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Last month, Chancellor Mildred García hosted the CSU’s Graduation Initiave (GI) 2025 Symposium in San Diego, where I had the chance to engage with representatives from our 22 sister campuses about the work we’ve done and continue to do to support student success and equity efforts. The system-level data is incredible and tells us that the average time to a degree has decreased from 5 years to 4.5 years, which provides a significant boost to lifetime earnings. Furthermore, as a system, we’ve awarded an additional 150,000 degrees across the CSU. Even more inspiring were the stories current CSU students shared about the impact the initiative has had on their education and advancement. I encourage you to watch the recordings to gain further insight on our success thus far and future efforts, and to listen to Chancellor García’s inspiring personal story. You may also learn more about the initiative itself at the end of this newsletter.
At CSUN, we hosted a GI 2025 update meeting on November 14 co-sponsored with the Division of Student Affairs. We shared data that revealed the progress we have made since 2015 in enhancing graduation rates for first-time freshmen (four and six year) and transfer students (two and four year). Additionally, we highlighted some best practices that have helped us move the needle on these important metrics including mentoring, first-year experience courses U100 and U301, Supplemental Instruction in Chemistry, and equity-minded pedagogy. Further, we also identified areas where we need to focus our efforts including our retention of first-year students into the second year and the graduation rates of our male students who identify as Black and Latinx.
I’m also excited to share that this year marks the 15th anniversary of the EOP Milt and Debbie Valera Resilient Scholars Program. This crucial program is designed to support current and former foster youth on campus through a variety of services that work to remove personal and academic barriers, establish a sense of belonging, and create a community of support. An event was held in celebration of this milestone in which California State Senator Caroline Menjivar (20th District) was in attendance and student Armando Leon spoke about the impact of the program. Congratulations to Sr. Director Shiva Parsa and all EOP staff on this achievement.
Finally, the Chancellor’s Office recently offered to fund a NACADA program review or a NACADA EAA self-study in order to help eliminate Institutional Barriers at each of the CSU campuses. CSUN selected to do a program review of the Matador Advising Hub using the Nine Conditions of Excellence in Academic Advising as its framework. Earlier this month, two NACADA consultants visited campus to review past reports from previous external reviews and run focus groups to collect data on how the Hub is serving our incoming students. As you may know, the Matador Advising Hub serves all incoming FTF, as well as FTF and incoming FTT international students and continuing, non-EOP exploratory students. This review is a critical step in improving the retention rates and experiences of our first-year students. I look forward to diving into the results and recommendations of the review when distributed by University Advising. A huge shout out to Cynthia Greco, Interim Senior Director, and her team for their work in spearheading and facilitating this review.
Thank you for all you do and your dedication to our students and mission.
Take care,
Meera
Meera Komarraju, Ph.D.
Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs
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