Six major categories emerged for organizing our customer service recommendations as solutions were being proposed. These six categories were training, information, technology, accessibility, resources and assessment. Recommendations were developed under each category to improve customer service.
Effective customer service is no accident. It is achieved by preparing employees to handle the challenges of the job and encouraging them to take advantage of opportunities as they arise. The committee discussed the importance of training and our recommendations are:
Customer Service Recommendations (Continued)
2. INFORMATION
The Customer Service Working Group feels that proper dissemination of information is a proactive approach to customer service recruitment and retention of students. Moreover, timely dissemination of information aids in preparing students and their families for their journey into higher education. As the committee studied many possibilities for the dissemination of information, the following recommendations were proposed:
·
Communicate with high school graduating seniors about
considering UTB/TSC as an option.
·
Expand recruitment to include malls, churches and
community centers.
Customer Service Recommendations
(Continued)
The use of technology and its various applications in higher education change rapidly. The committee believes strongly that we must take advantage of these innovations and technological applications to enhance customer service. Our recommendations in this area are:
· Expand the use of electronic message systems to allow for quicker notices to students. This form of communication will provide our students with quick and easy information. The university community can receive information updates, information on upcoming events, and numerous other initiatives that students need to know. One example of this would be an on-line database of e-mails. This type of service would allow two-way communications as students list their own personal e-mail as oppose to what we provide them.
Customer Service Recommendations (Continued)
Accessibility to our services and programs must be a cornerstone of the planning process. In order to insure that students have easy entry and access to all of our services and programs we recommend the following:
· Class scheduling should be based on the needs of the students. This is especially critical when reaching out to the non-traditional students.
· Expand the curriculum in Distance Education programs. Instead of always having the students come to campus, extend our services to the customer.
· Establish UTB/TSC centers in our service area. Along with distance education, establishing centers throughout the valley will provide greater accessibility to our customers.
· Ensure that the campus grounds and buildings are accessible for all students (including adequate signage and lighting).
· Establish partnerships to secure space in local businesses. As an example, HEB or Walmart could provide space to allow enrollment, registration or accept tuition payments.
Customer Service Recommendations (Continued)
Linking planning and budgeting is fundamental to the success of any initiative. A plan focuses on specific desired goals and outcomes. The budget provides the needed resources to implement the necessary directives in order to achieve the goals. A successful customer service initiative will require some resources but it does not or should not depend on additional resources for implementation. The committee recommends the following pertaining to resources:
Employees need to receive professional development enabling them to carry out the initiatives. This often requires time away from their position. Adequate resources are needed to provide for replacement personnel while this training is taking place.
The university should conduct research to measure the effectiveness of the services being provided to students and to the general public. The gathering of data can be accomplished by mail, phone, or on the Web. The Institutional Effectiveness Committee or Legacy committee should review and evaluate all findings and report annually to The Executive Council. Information gathering methods should be targeted for all of our varied customers including the following:
Customer Service Recommendations (Continued)
· Marketing
The Lower Rio Grande Valley is largely unaware of UTB/TSC’s programs. Although it is not within the specific charge to this Working Group, it is important to stress that UTB/TSC needs a coherent plan for marketing our programs, versus only advertising registration activities. But it is important to acknowledge that raising awareness is only one step in supporting our programs.
· Target distinct populations
UTB/TSC students can be segmented in many ways and it is important that we become more sophisticated in our understanding of the student population that we serve. For example, our students can be grouped in terms of traditional and nontraditional, college ready and in need of remediation, work force training, occupational technology or four-year programs, international or domestic, Mexican or U.S., graduate or undergraduate. But, perhaps, the characteristics that supercede all others are the two unique populations of day and evening students. Many programs require that students attend both day and night classes in order to complete a degree. For example, faculty may incorrectly assume that a day student is able but simply chooses to not attend at night. A similar assessment is not usually made of the evening students due to the assumption that employment precludes daytime class attendance. But the obligations and demands on day students—child or parent care, evening work hours, transportation—are just as real and non-negotiable. Programs must be scheduled for these distinct populations. If the demand for a program is not sufficient to warrant both day and evening schedules, then it should be clearly identified as either a day-program only or night-program only. Doing so would prevent students from investing years trying to earn a degree in which the program of study is never available to them in its entirety.
Despite that fact that classroom space is severely limited, courses tend to be offered in relatively few time slots. Better use could be made of our facilities, while providing the students with more options, if course times were better managed. For example, few classes are offered at 7 or 8 a.m. or mid-afternoon any day of the week. Similarly, weekend course offerings have been few, sporadic and random. As one example, a coherent weekend Associate of Arts program may be a viable and potentially popular alternative to fill this gap.
Programs & Courses Recommendations (Continued)
· Support programs with greatest potential
Program growth and enrollment is one indicator of student demand. There are many reasons why programs may have small enrollments. It is justifiable to support small programs for a variety of reasons such as centrality to the mission, regional importance, and interdependence with other programs; however, in other cases continuing to fund no or low productivity programs is not a good use of resources. Unless there is a good rationale for an exception, in general funding should flow to successful and fast growing programs that are in high student demand.
Program quality is the quickest and best way to make UTB/TSC a university of first choice. Programs that have a regional, state or national accrediting body should be encouraged to seek and receive accreditation in a reasonable time frame, unless there are supportable reasons for not doing so. Such reasons include but are not limited to a significant mismatch between the program and the accrediting agency’s philosophy or the results of a careful cost-benefit analysis indicating that accreditation is not worth the investment. To the extent possible, the institution is encouraged to identify short term funding to achieve national norms in programs for which they are determined to be the desired goal. For those programs in which accreditation is determined to be the desired goal, seeking and achieving it should be one standard by which the sustainability of those programs are assessed.
· Guidelines for sustainability of current programs
Poor quality and unsustainable programs may hurt the university financially and tarnish its reputation. Once established, it is difficult and painful to close a program. Programs tend to take on a life of their own, even though their need has become questionable. In a supportive positive and collegial atmosphere all programs should be routinely assessed to determine if they warrant continued support. Guidelines for assessing whether or not a program should continue to be supported might include the following:
- Essential to the mission of UTB/TSC
- Minimum number of graduates (similar to THECB guidelines)
- Program graduates find growing or stable employment opportunities
- Sufficient enrollment to financially support the program and/or
- Program is a support for other majors that are sustainable and/or
- Program is essential for regional economic development
Programs &
Courses Recommendations (Continued)
· Guidelines for new programs
UTB/TSC needs additional degree programs to grow and attract more students. But it is difficult to determine the extent to which new programs attract new students versus spreading existing students over more majors, thus resulting in a higher cost per program. Some of our current programs need additional support in order to strengthen them; accordingly, UTB/TSC should be deliberate in the development of new degree programs to insure that its resources are not spread too thinly.
It is essential to provide oversight as new programs are developed and implemented. Currently, programs are developed by the faculty and often for the faculty. Few undergraduate or graduate program proposals have ever been turned down at the campus level, which may be very appropriate for a young and developing institution. However, it seems that curriculum committees view their role primarily as reviewing the required forms for consistency and completion, and to a lesser extent as one of quality control. In order to increase quality control, it is suggested that new program proposals meet the following guidelines as a condition of their approval, keeping in mind that not every new program can or should meet each guideline to the same extent.
- Supports the UTB/TSC mission
- Sustainable student demand
- Demonstrated and sustainable employment potential above a living wage
- Support regional economic development
- Have the potential to become truly self-supporting in less than five years and/or
- Have the potential to develop grants and external funding and/or
- Provides a service function to other programs
- Not pirate significantly from existing programs
A faculty committee (perhaps the UG Curriculum Committee and Graduate Committee), along with administration, should be charged with reviewing projected costs, growth and commitments for new programs. Each level of review should include questions about sustainability. What is more, when a new program is proposed faculty should ask each other if they are willing to limit their own requests, along with the support of current programs and faculty, while a new program is given the resources and support it needs to become fully functional.
A review of local and national labor market forecasts indicate that Workforce Training programs will be very successful in providing employment opportunities for its graduates. Workforce Training is poised to present programs that result in high demand and high paying jobs, as forecasted at both the national and regional level. Indeed, some of these programs are already on line. Some of these high demand employment areas are
Programs & Courses Recommendations (Continued)
waiters and waitresses, food preparation workers and home health aides. It may be fruitful to develop more programs in the areas of community involvement activities such as children’s programs.
Technical programs should be assessed for sustainability or accreditation using the same criteria as all other programs. These programs must examine their differential advantages and strengths. We should ask, in which programs can TSC be the best in the region? Where appropriate, we should partner with TSTC. If a program is not strong, we should not offer it.
Regional labor projections suggest that future high demand positions include: social work, office managers, retail sales, medical and health services management, home health aids. Other fast growing areas are auto body repair, registered nurses, child care, police patrol officers, vehicle salespersons, tool and die, office manager, and foreman. TSC should review these programs as potential offerings.
Lower Division enrollment has declined slightly in the past few years. Many of our students are taking general education courses at Texas State Technical College in Harlingen, whose enrollment has increased. Academic advisors report more students seeking our degree requirements, with the stated intent of enrolling for as many courses as possible at TSTC. Students report that TSTC offers the entire General Education curriculum at lower cost with a better schedule, greater access, easier registration, and many more Saturday class offerings.
TSTC’s inroads into the lower valley may be due in part to STCC’s presence in the Mid and Upper-Valley. When STCC opened it diverted lower division students from UT Pan American and TSTC. Because STCC diverted Mid and Upper Valley students from TSTC, the latter began to recruit and draw more Lower Valley students.
To counter this, UTB/TSC must be aggressive in meeting student needs. We should develop a Weekend Associate of Arts degree, with the commitment that student cohorts would be able to earn the entire program on weekends. A TASP exempt student taking two weekend courses per semester, plus one in the summer, should be able to complete the Associate’s in four years. Students could accelerate this program through the addition of weekday or evening courses but would not be required to do so. Weekend courses would be open to all eligible students, not just weekend Associate of Arts cohorts. Preliminary reaction to this proposal among the academic deans appeared positive.
Assuming a 20-course sequence, the fourth and subsequent years would require a minimum of eight courses per semester to serve the four cohorts (with a minimum of four
Programs &
Courses Recommendations (Continued)
summer classes). If the Weekend Associates is offered, The School of Business will supplement it with the Business and Accounting courses necessary to offer a Weekend Associates in Business Administration.
Improvements have been made in the oversight of the high school faculty teaching dual enrollment courses. Many of these teachers are our evening adjuncts that have taught for us for several years. Final exams are approved by the UTB/TSC Department Chairs and in English classes student portfolios are reviewed. Where possible, it would be appropriate to use UTB/TSC faculty to teach dual enrollment and even have students come on our campus to attend courses.
The Working Group recommends that the data be reviewed comparing students’ scores on the AP Exam with their grades in the Dual Enrollment classes, thus insuring that we are not giving credit to students who have not mastered college level material.
The 2001 Deans and Chairs Summer Workshop included extensive discussion of state formula funding to UTB versus TSC. In keeping with that discussion, programs should consider offering the majority, if not all, seats from the higher funding entity. Similarly, programs should review their CIP code offerings to make sure that their courses are being offered in the most appropriate and highest funded category.
UTB/TSC should consider implementing an Associate of Arts Honors Program. While this has the potential to remove some of our best and brightest students from the mainstream classes, the intent is to recruit and retain students that are looking for a more challenging and enhanced program. UT Pan American has had an honors program for many years and Texas A&M Kingsville recently began one. It would be relatively easy and inexpensive to offer an Honors Program to a cohort of day students that could take their English classes and some combination of their General Education curriculum together. Such a program could be started with only a Director and clerical assistance.
One important indicator of quality instruction is that students are prepared to succeed. However, at UTB/TSC, some students matriculate from the open admission community college, on to the university baccalaureate programs without the benefit of advising, or the enforcement of prerequisite or admissions requirements.
· To this end, departments should review their prerequisite course requirements and begin enforcing them immediately.
Programs &
Courses Recommendations (Continued)
· To increase quality control, departments may want to consider minimum admissions requirements that would include the lower level prerequisites and minimum grades in key prerequisite classes.
· Because we cannot offer all the degrees we would like to or immediately hire all the faculty we need, we should explore more distance education opportunities – both receiving and sending.
UT Pan American no longer offers the BAAS degree, leaving us with an important opportunity to expand the educational offerings for the technical workforce of the Rio Grande Valley. We should aggressively and consistently market these programs. We already offer the BAAS in Harlingen. We believe that we could double or triple the enrollment in this program with students from the mid and upper valley at no additional cost beyond advertising and advising.
Quality programs attract quality students. UTB/TSC graduate programs need to increase
the quality of our graduates. While we need to increase the number of graduate
degrees that we offer, this should be undertaken very carefully and
deliberately. It is important that
UTB/TSC develop a thoughtful, meaningful, and realistic plan for increasing its
programs. Furthermore, while the
Working Group is excited about providing doctoral education for students in the
Lower Rio Grande Valley, caution should be exercised in developing doctoral
programs until we are sure that we can attract qualified students and
adequately support new programs without jeopardizing existing ones.
A. Insufficient Resources for Effective Outreach
RECOMMENDATIONS
· Create a Master Plan that gives schools/departments resources to complement the university’s outreach efforts.
· Include, as part of the Master Plan, departmental and school growth goals and plans of action so that resources may be allocated appropriately.
· Hire additional personnel to provide outreach infrastructure support, including more financial aid personnel.
· Add another step in grant reviews to determine if money for outreach activities would be appropriate to add in grant applications.
B. No Central Outreach Center or Director
RECOMMENDATIONS
· Create an Outreach Center for all outreach programs to be housed together .
· Create a Director of Outreach position with adequate support staff, space, and equipment.
· Create an Assistant Director of Outreach for Marketing position.
· Create at least two “professional” Mobile Outreach Teams comprised of staff who are well trained and well paid. Each team should consist of representatives from Financial Aid, Admissions Testing, and Academic Advising. Each team should have at least one laptop PC with wireless internet access and one cell phone. The team should practice customer service. The teams should also track all the students it contacts and follow up with those students that have enrolled to be certain that they are provided with information on acceptance and financial aid.
· Create a web-based university-wide calendar for outreach coordination with all schools, and colleges and their departments.
C. Lack of Parental Awareness
RECOMMENDATIONS
· Hold an annual “Scorpion Night” for parents, hosted by the President. It might include raffles for scholarships as an incentive to attend.
· Invite parents along with their senior students on scheduled visits to UTB/TSC.
Recruitment Recommendations (Continued)
·
Create a Parent Tool Kit that includes all relevant
information about UTB/TSC.
· Use automated telemarketing phone software to remind parents and students about outreach events.
· Send replica Endowment dollars to parents of students who qualify for Endowment scholarships.
· Use alumni and UTB/TSC student organizations to volunteer at parent/student events.
· Host college awareness week with high school students and their parents.
· Host college awareness week with middle school students and their parents.
D.
Weak Long-Term Relationships with Students
RECOMMENDATIONS
· Host elementary school field trips each semester—campus tours, lunch with faculty and administrators, musical events, etc. (perhaps include them this year in the homecoming events).
· Work closely with GEARUP and other grants.
· Support the K-16 Initiative
· Target community organizations—Boys and Girls Clubs, Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts, etc.
E. Lack of High School Counselor Awareness
RECOMMENDATIONS
· Hold an all-day workshop each semester for high school counselors, hosted by the President, to orient counselors on university admissions, financial aid, scholarships and degree programs.
· Provide regular updates to counselors via email.
· Create and distribute CD’s and videos of programs to aid counselors.
F. Few Educational “Partners” in the Community.
RECOMMENDATIONS
· Create learning partnerships with community institutions such as HEB, Target, The Brownsville Herald, and Chase Bank so that UTB/TSC can “co-brand” with them.
· Ask The Brownsville Herald to create a “Professor (or Student) of the Week” much like it does for BISD.
· Disseminate educational information to churches in the community.
Recruitment Recommendations (Continued)
G. Poor Community Image and Lack of Marketing
RECOMMENDATIONS
· Use new two-year image campaign to launch ongoing marketing strategies.
· Take advantage of free airtime on radio and television.
· Use BISD internal channel to run outreach information before and after school.
· Include community members in events that showcase the quality of faculty and work being done—lectures, workshops, conferences, and artistic entertainment.
· Encourage schools and colleges to provide outreach services to the community, such as the current special education workshops (Education) and the tax preparation assistance (Business).
· Prepare a list of faculty experts on topics of interest to the community and school districts.
· Encourage successful alumnae to interact with the community in partnership with the university.
· Use streamers for advertising on CNN-type channels.
· Provide useful institutional information such as phone numbers and events calendars in appropriate university publications.
· Design at least one criteria related to outreach on the Dean’s Appraisal Evaluation.
H. Lack Of Scholarships and
Awareness of their Availability
RECOMMENDATIONS
· Create a relationship between donors and recipients so that donors can visualize the good that their money is accomplishing.
· Emphasize the importance of alumni and community help for scholarships—even relatively small ones of $500 to $1000 would help deserving students.
I. Lack of Outreach to Nontraditional USA Students
RECOMMENDATIONS
· Emphasize web based and distance education courses to target those who want an education but can’t attend classes at UTB/TSC (see Appendix B).
· Partner with nearby schools (i.e., Longoria and Porter) to have after school and evening enrichment programs—art, music, sports, advanced science and math projects, etc. for students of parents who want to attend
Recruitment
Recommendations (Continued)
classes on campus. This might be funded through grants; (e.g., teachers, student teachers, student mentors, community mentors).
· Capitalize on parental involvement and encourage parents to enhance their own lives and set a good example for children by returning to college.
· Encourage all technical programs to be certified by outside agencies to improve image and provide incentives for enrollment.
J . Lack of Outreach to Mexico
RECOMMENDATIONS
· Market our programs more aggressively in Matamoros by targeting high schools, maquiladoras, CANACINTRA, and Expos.
· Seek partnership agreements with schools and businesses in Mexico.
· Put increased emphasis on bilingual programs and certification.
· Market courses and programs in the interior of Mexico leading to both undergraduate and graduate degrees using web-based technology and distance education.
· Market courses offered in Spanish both in Mexico and in USA (the committee is not aware of university courses in the Lower Rio Grande Valley being offered in Spanish).
K.
Lack of Housing for Non-Local Students
RECOMMENDATION
Provide on-campus housing to increase opportunities for out-of-district and international students.
L. LOW GRADUATE ENROLLMENT
RECOMMENDATION
Target UTB/TSC students graduating from our four year programs, alumni, Mexican Nationals (local), interior Mexican Nationals via the WEB and distance education courses, and students who previously attended but stopped out along the way (see Appendix C) and encourage them to pursue a graduate degree.
Working Group
on Retention
In surveys of UTB/TSC withdrawing students, money, time, and personal issues are frequently given as reasons of why for leaving college. Levitz and Hovland (1998) have identified five facing students that ultimately have an impact on their decision to drop out: institutional, academic, life, social, and personal issues. The working group’s opinion is that these categories fit the experience of UTB/TSC students; therefore, our recommendations for improving retention efforts at are presented in the context of these five categories.
1. Define retention for the
UTB-TSC partnership
2. Develop a
campus wide retention plan and connect it to UTB/TSC’s strategic plan, and the
budgeting process.
3. Establish a permanent
Retention Task Force Committee.
This committee will:
4. Establish the Office of
Student Retention Services
The
Office of Student Retention Services would be the primary retention center at
UTB-TSC and report to the Associate Vice President for Academic Affairs. Establishing an Office of Student Retention
Services will focus retention efforts on students' satisfaction with retention
services and their social, personal, and academic adjustment to college. Examples of retention services which need to
be assessed include:
Retention Recommendations (Continued)
students while they are taking general education core courses in math, history, and English and study skills to begin their college careers.
5. Hire a Director for Student Retention
Services
The Director of Student Retention Services would be responsible for implementing and evaluating retention efforts and serving as an advocate to all undergraduate students, especially freshmen.
6. Establish a Student Courtesy Information
Center
This center would provide readily accessible
information for students regarding all campus services, especially frontline
offices (Admissions, Academic Advising, Business, Financial Aid, New Students
Relations, Registrar, and Testing) and other offices across campus.
II. Institutional Issues - Academic Advising
Revise
academic advising to include retention efforts that assist students to
establish greater connections with the institution.
Academic advising should be revised to achieve the following:
· Link developmental advising to students' needs for success in vocational-technical and academic programs of study
· Link academic advising with orientation of new students
· Define academic advising expectations for staff and faculty for workload documentation and seek recognition for academic advising caseloads
· Strengthen academic advising in specialty areas (pre-med, pre-law, etc.)
Retention Recommendations (Continued)
· Provide advising toward addressing students' course loads and job and school conflicts (also addressed by proposed Office of Student Retention Services)
· Hire staff to maintain up-to-date degree audit operations to function with current programs of study and changes in curriculum, graduation check, catalog updates, course pre-requisites, and transcript evaluations
· Establish on-going faculty development for academic advising issues
Establish an organized campus-wide plan that documents classroom instructional strategies aimed at improving retention and includes follow-up, evaluation, and faculty development components.
1. Establish campus-wide procedures that
produce a student course schedule with minimal error and on a timely basis.
2. Establish campus-wide procedures that
produce yearly catalogs (undergraduate and graduate) on a timely basis and with
accurate information relating to programs of study offered, changes in
curriculum and courses, course pre-requisites, and general student information.
Activities:
3. Establish campus-wide procedures to guide the uniform development of publications that can be used for recruitment purposes and inform students of departmental programs of study.
Establish a systematic review of classrooms as they relate to students
and curricular needs.
Retention
Recommendations (Continued)
Activities:
Establish a developmental studies plan for under-prepared students.
Activities:
Establish a financial aid retention plan.
Activities:
Establish an institutional health care plan that informs students of the availability of health care services on campus, health care education, and health care referrals.
Retention
Recommendations (Continued)
Activities:
Incorporate into campus-wide retention efforts and/or plans greater
efforts to acculturate students into campus life.
Activities: