The Student Success Academy is a structured, mentor-facilitated three-year program aimed at evaluating and improving institutional initiatives and structures that affect student success. The Academy was designed with input from HLC’s ongoing strategic initiatives on student success, through which HLC seeks to help institutions advance student success by improving retention and completion rates as well as defining and testing new ways of measuring success.

Academy Teams

Institutions participate by creating teams to attend Academy events and carry out the Academy Project. An Academy team is made up of five to eight individuals and should include members of the faculty, staff and administration. The Academy Orientation webinars provide guidance on selecting members and leaders of institutional teams.

Each team is assigned a Primary Mentor and a Scholar who provide support for the duration of the Academy experience.

Structure of the Academy

The Academy framework consists of live webinars, data inventories conducted on campus, and in-person roundtable events that help institutions methodically and holistically approach their student success challenges and opportunities, with dedicated time for teamwork, direction from the Senior Scholars and support from program mentors.

The program is built around a set of guiding questions that aim to identify the institution’s current realities, reveal areas of opportunity for improving student success and guide the institution’s work throughout the Academy experience.

1. Data analysis: Who are our students?
2. Current initiatives: How are we currently serving our students?
3. Policies and procedures: What infrastructure do we have in place to support students?
4. Engagement: Who is providing support to students, and how?

Year 1: Environmental Scan

Orientation: Through a two-webinar series, institutional members leading the Academy effort learn about the Academy’s framework and the expectations and opportunities that come with participation. The webinars will prepare the institution to build its Academy team and conduct the first inventory.

Data Infrastructure Inventory: The Academy team conducts an inventory of its current knowledge base on student populations in order to identify what data are available.

Current Initiatives Roundtable: The team attends this in-person, multi-day event to review the data infrastructure inventory in order to identify factors that correlate with student success. Senior Scholars and Event Facilitators will provide structure and direction to help teams recognize patterns in their data as well as criteria against which to assess the effectiveness of existing student success initiatives, which the team will inventory after this event.

Current Initiatives Inventory: The team inventories current initiatives at the institution that are designed to support student success.

Project Planning Roundtable: The team attends this in-person, multi-day event to review the results of the initiatives inventory. In consultation with Event Facilitators, the team plans an Academy Project that will either improve the effectiveness of an existing initiative or develop a new initiative to address an identified gap.

Year 2: Project Development Within a Community of Practice

Affinity Groups: The Academy team connects with other institutions working on similar projects in an online forum.

Project Updates and Responses: The team submits updates on its inventories and project development and receives feedback from its assigned mentor and Scholar.

Policies and Procedures Webinar: The team attends a live, interactive webinar presenting research on barriers to student success that may be unintentionally built into institutional policies and procedures.

Policies and Procedures Inventory: The team inventories polices and procedures at its institution that may be inhibiting student success in order to integrate possible solutions into its Academy Project.

Second-Year Mentor Consultation: The team meets virtually with its Primary Mentor to discuss the status of its Academy Project and efforts to integrate the results of the inventories.

Engagement Webinar: The team attends a live, interactive webinar presenting research on creating campus-wide engagement in student success efforts, with an emphasis on engaging faculty in the Academy Project.

Engagement Inventory: The team inventories people and offices currently working on student success efforts in order to identify opportunities to engage new stakeholders and create representation from across the institution.

Year 3: Project Implementation and Sustainability

Third-Year Mentor Consultation: The team meets virtually with its Primary Mentor to discuss the status of its Academy Project, with a focus on planning for sustainability of the project beyond the Academy.

Implementation Webinars: The team attends live, interactive webinars presenting research on effective methods for implementing, scaling and sustaining student success initiatives.

Stewardship Forum: The team attends a final multi-day, in-person event to share its accomplishments and findings with other institutions, compare practices and benchmarks, and define strategies to sustain its student success efforts.

Impact Report: Each Academy team submits an Impact Report chronicling its work in the Academy and the improvements made to student success initiatives at its institution.

For institutions in the Open Pathway: The Impact Report validates the institution’s completion of the Academy and serves as the Quality Initiative Report.

Optional Activities

Academy members may choose to take part in optional services and activities to further support the development of their student success initiatives.

HLC Annual Conference

Institutions taking part in the Student Success Academy are encouraged to participate in HLC’s annual conference. Time slots are reserved during the General Program for institutions to showcase their Academy Projects and discuss common concerns with other Academy members. Additionally, there is Academy-specific programming for current Academy members and the opportunity to meet with the institution’s Primary Mentor for a consultation.

Extended Participation

Institutions may request to extend their Academy experience by one year if they feel additional work may be beneficial.