Phase 2
Design: June ’22 – July ’23
In Phase II of the QEP plan, the Design Committee receives the chosen topic from the QEP Topic Selection Committee. Together, the topic is further defined with the inclusion of campus-wide guidelines, evaluation rubric and a communications plan for key audiences. UNCG’s QEP is known as: Spartans Thrive.
Step 1: Provide Guidelines and Evaluation Rubric
As outlined in the University’s Strategic Plan, the goal of “Student Transformation for Health & Wellness: UNCG students will gain understanding of and appreciation for health and wellness as it applies to their personal and professional lives.”
Many students both at the undergraduate and graduate level will benefit from our QEP efforts, however, we will focus on the IPEDS FTIC as our primary student population. An FTIC is a student who has no prior postsecondary experience, attending UNCG for the first time at the undergraduate level. We aim to improve the retention and persistence rates FTIC degree-seeking undergraduate students, as well as the 4-year graduation and 6% year graduation rates.
UNCG students at undergraduate and graduate levels, Faculty and Staff, Governing Bodies will benefit from our QEP efforts.
UNCG uses a number of measures to evaluate student achievement. The University tracks goals related to student success, impact, and institutional excellence and diversity among other things. Given we have not met our first- to second-year retention rate goal of 85%, our QEP also includes a student success outcome (SSO) to improve our FTIC student persistence, completion, and graduation. We will also track other indicators such as academic standing, student engagement, sense of belongingness, self-efficacy and other resiliency measures. Our QEP assessment will only measure outcomes within a narrow subset of our FTIC student cohorts to allow for data comparisons.
FTIC student learning and/or student learning outcomes of the QEP are:
- Students will develop goals and plans related to personal purpose, interests, or values between self and community.
- Students completing the wellbeing co-curricular experience will be able to identify and engage with campus resources to support their personal well-being.
- First year mentored students will persist to their second year at a higher rate than their non-mentored peers, with similar: academic prep, ethnicity, income and age.
QEP outcomes will be measured through the following activities:
- Minerva’s Academic Curriculum (MAC) Foundations Course
UNCG will revise the MAC Foundations course to include a learning module on health and wellness. Integrating health and wellness into the MAC Foundation Courses will help students begin their college journey with academic achievement skills, advising, and navigational support to help them persist and be academically successful. The Fall 2023 FITC cohort will be the Pilot Group with subsequent fall cohorts in the following years to be the groups reported throughout the 5-year plan.
| Phase & Outcome Activities | Timeline |
|---|---|
| Phase I: Establish program design and delivery with a pilot in MAC Foundations sections. Develop instructor training and assessments for QEP | AY 23-24 |
| Phase II: Fully implement the QEP in all MAC Foundation Courses. | AY 24-25 through AY 25-26 |
- Spartan Well-being Co-Curricular Experience
UNCG’s QEP will connect to the existing Spartan Experience, led by Student Affairs. The QEP will map to the Spartan Experience’s eight dimensions of wellness while engaging FTIC students in co-curricular and community involvement activities. Open to the UNCG community, a QEP Wellness Dashboard will inform how our efforts are measuring up to our QEP goals while providing data for evaluation and strategic planning and action of health and wellness.
| Phase & Outcome Activities | Timeline |
|---|---|
| Phase 1: Working with Student Affairs, Campus Organization Advisors, and other approved partners, QEP efforts will map to the eight dimensions of wellness with student requirements and pre-approved Well-being Pathways to clearly connect to student learning outcomes. | AY 23-24 |
| Phase II: UNCG will launch a QEP Wellness Dashboard linking campus’ student health and wellness performance indicators, state-wide health reports, and/or national health behavior surveys specific to the student populations. | AY 24-25 |
- Mentor Collective Mentoring Program
FTIC mentored students persist to their second year at a higher rate than their non-mentored peers, with similar academic prep, ethnicity, income, and age. UNCG has not met the first –to second-year retention rate goal of 85%. Mentorship of the FTIC aims to improve student success outcomes for student persistence.
| Phase & Outcome Activities | Timeline |
|---|---|
| Phase I: Partner with the Mentor Collective to scale a program that allows FTIC students the opportunity for peer mentoring to guide their first year and improve their sense of belonging. | Summer 23 |
| Phase II: Match FTIC Fall 23 cohort students with student mentors of their same major, interest, or life experiences. Launch Mentorship Collective | Fall 23 (AY 23-24) |
| Phase III: Gather insights, intervene as needed; and use learning from pilot phase for program revision. Fully implement the Mentor Collective Program with the FTIC Fall 24 cohort students |
Step 2: Outreach Educational Activities (Calendar)
The Design Team is scheduling a series of outreach activities including but not limited to meetings, presentations, newsletters, and environmental messaging on campus. The goal is to educate FTIC students, faculty, staff, and the campus community of the QEP focused on health and wellness. In these outreach activities, information about the QEP process, how the individual may be impacted by the QEP plan, and how they can help are some of the topics to be discussed.
1. Outreach by Audience
| Audience | Outreach Activity | Timeline | Feedback |
|---|---|---|---|
| FTIC |
| AY 23-24 | FYE Class Survey. |
| Faculty |
| August 2023 + | QEP Online Feedback Form, In-person feedback. UTLC Newsletter. |
| Staff |
| August 2023+ | QEP Online Feedback Form, In-person feedback. |
| Students |
| August 2023+ | QEP Online Feedback Form, In-person feedback. Canvas Messages and Surveys. |
| Governing Bodies |
| August 2023+ | Question and Answer sessions at respective meetings. Email communications between UNCG governing body liaisons and members |
2. Communications Plan
The goal of the QEP Communications Plan is to educate and engage a variety of campus stakeholder groups who are instrumental in the success of the plan. As mentioned in the outreach activities section, the University QEP team will begin this effort in Summer 2023 and continue to provide information and feedback throughout the lifespan of the QEP.
Primary Target Audiences
- First Time in College (FTIC) students beginning with fall 2023 cohort and continuing through the fall 2028 cohort.
- Faculty and Staff of the Mentor Collective, Spartan Experience, FYE 101, Minerva’s Academic Curriculum (MAC) and Student Affairs.
Secondary Target Audiences
- University undergraduate and graduate students
- Faculty and Staff
- Governing Bodies
Objective:
To engage campus constituencies in developing a robust QEP Plan focused on the holistic health and wellness of FTIC students.
Strategy:
Communicate openly and often using mediums preferred by each individual key audience group.
Tactics:
- Establish regular meeting dates and times with established groups on campus, I.e. Student Government Association, Faculty Senate, Staff Senate.
- Establish a feedback form and common email address for QEP comments and ideas to be shared by the target audiences.
- Develop multiple forms of campus signage educating key audiences about the QEP I.e. video board monitor graphics, flyers, swag, computer lab screen saver messaging, lectern computer screen saver messaging, health minute video, UNCG Mobile App’s Student Health Module.
- Establish a regular schedule for Campus Weekly and college/department internal newsletter updates with feedback links/methods incorporated.
Evaluation:
Evaluation of Goal 1 will include meeting cadence and attendance; feedback from in-person/virtual conversations/meetings; feedback form entries; email open rates; google analytics on UNCG News/Campus Weekly e-newsletter announcements/coverage; view rates for videos, mobile app engagement analytics, shared email group interactions.
Objective:
To deliberately focus on the FTIC students’ sense of belonging through student life opportunities of holistic health and wellness from their first year and first semester as a UNCG student.
Strategy:
Through a multi-media mix of on campus communications tools, provide FTIC students with information and incentives to participate in the Spartan Experience and mentor program.
Tactics:
- Develop campus flyers to be hung at approved locations on campus to educate all students (FTIC, undergraduate and graduate) about the QEP Activities.
- Develop electronic signage for computer labs and video board monitors on campus to educate all students.
- Collaborate with specific health and wellness related offices and units to develop QEP promotional assets and to link their programs, activities and events to the QEP theme.
Evaluation:
Evaluation of Goal 2 includes logging FTIC student participation in Spartan Experience events via Spartan ID card; Mentor Collective Engagement Dashboard, analyzing digital badge and swag item(s) distribution to FTIC students; contest participant entries; distribution of environmental signage; and other electronic tracking methods that may result with specific activities available through campus partners.