In order to increase the ways in which institutions of higher education engage students in and with our local and global communities, institutions must first increase their knowledge rates of where, how and to what degree students are currently engaging. Campus-wide systems to track student engagement must exist in order to build opportunities for integration, scaffold experiences, strengthen community partnerships and increase student success efforts, among others. In this webinar, Nazareth College will highlight an innovation which is creating institutional change while benefiting multiple stakeholders, most of all the students. During academic year 2018-2019, Nazareth implemented the Experiential Record, a systematic, campus-wide data collection tool created to track all undergraduate and graduate students’ participation in Nazareth sponsored experiential education opportunities. Centralizing this knowledge and gathering various, independent streams of data into one place enables faculty and staff to better support students through advising and coaching, identify appropriate support strategies for specific populations, further strengthen relationships with community partners, as well as leverage stories for marketing and donor relations. Examples of dashboards and reports by way of Tableau, the data visualization tool Nazareth uses, will also be shared with participants. 

 

Presenters:

Nuala S. Boyle has supported the advancement of community-engaged teaching and learning in higher education since 1997. As the inaugural (2010) director of the Center for Civic Engagement at Nazareth College in Rochester, NY, she oversees curricular and co-curricular community engagement, including the Center for Service-Learning, and facilitates the college’s experiential learning requirement within the core curriculum. Boyle is on the Advisory Council for Campus Compact of NY and PA and is on the Board of the National Society for Experiential Education, graduating from their Experiential Education Academy in 2014. She earned her B.A. in English from Stonehill College in Boston, MA and her M.A. in Religious Studies from Sacred Heart University in Fairfield, CT.

 

Nicholas LaMendola is the Director of Institutional Research at Nazareth College and has been instrumental in creating a data-informed environment for strategic decision making, planning, and assessment at Nazareth. LaMendola has leveraged his background in analytic statistics and predictive modeling to collaborate across divisions on projects such as student success, retention/graduation, co-curricular and experiential learning, overhaul of the faculty workload model, administrative assessment and diversity and inclusion. LaMendola earned his B.A. in Psychology from the University of Michigan, his M.A. in Brain & Cognitive Science from the University of Rochester, and his Ph.D. in Psychology from the University of Arizona.