Orange Success Newsletter – WEB- May 2019

Orange SUccess is an online tool launched at Syracuse University in 2016 to facilitate connections between students, faculty, and advisors to improve academic performance and retention.

Students can use the program to initiate dialogue with an advisor or professor about their degree progress, course issues, or roadblocks they have encountered. Conversely, advisors and professors can initiate contact or respond to students about academic issues. Problems can be addressed before they become major issues, and improved performance can be recognized with kudos.

View our flyer here.

Orange SUccess has proved to be a valuable resource for students who may be in danger of falling off their academic track as well as those who just need some reinforcement or redirection from time to time.

Participation is key to the program’s effectiveness, and this has grown steadily since the program was implemented in 2016. The program has demonstrated that positive reinforcement is likely to result in improved grades and retention.

Students receive feedback on issues like classroom performance, class attendance and course progress, with kudos surpassing alerts by a ratio of almost 2:1.

Appointments bloom in spring

In spring 2019, nearly 30,000 appointments with advisors were created on Orange SUccess, with two-thirds initiated by students. The number of student-initiated appointments represents double-digit growth over two years. Nearly 12,000 students received individual early alerts and kudos from their faculty about classroom performance.

Faculty participation

Mid-semester progress reports (MSPR) demonstrated that our faculty’s commitment to supporting student success is working well in the area of course completion. The overall undergraduate course completion rate for spring 2019 was 71 percent, which is more than double the national average of 30.4 percent for larger institutions (<15,000). However, there is still work to be done on this, because the main campus course completion rate dropped slightly in the spring of 2019 compared to the fall of 2018.

Maxwell Professor Bill Coplin’s spring 2019 semester Public Affairs honors class, PAF 101, conducted a survey of 350 Syracuse University undergraduates (primarily first-year students) to gather insight into Orange SUccess participation at Syracuse University.

Results show that 86 percent of those surveyed have used Orange SUccess, with 74 percent saying they would use it again in the future.

• 94 percent of students who used the  “raise your hand” or “ask for help” feature were seeking help from an advisor
• 78 percent said they received a response.

More than half of the students who received Kudos (positive feedback) said it motivated them to improve their academic performance.

By the Numbers

During the Spring 2019 semester:

• 11,845 students received feedback on classroom performance
• The undergraduate course completion rate was 71 percent
• 1,321 faculty/TAs participated in Orange SUccess
• 63 percent of feedback students received was positive
• Kudos motivated 53 percent of students to improve academic performance
• More than 400 faculty took attendance using Orange SUccess

Orange SUccess received the “People’s Choice” award at the 2019 “One University” Poster Competition on April 5.

The inaugural event was hosted by the Office of Institutional Effectiveness and Assessment (IEA) to showcase and celebrate the assessment activities of Syracuse University’s academic, co-curricular, and functional areas. The poster competition featured 19 entries from different disciplines across campus. The poster, titled “Orange Success: Managing Change, People, Technology and Process,” was created by Kal Srinivas, director for retention, and Hopeton Smalling, functional business analyst for Enrollment and the Student Experience and Academic Affairs. It focused on how sustaining institutional change in higher education is possible with a strategic approach and featured examples of how Orange SUccess was promoted strategically through the lens of “One University.”

Orange SUccess now has a mobile app for students! It can be accessed through the ‘Academics’ section on the Syracuse University mobile app. Learn about how Orange SUccess works and the many benefits of using the system to empower your academic success.