September 26, 2013 | SharkAdmin For more than three years, NVC has focused on completion as one of its three strategic objectives. The Degree Completion team, along with many other employees across the campus, have worked to increase student graduation and completion rates. This began by turning regular advising sessions into Graduation Advising Sessions and requiring students to get advised again as they near graduation. Each Graduation Advising Session includes determining the correct catalog year, progress on a degree plan, and expected graduation term. Enhanced communication (such as improved messaging about who should apply for graduation) was also implemented in the last three years. The NVC Public Relations team worked with the Degree Completion team to create the “Get Your Degree at NVC” website to help guide students through the steps to the completion process. Response time to student emails and voicemails to the graduation team were improved; and students are now able to determine if their graduation review is complete. A graduation survey was instituted to acquire feedback on the quality and service provided. This will be repeated again this fall to gain additional ideas for improvement. The results of these three years of improvements can be seen in this data: In spring 2011, the number of students applying for graduation and requesting graduation advising was greater than 800, with only 375 of these completing that semester. By spring 2013, there were slightly fewer applications for graduation advising (790) but 88 percent of those applying completed in the spring semester. The ratio of graduation applicants to completers rose from 45 percent in spring 2011 to 88 percent in spring 2013. Moving forward, the team has put a tracking system in place to encourage students to complete in the semester they are in or the following semester without having to reapply for graduation. “I encourage the campus community to continue to promote the value of an associate’s degree and remind students to come in and meet with an advisor to apply for graduation before the deadline,” said Rocky Heredia of the Degree Completion Team. “It takes a student-centered campus community to create opportunities for success and completion.” **The fall deadline to meet with an advisor for mandatory graduation advising and to complete the online application is Oct 31.
