Current Features

Students Are Prepared for Successful Careers

‘Culture of care’ benefits students

By Tom Woolf | USF News

AN INITIATIVE THAT BEGAN IN 2010 — borne of low retention and graduation rates — today is ingrained in the culture of the university. It is a culture designed to ensure graduates are prepared not only for successful careers, but success in life.

“We want to help them enjoy a longer, fuller, healthier, happier life,” says Paul Dosal, USF’s vice president for student success.

When the student success movement started on the Tampa campus, the six-year graduation rate was below 50%. For 2019-20, it was 75%. Retention — the percentage of students progressing from their freshman to sophomore year — has grown from 85% to 92% in 2019-20.

Additionally, the graduation rate for students eligible for Pell grants — federal assistance provided to the most economically challenged families — is nearly equal to the graduation rate for non-Pell recipients. Approximately 40% of USF’s students are Pell-eligible. USF also has closed the achievement gap by ethnicity, with students of color graduating at rates on par with white students.

Several factors have contributed to the improvements, including big data and the adoption of case management. Predictive analytics help in the early identification of students who may be struggling academically for a variety of reasons. A team of academic advocates connects with the students, triages each student’s situation and coordinates with a Care Team of more than 200 cross-functional staff, faculty and student employees to provide the right resources to help each student get back on track.

USF’s approach, Dosal says, reflects a “culture of care.”

That culture is evident in Student Support Services (SSS). The federally funded program serves 220 students from freshman year to graduation; the students must be first-generation and/or from low-income backgrounds. Most are Pell grant recipients.

Students are referred to the program by the admissions office. Often, the students have a very strong high school grade point average but may have been considered on the borderline for admission to USF because of standardized test scores.

Students must participate in a six-week bridge program the summer following high school graduation, taking classes together and living together in a residence hall. They continue living together in a residence hall throughout their freshman year. The benefits of establishing that strong foundation are evident in the program’s retention rate: The five-year average (fall 2017 through fall 2021) is 92%.

“From day one, we are trying to build community, helping the students learn how to live together and learn together,” says assistant director LaTosha Thomas, MA ’01 and PhD ’16. “Diversity, equity and inclusion are at the forefront of the work we do. We let them know that it’s OK to talk about our differences and how addressing those issues enhances their experience at USF.”

The SSS team employs a holistic approach. Thomas, whose academic background is in psychology and counseling, calls it “life coaching.”

“Right now, our staff is doing a lot of professional development around grief, because we have students who have lost family members,” she says. “We have a large population of Black and Brown students, and those communities were hit particularly hard by COVID-19. The loss of family members, and the loss of finances because of the pandemic, have caused a lot of grief in our population.”

Students can face other family-related issues as well.

“If they’re local, they’re going back and forth, perhaps trying to help manage siblings or to run errands for parents,” Thomas says. “All students have to learn time management skills in college, but that’s at a heightened level with some of our students. We have students who may be trying to manage almost full-time jobs so they can send money back home. Sometimes, we have families who are quite opposed to their children going off to college. They think the child should go straight into the workforce and help the family. We’re trying to help our students navigate all of those challenges.”

She appreciates the strong partnerships her office has across the university, such as with the Office of Academic Advocacy, the Counseling Center and the Center for Victim Advocacy and Violence Prevention. The intense focus Thomas and her colleagues place on relationship-building with students is critical to helping them access needed resources in those and other offices.

“We had some of our students tell us recently that this is the most they’ve ever felt connected to a family. That just makes us work harder for these students, because we know the lives they’re coming from and the better life they’re trying to create for themselves by coming to USF.”

Program offers early look at jobs

By Matthew Cimitile | USF St. Petersburg campus

SKYLAR CHRISTENSEN HAD A PASSION FOR ART, but didn’t know how that would translate to a job after college. As a first-year student entering USF’s St. Petersburg campus, finding the right career path in the field seemed challenging.

“I always thought of art as just a hobby before college,” Christensen says. “But during college tours and talking to professors, it made me lean towards art as a potential major, a degree that I could possibly do many different things within different fields.”

As Christensen geared up for his first semester in the fall of 2020, he came across a program that could bring some clarity. The Innovation Scholars Career Exploration Program helps first-year students explore their interests by matching students with companies and professionals in St. Petersburg.

Over the past three years, 157 students have enrolled in the program. Though similar programs exist at colleges across the nation, one that focuses on first-year students just starting out on their higher education journey is believed to be unique.

Christensen was matched with Olivia Mansion, the co-founder and director of communications for Fairgrounds St. Pete, a 15,000-square-foot immersive art and technology exhibit that showcases the region’s creativity. Throughout the academic year, mentor and mentee met on a consistent basis, Christensen getting a crash course in opening, running and promoting an art organization, Mansion providing guidance on everything from merchandise and artist relations to how to turn creative ideas into concepts and designs.

Higher education to economic impact pipeline

Measuring the economic impact of colleges and universities can come in a variety of ways. There are construction projects, the direct employment of faculty and staff and the robust innovation that emerges when bringing experts from a wide variety of fields together in the same location.

And then there is the education and workforce training of the next generation, something colleges are uniquely qualified to handle. This training generally pays dividends to the region in which the college is located.

According to the Brookings Institute report, “What colleges do for local economies,” those with a college degree not only earn more than those with high school degrees, but they contribute more in direct spending, especially to the local economies where they went to school. More than 40 percent of alumni from four-year colleges remain in the area of their college to work. For the state of Florida, that number rises to 60 percent, according to the labor market data company EMSI.

“We are introducing students early in their education to businesses and institutions in St. Petersburg with the vision that if they connect around an industry or job they are passionate about, hopefully they will stay because they have established relationships in that field,” says Alison Barlow, director of the St. Petersburg Innovation District, who helped launch the program. “Giving students this early opportunity helps them better understand if this is the right major for them and what other people’s journeys have been to achieve the career they are considering.”

The job-shadowing program was developed with this pipeline in mind. Opportunities include many of the core industries in the city of St. Petersburg, from the arts to health, and from marine science to data and technology.

The program also addresses one of the major outcomes that students and their families desire from a university education: a job related to their area of study. Developing early career exploration opportunities so students have a better grasp of what they want is critical in achieving that.

“Some students discover that this career field is not what they thought it would be, which is equally as helpful so they can quickly identify other opportunities to pursue,” says Kasey Kobs, coordinator for internships and career experiences at USF’s St. Petersburg campus. “The experience really gives them a more realistic understanding of their target career field as well as opening their eyes to possibilities they didn’t know existed.”

Rewards for professionals

The Innovation Scholars Program provides ample benefits for businesses as well. For one, they can teach and train students on professional topics and assess possibilities for future roles within their organizations. It also gives professionals the chance to give back to the community and impart career and life lessons to the next generation.

“A lot of mentors in the program have told us that they benefited from a mentor early on in their career and wanted to give that experience to someone else,” Kobs says. “While others have said they wished something like this existed when they were a student so they could have benefitted.”

Chuck Egerter, founder and CEO of cybersecurity firm Guardian Eagle, has been a mentor several times for the program. As an engineering student years ago, an internship at Lockheed Martin was instrumental in shaping his career path.

“It wasn’t just the ‘on the job’ experience that was key, it was the one-on-one mentoring I received with a few senior folks who were genuinely interested in helping me,” Egerter says.

For Mansion, her passion for higher education and giving back spurred her involvement as a mentor.

“It was really important to create ties between our industry and higher education. When I discovered the program, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to share what we were creating here, how we got here and tie it back to an educational component for students and our community.”