NOVA Launches New Student Success Team–Imagining Bolder Vision

Guided by NOVA’s commitment to equity, excellence, empathy, evidence and economic and social mobility, and our existing network connection with Achieving the Dream, NOVA will launch a new Student Success Team. In 2020, NOVA set out to better understand the current state of our student success work and the results to date. With assessment and evaluation support from the national Achieving the Dream consortium, NOVA completed a comprehensive study of our student success efforts with the goal to improve retention and outcomes while advancing equity. We are thankful for the voices of everyone who contributed to focus group discussions with our ATD coaches. Your valuable feedback was received: WE HEAR YOU! Please know that your feedback informs our message today and our mission moving forward.

To build a robust strategic plan for student success designed to promote equitable outcomes for all students, the Student Success Team will focus on our commitment to using and communicating data. In addition, the Student Success Team will provide alignment, assistance, resources and support for targeted, evidence-based student interventions. With increased focus on action and improvement, this team will work with national coaches to make progress toward the following deliverables:

• partner with the new chief diversity, equity and inclusion officer to develop clear, college-wide student success and equity goals;
• partner with the new Data Close to Practice coaching model to build a stronger culture of inquiry and evidence;
• collaborate with and support practitioners in ensuring broader and more systematic dissemination of data across the college and define expectations for practitioners’ use of the data;
• connect and elevate NOVA students for greater inclusion of the student voice to inform decisions;
• align enrollment and retention strategies to meet the goals of the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and the Quality Enhancement Plan (QEP); and
• partner with the faculty and staff professional development offices for greater inclusion of faculty and staff voices to inform decisions.

We are grateful for the significant contributions of every member of our ATD community. The work previously completed has already produced a strong commitment to student success and will provide the foundation needed to launch our next phase of student success work. Today’s heightened priority of holistic student supports requires a bold, strong focus on ensuring resources and collaborative opportunities to enhance the intentional college-wide approach to student success.

The new Student Success Team, co-led by Courtney Boland, Dr. Dahlia Henry-Tett and Kirstin Riddick, will work together to align new and ongoing strategic priorities. In the near future, there will be opportunities for the entire NOVA community to participate and engage in conversations. These community engagements will center around issues, topics and trends that will lead to sustainable change at NOVA. As you know, NOVA is “stronger together” so stay tuned because there’s more to come!