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.
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:
| 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 |
| 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 |
| 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 |
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.
| 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 |
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.
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:
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:
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.