:55 But we still have to provide these services. So for textbooks, students actually order their textbooks through the campus it's our third party vendor, they can actually order the textbooks directly through their student portal.
09:09:08 The books will get shipped to their home address.
09:09:12 Also textbooks were pretty heavy at our institution. So some students do want physical textbooks of their yards, even if their digital as the, you know, the bookstore and the library, we get them printed and students can come pick them up and pay for
09:09:27 for the printed copies.
09:09:29 So we do have some shelf space for those hours.
09:09:33 All our merchandise is purchased through the wallet online store. So if there is a GC swag available for our students and families, our staff, and faculty.
09:09:56 have a few a few things in the library as students come in in a panic. Article school supplies were actually donated to our students and need group food pantry.
09:10:01 So students have access to the same school supplies that they had with the bookstore only now they don't have to pay for them, they're all free to all students.
09:10:09 So they still have access to those materials at no cost.
09:10:16 One significant expansion that we put into place between 2019 and now is a significant tutoring expansion. So, the first phase I guess you could say of our Learning Commons transition was moving tutoring from those back hidden rooms the caves out into
09:10:35 the central part of the library so that was huge, students access tutoring much more frequently but we still at that time only had physical walk in tutoring.
09:10:46 So since that time we've expanded quite a bit so we still offer the live tutoring face to face in person. In our tutoring center and we staff the tutoring center with trained peer and professional tutors.
09:10:57 So we do, we partner with our financial aid office to create work study positions to employ peer tutors, professional tutors are paid using my budget.
09:11:07 So we have a great group of face to face, professional peer trained tutors, and I'm always looking to add to that team from that core group we then are able to offer what we call wire tutoring so we structured it kind of in the three, the four things
09:11:22 that you see here are wired tutoring is the same tutoring services provided by your lovely peer and professional Garrett college tutors.
09:11:32 Only it's through a wired means of access so through video chat instant message, email, phone, text, those same tutors are providing services virtually.
09:11:43 So we use Microsoft Teams a lot for some of those virtual meetings we've had tutors who prefer to use zoom, they're welcome to use zoom if they would like a lot of phone calls and emails we even installed a phone in the tutoring center so that tutors
09:11:57 while they're working in the center are able to make calls and talk with students that way.
09:12:01 So why are tutoring really was employed as a means to provide support to our students. During coven however we were looking into it. Prior to that time as well.
09:12:13 A third layer of tutoring is our standby tutoring so this is also online tutoring virtual based through our third party service net tutor, said this is available to students through Blackboard.
09:12:25 Students have become accustomed to understanding what net tutor is knowing how to access it using it when they feel like they need to, we always recommend the live tutoring or the wire tutoring as a first means of contact.
09:12:36 Standby tutoring if they are not able to meet with the tutor, that's trained by Garrett college or the, the service that they need or the subject they need is not available.
09:12:46 Jenny and I have also created some self directed live guides for students so maybe students just need a little bit of help with knowing how to study biology, you know that's a different animal so we have some lip guides that will help students learn about
09:13:01 about and implement some of those specific skills so we have live guides for study skills test taking skills online learning lots of different things so those are available in that same standby tutoring space.
09:13:13 And then the final layer of tutoring that we developed was residence hall tutoring. So, instead of just simply placing a tutor in the residence halls for periodic times.
09:13:24 We actually have a trained professional Garrett college tutor that lives in the residence halls. And this position has transitioned a couple times we've had a few folks fill it.
09:13:34 However, this person generally is a trained tutor lives in the halls and sometimes often has another role on campus. So, for example, our spring residence hall tutor was the assistant basketball coach and he also was responsible for some student athlete
09:13:48 academic welfare.
09:13:50 So this is another peer or professional Garrett college trained tutor lives in the residence halls hosts regular residence hall tutoring, and maybe even some study hall sessions, things like that, and is highly visible is available to students that live
09:14:02 on campus. So we develop these flexible tutoring options to meet the needs of our students the varied needs, because we do have in person students we have online students we have evening students weekend students.
09:14:16 So we wanted to make sure that we were meeting all of their needs, not just the students that are here Monday through Friday eight to four.
09:14:22 All tutoring information is provided to students through our ASE Student Resources Blackboard course. So we simply have a course where students can go in, look at the four different types of tutoring, how to gain access to that tutoring, when, where,
09:14:35 who contact information and so on.
09:14:38 And we also enhance the training and professional development for our tutors So prior to this alternators were trained, but we just work to enhance that training and then periodic professional development is provided.
09:14:50 I would say on a monthly basis to our tutors, even during the summer months if they're interested in some of this professional development opportunities, many of which are provided to us by that third party service net tutor, so it benefits not only net
09:15:03 tutor it's benefiting our tutors internally as well.
09:15:08 Another big push during the last two years was some of that cross departmental collaboration. So we did a lot of this in the beginning of our transition but we continued.
09:15:19 I guess throughout the duration so Jenny and I are big proponents of cross departmental collaboration. So one of the most significant offices that we collaborate with is the marketing team.
09:15:29 So if you recall from the start of our presentation we collaborated with marketing on some branding stuff and that was really monumental for Garrett college so we've, we've continued to do that but in an increased manner.
09:15:42 So, when coven 19 hit we then were preparing to open for the fall semester. The Fall 2020 semester so we collaborated with marketing to create some returned to campus videos so these were just fun videos to help assure students that you know we were opening
09:15:59 safely that this is what you can expect these are the different course modalities and I know Jenny started a video I helped recruit students for some of these videos they were filmed at the library.
09:16:09 So it's a really great collaborative effort. And it you know students knew these faces students knew the spaces. So it was, it was fun.
09:16:18 We also have worked with marketing to increase our social media presence.
09:16:22 So I know Jenny does a great job of promoting many of her activities for social media with the marketing team. I worked with marketing to do some students spotlights, through our first year experience and through our stars program.
09:16:36 So we would basically ask students about their experience and talk with them about why they chose Garrett, why they have remained at Garrett and what some of their future goals are.
09:16:46 So we launched a spotlight campaign in the fall semester that's continued throughout the spring, and even into the summer, and marketing also implemented a Facebook Live initiative this past spring and Jenny and I were the first two to go live with marketing
09:17:03 on Facebook so we've both done several live activities now which were to promote some of her activities some advising activities tutoring wrestle tutoring red Hall advising, you name it, so we always jump on any opportunity to collaborate with marketing.
09:17:19 But our collaboration expanded beyond marketing, believe it or not, we did work with marketing a little bit but also our residence hall folks and athletic department to create some academic support signage that you see on the screen here.
09:17:32 So this signage was developed by Jenny and I to place in some highly visible areas that you wouldn't necessarily think signage would be posted. So for example in our residence halls we've posted the time management and the goals posters in the laundry
09:17:47 rooms. So while students are switching their clothes from the washer to the dryer perhaps holding their things out of the dryer, they can take a look at some of these posters and hopefully get some ideas on how to improve their academic and personal lives.
09:18:01 We also have some great study spaces in the residence halls, some study hall spaces and offices in the athletic department. So we created these signs and had them posted in those areas.
09:18:13 In addition to the group study rooms in the Library and Learning Commons.
09:18:18 Jenny continues to work on the VR initiative across campus and instructional design, primarily with our coordinator of distance learning, and that small team of our folks.
09:18:31 So we continue to decrease the cost of textbooks for our students through the OCR initiative we have a couple grants that have funded some of this work so Jenny works really closely with faculty to develop some of those are tools.
09:18:45 And then I have worked with the Office of records in registration to develop and streamline some of our online forms so this has been something that I have requested for quite a while but coven 19 really pushed us in this direction.
09:18:59 Transitioning all of our paper advising forms to online forums or online requests. So this was the start really was just during coven 19 but we've continued to evaluate those forms and make sure that they are what meets the needs of our students and our
09:19:12 advisors in the best way possible.
09:19:18 And then during Kobe 90 and a lot of our changes, started there but we're maybe a thought in our heads priority coven 19.
09:19:26 But, specific to coven 19 we worked to help with those returned to campus videos, we promoted the expanded use of live guides. So for example, when a student visits campus for their new student advising appointment, we would give them a physical folder
09:19:42 that had about 27 pages of things in it.
09:19:46 Jenny helped me to create a live guide that would serve as the students virtual folder so we no longer have to print those materials and physically given the students, they receive a link to a live guide that has all of the materials there for them.
09:19:58 Jenny and I, effectively and promptly shifted our services to the virtual format including tutoring including library services in response to coven 19 to stay engaged with students we hosted weekly live chats, both for advising for tutoring for library
09:20:14 services, just to keep students you know attentive to the resources that we have available, we increase the accessibility of our services just by, make sure that they were all accessible virtually was really helpful.
09:20:28 But we also communicate that effectively to our students to make sure that they know you know we're still here for them. We're here to support them.
09:20:36 Student Success is in my departments title so we want to make sure that they know that they can come to one of our two areas to get the help that they need.
09:20:43 So none of this was easy, none of it was, you know, something we ever expected we would have to do on the fly, but through, you know some of the work that we had already undertaken in the transition toward the Learning Commons we really persevered to
09:20:57 make sure that we hit this head on promptly and effectively for our students.
09:21:07 And again because of coven 19 we had to make new changes to our physical space.
09:21:13 Our facilities team built sneeze arts.
09:21:16 One of the things I'm most proud of them as they created these mobile sneeze guards for the tutoring center, which allowed us to continue to provide in person tutoring during the fall and spring semester.
09:21:28 I know a lot of other schools are not able to do that so this is something I'm really proud of our facilities department for.
09:21:34 They provided us floor stickers.
09:21:37 Throughout the space is hand sanitizer dispensers, and they also removed the furniture chairs from tables science were put on computers so they were students had to be you know six feet apart.
09:21:50 But the really key to this was we wanted the space to continue to be utilized efficiently and effectively.
09:21:57 But really what this means is, We wanted to space to maintain its integrity.
09:22:03 We didn't want students to feel like they were walking into an empty space or an uncomfortable space because students then wouldn't want to use the space.
09:22:10 We wanted to continue to provide that welcoming feel inviting feel that students wanted to continue to come to the learning comments and I think we succeeded with that.
09:22:19 Even though you could tell, there was a few chairs missing and places. It was still a place where students came to hang out, students still, you know, we would go in the back and every table, there would be someone at a table or they'd be sitting in our
09:22:31 chairs as students were still coming in to us library resources. Despite all these physical changes and they were so comfortable coming in.
09:22:40 Another great thing.
09:22:43 You know, one, one may be positive from coveting it. If we can take anything positive from Kobe 19, was it actually provided the perfect environment for this online bookstore launch.
09:22:55 If I mean students were going to have to be forced to use this online model, but this actually made it convenient for them and actually made it easier for them.
09:23:05 So we kind of train those students that were returning to use this new model so then moving forward.
09:23:12 Students are just going to know that this is the model. It provided the perfect kind of like environment for this change, and it was actually very successful at it, you know, I thought the transition, it would be a little rockier.
09:23:25 I'm getting students to purchase their textbooks online.
09:23:29 And it actually worked out really well.
09:23:33 It's something else that Ashley and I try to do when we approach changes to keep this positive approach to change.
09:23:42 And it's not just with coded although you know with coven 19. There's definitely, you know, had to up our game a little bit.
09:23:50 But this is a positive mindset. Whenever changes happening.
09:23:56 And it really is all about the mindset keeping that open mindset.
09:24:01 Something that I always say is, you look at challenges as opportunities and not roadblocks.
09:24:08 A lot of times, things happen and both are departments that we have no control over. So, how do you handle that do you get upset about it, or do you try to make the best of the situation.
09:24:21 And honestly, I think Ashley and I a few things have been kind of dropped in our lab, and we really made the best of those and actually things have turned out even better than we could have imagined.
09:24:30 And we've really been lucky that we've been interested in powered by our, our Dean's our president to make these changes.
09:24:39 And again, they've been positive about all our all our changes.
09:24:43 Even initially from the Learning Commons model to again there's, you know some reluctance to now whatever we make changes. They're very open and positive about what changes we're trying to make.
09:24:56 And here, there's a couple things that we'd like to focus on what we're making these positive changes this positive mindset.
09:25:04 It really has to be an all in effort, there has to be buy in from in our departments, from us as directors down to our part time temporary staff, they all have to have this all in focus all an effort to change everything Ashley and I do everything our
09:25:23 departments are geared towards everything that our staff do is student focused, what is best for the student experience what is best for student success, how can we have our students succeed.
09:25:34 So we have to go in with that mindset, our staff have to go into that mindset so everything that we do is to support our students.
09:25:50 Ashley and I also utilize the appreciative mindset.
09:25:48 And the appreciate a mindset is taken from the appreciative advising model Ashley's received training and that I've gone through a few professional development activities for that open communication is also important.
09:26:00 You got to keep that transparency.
09:26:02 Make sure that what we're learning as directors that we're passing down to our staff members to keep them in the loop.
09:26:10 And another important thing, and I think coven 19 really brought this to the fore was focusing on employee mental health, checking in on our employees, making sure that they're okay, because a lot of them were not okay the last year things you are not
09:26:26 good.
09:26:26 Things were difficult things are trying and trying to, you know, improve employee mental health, one of the things that Ashley and I have recently launched this summer for our employees is a monthly potlucks, which our staff are extremely excited about
09:26:42 our potlucks have themes, we actually have one this week.
09:26:46 It's our international you know cuisine potluck and last month was our breakfast for lunch potluck at our staffs love them. I haven't seen this level of excitement.
09:26:59 And this going on a while.
09:27:02 But this word for everyone no but knowing what our styles like and trying again to improve that mental health, we're doing what we can to keep things positive in the space.
09:27:12 Yeah, yeah, I've never heard people talk about potlucks so enthusiastic means I have this summer. But we know food inspires people so. Exactly.
09:27:24 That's been fun.
09:27:27 So on to some new measurable outcomes we continue to look at some of those same data points that we looked at previously.
09:27:33 I do want to point out student access to tutoring has decreased. However, we can we can expect that during coven 19 that kind of, it's going to throw all of our numbers off.
09:27:42 However, we did notice an increase significant increase in duplicated visits the students that are using tutoring are using it more frequently, which we certainly welcome.
09:27:53 And there has been a great increase in the total amount of time spent so although fewer students are using it, the amount of time they're using it has, has really exploded.
09:28:03 Student Access to advising has increased and we we consider access to advising in person or virtual so we want to make sure that we give advisors kind of credit for that virtual work that they're doing as well because it is just as important as the in
09:28:16 person work.
09:28:18 Reference access has increased. Certainly, wonderful.
09:28:22 So students are using those resources, resources, regularly and effectively online database, use has remained steady, however usage is increasing and 43% of the database is held so students are accessing.
09:28:37 Some databases a little bit more frequently than others, which is great information for Jenny to have so that she can evaluate our subscriptions on a regular basis to make sure that we have what our students need, and then back to those Student Academic
09:28:49 performance measures we're down looking at 2016 to 2020. Still, that decrease in student midterm deficiency rate so I think our first number for the first two years was a 5% decrease and now overall this whole span.
09:29:02 We're down about 13 and a half percent and midterm deficiency rates. And then at the end of the term that academic deficient academic difficulty rate.
09:29:10 So the percentage of students that land in academic probation continued probation dismissal one dismissal to that has decreased overall 8.3%. So, we saw a little bump.
09:29:23 During covert 19 but then they started to slide back down the scale again which is wonderful.
09:29:31 And then the textbook savings as a result of E campus and ours. These are phenomenal.
09:29:38 Do the campus. We have saved students about $72,000 and these numbers are probably even on the lower end because we prepared this presentation, a while ago.
09:29:46 And oars have saved our students about $105,000. I will say the textbook campus savings is now over I think $100,000. Yeah, I predicted it was a little bit higher now.
09:30:01 So Jenny and I've also been fortunate to support some of our peer institutions which has been a lot of fun. We were contacted by a few peer institutions to offer support and advice based on our Learning Commons journey.
09:30:13 So as I shared we presented a decal 2019 we presented it a few other conferences just to kind of talk about our story. And we've grown accustomed to talking about it on our own campus, but it's different to talk to strangers.
09:30:26 So, we have welcomed two institutions to our campus for tours for presentations, or meetings with our kind of our, our team I guess you could say, including facilities including it marketing and so on.
09:30:39 So that has been a lot of fun.
09:30:42 So, maybe some of you are here hi If so, if not thanks for.
09:30:46 Thanks for taking a look at this presentation or previous presentations and and giving us a chance to talk with you about our journey and our experiences.
09:30:56 And then we also have some current projects and future projects or changes.
09:31:00 We are continuing to assess the current advising model.
09:31:04 So at Garrett college, we have the advising and Academic Success Center. We also have faculty advisors that advise students a little later in their program.
09:31:14 So we continue to look at that model, make sure that the appropriate advisors are advising the students based on what the student needs are and looking at ways that we can assess academic advising in our, our assessment plans are working to align initiatives
09:31:33 with the enrollment management plan and the new strategic plan Jenny and I were both heavily involved in the development of the new strategic plan, and many of our initiatives and departmental plan, align with strategic plan goals.
09:31:47 So we want to consistently ensure that we're working toward meeting those goals. I'm also a member of the enrollment management committee and one of the chairs so working with our admissions and our registrar's office to meet those enrollment goals through
09:32:00 retention so the services that we provide really support the retention initiatives on campus.
09:32:07 So again, our department all plans aligning with the enrollment management plans critical.
09:32:12 Jenny has several digitization projects in the works and maybe even more sense this time. Yeah, I mean, the Western Maryland Cole collection is an oral history collection that we've physically in the library for a long time.
09:32:25 Finally we're digitizing it to increase access to people outside of carrot County, so they can access those resources.
09:32:33 It's also the college's 50th anniversary. So yay.
09:32:40 We've been around for 50 years. There's a number of photos or documents in the library archives and again no one has access to their and their in a cabinet and our storage closet.
09:32:49 So we're currently working on digitizing all those.
09:32:53 So again everyone in our community in the Garret college community can access those materials.
09:32:59 My staff we're having really fun time finding people's names to match images.
09:33:05 Something else we're working on. We're trying to add iOS actually as Ashley and I speak right now I think there's a leadership meeting, talking about adding iOS services to the library.
09:33:17 We're also hoping to build a partnership with the roof and the public library which is the public library system here and Garrett County. So our students have access to those materials, more easily.
09:33:27 I'm currently working with marketing, the webmaster of marketing to build a reference live chat on our library website. This is also something that may be that we can get the advising team to use the library we're kind of the guinea pigs of this to see
09:33:41 how it works. And then hopefully like we can kind of work out, you know, all the issues and then expand that into other departments.
09:33:49 And we're also expanding these live guys we recently upgraded our lip guides to live guide to CMS.
09:33:56 This is allowing us to, you know, really create more interactive lip guides.
09:34:02 We have created surveys and forums and look guys so before Ashley and I would kind of get stats, or you know create our forums and surveys all over the place.
09:34:14 Now we can centralize that into one place and keep that data in one place. And this will also allow us to embed our lip guides into Blackboard. Our professors courses.
09:34:23 So I think this can fully more embed the library and ask resources in in those areas and other departments are now using it like financial aid is now using lip guides from their work study training.
09:34:35 So that's exciting to see what other opportunities come from that.
09:34:41 So that basically summarizes all the work that we've done over the last two years in detail before years overall in our Learning Commons transition so we hope you found some of this information helpful.