Tacoma Community College (TCC) serves more than 13,000 students in Pierce County, Washington, through more than 60 transfer programs of study and 46 professional/technical degree programs. The college has outlined four key goals in its strategic plan, including:
- Create learning by designing and implementing learning-focused instructional methods that respond to student and community needs.
- Engage the community by building relationships within and partners outside of the institution.
- Embrace discovery by allocating sufficient resources to innovation.
- Achieve equity by developing sustainable efforts to make college more accessible and affordable.
To make progress toward this vision, TCC uses the Civitas Learning Student Impact Platform to take action, one simple nudge at a time.
Two cross-functional teams work together to turn institutional insights into informed action and nudge Tacoma students toward success. The “Insights Team” uses actionable analytics to explore factors influencing students’ likelihood to persist, while the “Action Team” uses integrated communications tools to implement nudge campaigns.
Identifying Students and Designing the Message
Faculty advisors and advisors used filters within Civitas Learning’s advising analytics and workflow solution to identify students who had not yet re-enrolled for the fall 2017 term.
The goal was to nudge students to register for fall courses and offer help. Faculty advisors and advisors who had plans to be off-campus at the end of the term were still encouraged to send the nudge and to set an “Out of Office” message along the lines of
“If you need help registering for fall courses while I am unavailable, please contact General Advising by phone at XXX-XXX-XXXX or by email at xxx@tacomacc.edu as they are happy to help”
The content of the nudge message sent to eligible students is below:
Subject: TCC misses you
Dear [Student First name]
I noticed that you have not enrolled for Fall 2017 classes yet.
Classes are filling up fast and I would hate for you to miss out on classes you need. If you already know what you plan to take, enroll now at [LINK TO ENROLLMENT].
I know selecting classes can be confusing. If you need assistance, I am here to help. Reply to this email to schedule an advising appointment with me to discuss your classes.
In case I am not available to assist you, please contact our advisors in building 7 and they will be happy to help you. Please click on this link for additional information: [LINK TO ADVISOR RESOURCES].
As a reminder, here is how to enroll: [LINK TO VIDEO]
I look forward to seeing you in the fall!
Launch and Impact Analysis
Faculty advisors and advisors sent the nudge email to 900 students. Just a few days after the nudge campaign, 48% of the students contacted had enrolled for the fall term! This represents a 42% increase in the number of additional students who enrolled from spring to fall compared to the same time period the previous year.
To follow this success, the Civitas Learning Action Team is working on developing an annual campaign schedule that details what recurring campaigns will be planned on a term-by-term basis. These future campaigns will leverage student persistence prediction scores in order to inform messaging strategy — for example, tailoring nudge content with mindset messaging, which has been shown to be more effective in achieving student success outcomes.
Leaders have also hosted faculty-led training during Professional Development Week, and the professional development area is building online training modules to make more of these strategies and tactics available to advisors across campus on demand.
