In an effort to assist students labeled as "at risk," Centura College uses a partnered approach called Target Success Team (TST). Within program-specific team meetings, a representative from every division in the school—including academic advisors, instructors, student advisors, financial aid officers, registrars, career advisors, help desk technicians, and bursars—meet twice a month to discuss students who have been labeled as "at risk," due to academic, social, familial, or situational struggles. Clear, specific TST Action Plans are developed to target specific issues affecting each individual student discussed, and individual staff members are selected as appropriate for the issue at hand to follow-up and assist the student with the issue.
Utilizing a team approach to address student issues has been beneficial to staff and students alike. Within these interactive meetings, staff members pull from their diverse backgrounds and knowledge base to share innovative approaches when standard procedure has not worked for a student, and the result is often new procedures for supporting online students. Students remain in the TST program until the goals designed within the TST Action Plans have been achieved. Interestingly, though students take classes online from throughout the country and never meet staff face-to-face, strong relationships are formed between staff and students as a result of the TST process. This presentation will discuss the TST program, the meeting events and outcomes of those events, and the community that is built between students and staff members as a product of this partnership.
