We're one minute over, so it's time. So welcome everybody to our facilitate, facilitated discussion today on developing a student's success culture in a post-COVID reality. We're joining you from Kansas State University. And before we get too far, I'll start by introducing our team. Joining from our academic coaching team is just quicker than managing director of academic coaching. Shane, a vendor and academic coach, and myself, Alice and do lack who's also an academic coach. And we're all really excited to present and chat with you today. So justice and many of you, we really believe in the power of coaching. It's a tool for addressing student challenges around academic and personal success, but also for navigating these moments of societal and institutional change. So we're excited to connect with the larger coaching community to surface the strengths and limitations of different models of coaching in the face of a global pandemic. And also hear about I guess, how you all stayed grounded in a coaching philosophy and how your values have allowed you to forge different types of pathways to equitable success in students success. That was a lot of successes, but it's okay. We hope for everyone to walk away with from this old time that we have together with just some information on maybe how students attitudes and capacities have shifted. Connecting common threads for addressing student needs, strengthen our coaching community, and to also build engagement that will help us either like kinda jumpstart, I guess, either institutional or programmatic changes. We've all decided to use this time intentionally, so we wanna make sure you really walk away with those little nuggets of information that help you make an impact at your institutions. We all know from day-to-day interactions with students that things have shifted. I would say our world is really complex and so are the student concerns. But that also means that the solutions are also complex and ever-changing. So before we jump into this virtual discussion, we just thought it would be helpful to set the stage very briefly. So the Chronicle did an article, it was about a year ago about student challenges and trends across institutions. And it really spoke to the major pieces of this puzzle that include financial costs, mental health concerns, and declining enrollments of about 8%. And I would say none of those things are necessarily new in a way, we're familiar with those issues. The article also talked about how most students have reported that they experienced a lack of motivation, trouble concentrating, and an inability to complete work. So those are things we're wanting to be mindful of when we're creating services to support students. But all of this really means that student retention is of utmost importance right now. That coaching is an aspect of how we alleviate these challenges, too, for students to successfully navigate a college career. And that's really what brings us here today and why we feel like we need to have more conversations with institutions about how programs have been adaptable and creative. I'm going to toss it over to Shayna. This is my post-COVID reality. I've already forgotten how to use. You know, what I'm saying is that we really find one of our most powerful tools for problem-solving lives within the community knowledge. And so we really feel like what's a better way for us to utilize the purpose of this conference than to source our observations and ideas so we can learn from one another. We want us here to think about the world as it exists right now. And how, where we've been has really impacted our responsiveness to students needs. So being able to just take a moment to reflect on where we've been. I really haven't been a possibilities until now since we're all sitting in the middle of it. So in a moment, in the chat, we're going to put that link for Google Jamboard. Jamboard has four containers, so to speak, which post-war starting questions to kind of jump start our conversation with each other. So please share any response to these questions. We're only going to take about five minutes to answer the questions. So first thing that jumps into your head, please pop on there. And then we'll come back together and look at some common themes and practices. Just really quick, short user instructions. If you haven't used one before. You add to the board by just using there's a sticky note icon or textbox. Textbox icon. And if that's found in the left-hand column. So you can use either of those. If you really are feeling like your virtual handwriting is excellent, you can use the Draw Feature, but you better be confident that we'll be able to read that. So everyone will see everything in live, in live time as it's added to. So I will navigate us to the Jamboard. I believe. Great, just put it in the chat, so feel free to jump on that now. Sarah asked a question, do we answer all five now? And the answer is yes, you are free to move within those kind of buckets as you as you would like. And we'll take two more minutes, I think, to let everybody get to those different places, maybe one more minute. So many on that first question, the needs are great, the solutions are hard. So I think we could probably start on this first question. And then as you hear things that you think are true, fascinating, reflect in your own space as well as we go through some of the slides. Please feel free to add to that. I'm using those sticky notes. I started to kind of organize a little bit based on some themes that we saw. So what I see here, so our first question is, I'm related to the greatest needs. And clearly there are a lot of needs that are reflecting. Looking around here though. One of the things that stood out to me are three big pieces. One is those that when you think of like Maslow's, some of those basic needs related to having the finances to move through security in some of those basic needs are still, we're seeing are a struggle for people. And also then the third thing, the second thing I see is this sense of belonging. Where, where am I in? In, from this virtual space, How do I make that connection into that in-person experience? Someone here wrote this green sticky at the bottom, finding their places they transitioned back in. Another major theme we look at too, is that, that mental health piece, which we could say is really related to that, that piece of belonging and those finance, how they are finding their grounding. And are they is part of that mental health, you know, the, the, the grounding with one another. Is it that, what are those feelings that are coming up with that transition from one place to another? I don't know if anyone was are there I guess one question, I think about two in kind of how students are trying to make sense of this transition. Is, are there some limitations? Are their strengths in coaching that help us address some of these things. Feel free to pop that in the chat or unmute yourself and jump in. Yeah, I'll definitely ask that question again. Thanks. Emily. I was wondering and when we think about these different needs, what are our, what's our limitation in our coaching process? What are some strengths that we can use to address some of these things? Emily has said, We have to thank you Emily for jumping in. We have to draw a clear line between counseling and coaching, right? So referring out being that that bridge point, right. From our services out to other services. I'm going to try and make it a time to your name on num. Had said modelling boundaries. Unum. Thank you. A num, num, num. Help them doing that correctly. I'm trying my best modeling those boundaries and being able to say, I hear what you're experiencing. I want to connect you with the expert that can help you navigate that. Oh, I got the thumbs up. Thank you. Yeah, connecting student resources, right? So coaching becomes problem-solving, but it's also bad that bridge or reach can be limited. Joists that are each can be limited because many students have never been on campus or no knowledge of our services. That's a huge challenge of how do we make these so many systems clear to our students right now, higher education is all about navigating all these different support services. Coaching. Emily says coaching strengths are that we can be a safe space for students to process those difficulties of the last few years and get support. I love that because our work is so relational. And so building that trust in those sessions gives us a chance to help us pinpoint some things that can be really hard to talk about. Some of those really basic needs like housing, insecurity or childcare insecurity. Creating student agency and self-empowerment build a sense of belonging on campus. I would love to hear more about that, Bridget, I think that is something that width, balancing some of that confidentiality. How do we connect students to create that belonging out outside of like just connected them to a student group. I think helping them break down the notion that they don't belong or that they're an impostor and talking them through that and making sure they know that they belong there and they were they were chosen to be a student at this institution for a reason. So important, yeah. One line is student was struggling with family problem being put out by their parents. And because of the smallness of our program, I was able to more quickly for Zoom and rally the faculty around the student. And we were able to save that student's sense of belonging was to really advocate for the student with the faculty to be that liaison. To say, this is what's going on. She felt comfortable comfortable enough to share with me. There were cultural issues around her issues with their parents, and I was able to relay that and just just the luck of having the educators that we. We've worked with. They understood, and they coach themselves. So it felt like a team effort and the student felt like this is where she needs to be. I love that. It reminds me of our coaching program is housed inside of a student's success collective. And we have, we use technology to our advantage. And we will send notice that say, I have a student who needs this or that. And so as, as, as coaches can kind of leverage our connections to one another to find ways to solve complex and hard problems. I'm going to read this last message in the chat here before we move on to another question which is, I'm pages had COVID also impacted staff and faculty, which can make communication across departments and clear about referrals and render services, right? So like how it's not just our students who are impacted, but the way we show up to our space, the way our workplace has changed. Who's in the office when we're managing our own family life as well, definitely create some challenges for us. And so I think that I love that That kind of leads into this. How are we using our connections with the other resources we have on campus to help each other. Haven't organized this one yet to really look at some themes. But our second question we wanted to bring to the group was, how have you adapted and respond to the students needs during the COVID pandemic? I'll just read a couple of these, please pop in the chat other thoughts and ideas you have here. I see a lot here about flexibility and trying to create that accessibility. That was something actually that had come up in an earlier session I was in about universal design and creating this. I love that we're sort of building on even some of the learning we've done in other sessions today. But the flexibility, I think, has been huge on campuses, especially when we think about how we're doing onboarding or enrollment. Are we at our university, we had shifted to some online enrollment and that provided some financial relief for students who are trying to travel to campus from far locations. For a day. I'm thinking about how do we create some accessible meetings schedules. So great being flexible and that allows us to be flexible, to helps us take care of our needs as well. I was going to jump in here. It's likely that reviews the responses as well. And I was wondering if the the person who kind of talked about grace from their administration now regarding academic performance, my share a little bit more, not to call you out, but I'm curious. If not, that's okay, too. That's something that case eight has talked a lot about, I think since COVID about how we can support students that maybe end up on warning status or get dismissed from the university. And starting to really re-frame this idea of warnings and alerts that tend to have a negative connotation with something that is just a need indicator. So partnering students with high-impact academic success resources, whether it's coaching or something else. It's an indicator of need rather than an indicator of a deficit happening within the student's world. A lot of brace, I asked for faculty when students aren't showing up, it makes their heart, their job harder when students are absent. But the fact that we're all suffering, I'm helped. Deans, the deans kinda listen to students about the mental health issues they were having. It wasn't just a freak out during finals or they lost their job and was impactful like it was a domino effect in their lives. And they understand that grades aren't everything, even just our university going to S and P. P and NP, or semester was a little grace that a whole system kinda changed. I think this is really important when we think about explaining student need to, is that like we've all now realize how external circumstances can affect our performance. So for writing that, I think, Wendy, what you're, what you're saying there too is like, we understand, now, we understand how external circumstances changes, how we show up, and that matters. So maybe that's something we tried to hold on to. West had said at as part of grace offer a pass or no pass option during certain semesters. Towards the required coursework rather than just requiring letter grades. Like, how do we, how do we reward effort given? I think that's such a divisive subject on how people feel about that. When we're thinking about extreme circumstances though, right? Move us on to our next board here, which is how is your role expanded or changed? It changed as a result of the pandemic. Especially within your role as students, success professionals. A lot of these like kind of system things that we were just talking about cross the importance of how we elevate some of these things up to higher administration. To say, like these things make the difference for our student's persistence and graduation. And so how does that, how do we fit in there? So I see a lot of expansion. Students expect that support to be available to them. Increased awareness at home situation. The towards success strategies that pulls over from Blackboard as well. Low value being placed on in-person meetings with students. And then, which is interesting because then we also have students saying, but can we just mean that line? Right? So maybe there is some student preference there. I'm so curious to how if you find that students show up better on line and I can exist, it's just really vary, but like do students show up better online or because they have that flexibility? Or is that buying that online presence creates a barrier for kind of commitment to the meeting. I'll also add here, Shayna, like one of the things that we've tried to strategize at K State is we have a limited coaching capacity, particularly between kind of professional coaching and peer coaching, between required and referred and voluntary. So one of the things that we're trying to do is intentionally connect students across those cohorts to the most appropriate space for them. So instead of just a professional coaching caseload, be made up of voluntary one touch, like making sure that those are in with the peer coaches, reserving space and our professional program for students who may have not met academic admissions requirements are on academic warning and are being directly connected with our program. So just thinking about how we structure our work and how we build some of that end so that the students are getting to the most appropriate place. I don't think wondering, have any coaching as coding philosophy changed at all, has your coaching philosophy expanded? I'm maybe not expanded but just shifted a little bit on what what things can look like. Item says, I think it has to get it had to get deeper. More questioning around what are the circumstances to the academic performance. We can talk about. Yeah, Since we haven't had a break ourselves. Like we can talk about, you know, what your time management looks like. But let's talk about what are, what's happening with that. I'll move us to the last question we had posed here, which is what resources and policies and instructors will remain going forward to support students in SAS which can address, I'm like, what do we want to keep their right? So virtual, virtual in some ways that the pandemic forced us to be familiar with a new way of service delivery. And so now we're keeping that, which always makes me think of like what other thing I haven't We tried it because we haven't been forced to it yeah. That we could be doing as well, right? Um, I think like it was always like thinking about, oh, we could offer virtual, but people aren't accustomed to that right now, so we're not doing it and so we're gonna force in the circumstances. So what else is out there? West says one thing I've noticed for myself and others is a new need to set up Zoom etiquette expectations. Yeah, not necessarily a coaching philosophical change, but an added element to having to explain what is or is not zoom appropriate behavior. Retreat. Provost forced me to rethink everything I do that. Someone just moved into the Jamboard here offering recordings for the lectures for students to refer back to studying for exams. And that's just a great practice, right? As coaches, we can ask that question fairly confidently now, Like, are those things existing for you as a resource? See, Zoom will stay the same. Digital paperwork. Blessed that last papers is good. Virtual meetings, virtual appointments, of course you had to virtualize the big one. There has been some chat or in the Jamboard about like evening appointments. And if your institution offers evening appointments, I'd be very curious like how that worked and how you made that successful because we've tried it and we can't seem to get students very interested. All right, I know it's a big group, but I'm just like No, I feel like these are like practical ways to make our services stronger in the world that we live in and so love to bounce ideas. Can I I'll just say that we're planning to pilot a program this fall, so no data to report. But I think it was both in efforts to accommodate potential student needs to have outside of normal business, our offerings, but also, I think it was a response to staff needs as well as far as getting staff greater flexibility. So we haven't exactly set the parameters yet, but I'm definitely going to see how it goes. Yeah, thanks for sharing. Was I met a community college in Illinois. We read a lot of students appointments during the evening and really we have a lot of flexibility with our coaches and we just opened appointments as we choose to open appointments. And we have a huge response to evening appointments. That's great. I mean, it seems like such a logical thing right there. That might be the time when they're most likely to be focused on school are many, many students work all day. So write it just the variation. Everybody's lives are so different. So I think we just need to open as much variety as we can to accommodate. British also shared in the chat too, we offer evening and Sunday appointments with an intern and that's been popular. Sunday is a big day in our learning center for tutoring or SI sessions as well with right. Like Sunday is the day you set yourself up, right. What's going on this week? What do you do and how you organize and it West had asked Annie, How are you advertising the evening appointments? Which is a great question. I don't think we advertise. I think we don't advertise any differently. We have our appointments where students can schedule themselves or reach out once they have their coach. We meet with all new students at the beginning. And so they have the link where they can schedule. And then when they open it, they look at the availability and there's availability across the board except we don't do Sundays. I like that idea actually, but we've never offered that. I have a question for folks that is kind of an interesting segue to the next section. If you play a kind of a program administrator or an institution administration role, how are you able to diversify your services or build capacity in this kind of moment of change and an end for us as a state public institution of like really limited resources. So like we've got these kind of twin challenges here that are coming up against each other. I see a lot of focus on the work that we can control individually, but just thinking about some of the larger institutional barriers to expanding what we're able to do. Not a popular thing, but we actually had to increase our student fee for learning support to be able to support some of these things are fee was already pretty low. I think it's now only like $50 a semester. And we historically had only had the Phoebe for freshmen, sophomores, and juniors, and now that fee includes seniors as well as graduate students. So that's generating another million dollars for learning support. And it's just, it's insane to think that. You know, you have to put that on the backs of students, but if they need the services and want these services and the state won't provide any additional funding. That's really the only way that we've been able to do that. I've found that I've become more of a grant writer and more of a donor donor relations person in the last six months than I had been prior. So trying to find innovative soft funding alternatives to our work that aren't like you say, like kind of turned associated with student fees. We use plenty of those as well, but being able to expand services for more, for more coaching contexts. I'm curious to know how the experiences that you've had in your coaching sessions. Like how did those trickle up, so to speak? And like what your response is from those like higher systems of students success. While you're thinking, I'll read some of the other things from the chat. Some other things that you've seen here, just talking about the evening appointments and one prisons and evening appointments started. And then all those are remote so advisors can work from home that day. So it's Italo workday and shifts some of the the balance of workload on those evenings. When you share and working in ED college in teacher prep is so limited, limited resources and is kind of the norm. And Cathy shared, partnered with higher ed in School Counseling Graduate Programs, higher unpaid interns who get credit for the work, filling in some of that benefit. Okay. Yes. Just kinda clarify the question which is, how do you elevate student needs up to the decision-makers. So I think like in at K State, what we've tried to do an academic coaching is really like if since we're all meeting regularly and talking to you about conversations we've had with students. If there are commonalities or consistency and a challenge coming up that we want to try to push those up so that there can be strategic change we might make to alleviate that concern. And I think Shayna was just curious about like, how do other people do that? Well, I may have one unanswered questions, but that's all right. I'm gonna actually bounces over to Jess to kinda take us forward from here. I'm going to go ahead and get our backup. Awesome. I'm unmuted. So moments of change and crisis, they're inherently disorienting. So while it's important to diagnose and name what is wrong with the system, whether that's individual or structural, It's equally critical, I think to imagine like what brave action would look like. And I think that's why that managing up piece came at the end, is talking about what is our agency. So closing out our time together today, we're going to utilize the framework of the world as it is and the world as it could be to bridge our institutional gaps for equitable and transformational coaching and students success services. So we're going to talk about the future because it's really easy I think, to swim in these problems and feel oftentimes we're deferring to authority and waiting for solutions. But my in my experience as a program administrator, I think that coaches are the people closest to the problems, the students who are experiencing the problems. And we're also closest to a lot of the solutions. So how do we use our power? First, I'd like you to imagine one to two gaps from our Jamboard discussion. And these could be a needed program shift, a culture change. And so just take a few moments on a scrap piece of paper on your device and just identify the two biggest or the most kind of oppression needs at your, at your institution or in your program. So I hope everyone has one or two. We did a lot of generating before. So I think there's probably many to choose from. One of the things that I like to do here is to give us that power to make the change. So i'd, I'd like you to imagine, or IDA aid what would be needed to fill this gap? So what would the world look like if this problem was fixed? So I'm going to ask for a couple of volunteers to share their main problem and, you know, what would be present for the world to be transformed. So we're just imagining here like we have all the power, all the resources. What would, what would this look like? Any volunteers to kind of share what their line of thinking from this conversation. So just to clarify, you're looking for someone to share the problem they selected and an idea what it might look like. Yes, we had all the resources in the world. Absolutely. Okay, So one of the things that I find artists to respond to students needing motivation. And if I imagining what this could look like, I am personally working through things I think all of us are, as we've experienced its lab last couple of years of what does it look like to effect change? Yeah, One thing that I've found personally motivating was history. And looking historically at what, what people have accomplished in the midst of adversity. And again, think having a way to connect students with movers and changes in the community who have that sense of passion and hope for the future might be a way to help students develop personal motivation in a world that seems really uncertain. What I appreciate about what you're saying too is like there's this time element. To begin to think about your problem as, as, as not like individual but as historical and contextual. And to be able to understand that and feel a kinship or relationship to the past. So as to be able to kind of like mine or connect in a way that might be a create energy to move forward. Like I, like, I love that because it's like really it's, it's, it's abstract but it's something that is like also like if we, if we're not grounding ourselves in those ways, like we can get really technical and not understand our time as, as, as not unique but not, you know, kind of unprecedented. I love in the chat, more technical, but I really wanted to talk about this, this giving students the real resources they need when they're ready to help themselves. So this idea sometimes that when we have financial need and we substitute it with something that doesn't resolve the conflict or when we have mental health needs. I mean, there's so many memes about like, you know, people experiencing mental health. Well, here's a webinar. Is that really going to resolve the conflicts? That means pausing and kind of understanding how people want to be served. And then also like ameliorating the, The struggle there. I also liked the practical piece of using Salesforce to track metrics. So this understanding that there's some technological tools that allow us to understand problems better. And sometimes we just need these, these tools or resources in order to both have good data and then to be able to elevate data. That speaks two ways to solve problems when we're meeting with students in a face-to-face setting, it's really difficult to kind of manage those larger kind of quantifying or assessment practices. I want to be mindful of time here. So we've got this concrete for, we've got this ideation. So we've, we've decided we're going to choose one to two. Elements are challenges that we're going to focus on. We're imagining what it would look like to have resolution. So we're over on the other side, this ideal world. Then finally, what I'd like everyone to do is to develop a concrete first step. Just like our students, change often begins with an understanding of our own agency to make progress on challenges. And I asked this, we often think of leadership as a location. What would it mean for us to exercise leadership as an action? And how can we be part of this? The, the, the, the, the crossing the chiasm. So thinking about a concrete for step and it's really difficult because we've got big problems and ideal world. And we're starting to imagine one small behavior as we often ask our students to do. Would anybody like to think about like what is one thing they could do, a concrete action or first step that they could could exercise tomorrow. Well, Jess, I really actually loved your comment about getting into development and writing grants and things because those are real things that can benefit students if they're all approved, of course, in our fantasy world that we're talking about. But thinking about students and their financial needs, that could be something that could immediately improve their situation. So maybe they don't need to work 30 to 40 hours a week while trying to be a full-time student as well. So that is something that I will personally be looking more into. It might even just be about understanding the landscape of soft funding are working with your foundation or who your contact person is. There's probably some little even steps to get in-between actually putting together a proposal or something of that sort. But I really appreciate that project because it is, It's like thinking about like, what are some ways that I can get outside of my own thinking about what is happening and I can begin to see different horizons. Anyone else have a kind of a concrete first steps that they could exercise somehow? Alex, some kind of new to academic coaching and just graduated college couple of months ago. But I know because I've reaching out to students just like Just following up with them. Even like instead of just waiting for students to reach out to your schedule appointments, just reach out to them first. And just kind of see it. I can speak a little more proactive that way. They can feel a bit more more welcome. Reaching out to you. Yeah. So kind of closing that gap there to like communication isn't necessarily a non indication of need, right? And seeing yourself as being proactive, creating possibility there. I don't do that to our, whenever my students are insured, especially during the COVID semesters, I email them and say, Hey, congratulations and they eat it up. Yeah. So also celebrating big wins, right? Like any when we have right now is, is against all odds. So remembering that, like pausing to recognize accomplishments, especially when everyone is divided, their energies, their time. I want to be mindful of time here. So I just would, our kind of our last step here is related to think about in your mind, you have a couple of challenges that you've identified. You can see what it looks like on the other side, you've got your concrete action and just really thinking about how can you hold yourself accountable to that, especially as we start the semester off. And we've got whirlwind of activities and variations on how we're going to approach this in the post-COVID ish reality. Thinking about like what accountability looks like for you to exercise leadership as an action and manage up about what is possible. So I'd like to close us out today and just thank everyone so much for joining our session on developing a culture of student success in a post-COVID reality. We appreciate your collaboration, community and collective thinking as we return to normal, but to better. I'm going to drop a contact in the chat here. If I can multitask. And, and if you'd like to continue the conversation, we love having kind of community discussions with institutions, so I'll put Allison's contact here in the chat and that brings us to close. So thanks again for this afternoon and for all of your thoughts and time. Thank you.