Title of the proposal
S.T.E.A.R Early Warning System: Removing Student Barriers Through Enhanced Collaboration
Bio
Mr. Brian Williams, Director of The Sophomore Year Initiative
Brian has a Masters’ degree in Educational Administration and Policy Studies. He has spent the last 21 years in program management, working in underserved communities in secondary and higher education, managing youth development programs. From 2002-2008, he was a Project Leader on NYU’s Chapter 405 Project on Disproportionality and led the design, development and implementation of training modules delivering technical assistance and professional development trainings to discern the disproportionate representation of various subgroups in special education in NY State School districts. From 2006-2008, he served as an active member of the NY State Education Commission Advisory Panel on Special Education.
General description of the initiative or project
Lehman College enrolls on average 50% Latino Students. In F’12, it enrolled 49.4% Latino Students and leveraged its designation as a Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI) to secure a 5-year Title V Sophomore Year Initiative (SYI) grant from the USDOE to improve graduation rates among Latino students and increase retention rates among 2nd semester First-Time, Full-Time, Freshmen (FTFTF), Sophomores, and Transfer students. To meet these mandates, SYI uses a coordinated institutional approach among faculty, advisors and administrators to identify and remove barriers from “at-risk” students by providing intentional, intrusive one-to-one academic advising, career advising and counseling. Equally important, it implemented a campus-wide Student Tracking Early Alert Retention (S.T.E.A.R) system that resulted in a 5th semester (sophomore to junior) retention rate of 67.4%. S.T.E.A.R provides faculty with an early warning “tool” during the first 6 weeks of the semester to trigger alert(s) based on performance, behavioral and/or attendance indicators. In F’14, 52 faculty triggered 145 alerts that identified 138 unique “at-risk” students; 80 (57.97%) of whom were Latinos. SYI advisors outreached to these students and created intervention plans to remove barriers for them to persist. In Sp’15, 172 alerts were triggered, with 167 students identified as “at-risk;” 95 (56.89%) students were Latinos.