Gateways to Success
Gateways to Success, one of the UMS Transforms Student Success and Retention initiatives, finished its first pilot semester in fall 2023. Each campus in the University of Maine System was invited to offer proposals aimed at improving outcomes in courses that contribute disproportionately to D, F, W, or L grades by degree-seeking undergraduates. The first round of accepted proposals included fourteen separate projects at all seven campuses, deploying interventions ranging from introducing Maine Learning Assistants or other near-peer mentors to assist with instruction, enhancing professional development for graduate teaching assistants, redesigning curriculum, and deepening coordination with campus writing centers.
Since the end of the fall semester, the Office of Institutional Research and Assessment has been examining the associations between students in classes receiving these new interventions and their final grades, as well as summarizing and analyzing the results of surveys and other assessments. While it will take a few more semesters of data before we can evaluate most projects, we are meeting with Gateways to Success leads for all campuses and projects to start exploring preliminary data.