Portland State ends another year with the largest graduating class in university history.
Approximately 6,165 PSU students are receiving diplomas from the university in the 2011–12 academic year. Although official numbers will not be available until September, PSU estimates that 4,400 bachelor’s degrees, 1,700 master’s and 65 doctorates will be awarded by the end of this academic year.
Portland State ends another year with the largest graduating class in university history.
Approximately 6,165 PSU students are receiving diplomas from the university in the 2011–12 academic year. Although official numbers will not be available until September, PSU estimates that 4,400 bachelor’s degrees, 1,700 master’s and 65 doctorates will be awarded by the end of this academic year.
According to public records from the Office of Institutional Research and Planning, PSU has graduated a record number of students nearly every year since its inception, with only minor fluctuations. In addition, the retention rate for full-time, first-time freshman is also on the rise this year, increasing 2.2 percent to 72.2 percent.
However, according to Kathi Ketcheson, director of the OIRP, the simple measure of diplomas given gives an incomplete picture of improvement at PSU.
“Degrees awarded are just one measure of growth,” Ketchenson said. She explained that a simple look at the graduation rates, and even the retention rates, misses the big picture of what PSU is doing.
One potential problem with graduation-rate statistics is that, according to Ketcheson, the U.S. government only defines full-time, first-time freshmen as such for six years after they begin college. This makes many of the students at PSU more difficult to track, since they can fall outside of these statistics.
This is because to PSU is uniquely situated in a large metropolitan area, unlike other Oregon University System colleges. The university partners with a large network of local community colleges that transfer students into PSU after completing introductory coursework or an associate’s degree. They can often take longer than six years from start to finish and don’t fit into the U.S. government’s definition for first-time, full-time freshman.
“We’re set up to be attractive to a large number of students,” Ketcheson said. She pointed out that accessibility for the whole metro area is part of PSU’s mission statement.
The retention rate for first-time freshman at PSU has raised nearly eight percentage points in the last 10 years. But Ketcheson explained that the true measure of how PSU has been able to steadily improve is seen in an examination of the improvement policies, called student success initiatives, that the university has recently implemented.
The Vanguard spoke to Dan Fortmiller, associate vice president of Academic and Career Services, for more insight on some of these success initiatives. Some of the most effective moves, Fortmiller said, are the recent advising initiatives. In the last two to three years, PSU has hired 13 advisers and dispersed them through various academic departments. This has resulted in a lot of minor advising adjustments.
Freshmen are now required to get advising before registering for their sophomore year, and starting in 2012–13 all transfer students will be required to meet with an adviser in order to register. There is also an ongoing degree mapping project, where all majors will have a four-year sample plan that can be given to students. Currently these degree maps are most commonly given out by the engineering programs.
An upcoming initiative is a new suite of degree mapping software. It will be used in place of the antiquated and difficult-to-interpret Degree Audit Reporting System report, commonly referred to as the DARS report. Published by College Source and implemented this fall, it will conduct degree audits in a modern visual style and allow students to intuitively create and experiment with degree paths.
The intent of the suite is to clear up a lot of confusion and allow advisors to focus more on the student, with less time spent simply looking up degree forecasting information from tables and charts. It will also allow the student to create a degree path that can be easily modified and edited, with time-consuming details such as course requirements and quarter-specific courses managed by the software.
Fortmiller laughed at the current notion of DARS reports being difficult, explaining that when he started at the university, degree audits were done completely on paper and were even more confusing than the current system. He said that the College Source suite should be an excellent incremental improvement in the complex task of mapping a college degree.
Fortmiller also outlined two committees that have seen results, targeting students at the beginning and the end of their degrees.
The first is the First Steps committee, which simply listens to freshman concerns from surveys and feedback that they have collected from inquiry courses. This candid feedback has proved valuable in promoting effective and productive advising conversations with freshman students. “The main thing is intentionality,” Fortmiller said, “especially with the students who might be at risk.”
At the tail end of a student’s career, the Last Mile committee has done interpersonal outreach with over 700 students who have applied for graduation and, for whatever reason, never finished their degrees at PSU. Approximately 200 people finished their degrees due to targeted outreach.
These and other success initiatives mean to target students in a more personalized, individual manner. “Every student’s path is so unique anyway,” said Fortmiller.
