Starfish by Hobsons Officially Endorsed By California Community College Academic Senate For Guided Pathways Framework
ARLINGTON, VA (PRWEB) November 27, 2017 -- Hobsons today announced that the Academic Senate for California Community Colleges has officially endorsed the Education Planning Initiative (EPI) suite of tools, which includes Starfish by Hobsons. American Association of Community College (AACC) schools now have the opportunity to include the student success and analytics platform that employs data-driven interventions to help students thrive and succeed in college as part of their Guided Pathways process proposals.
“Guided pathways” refers to a student-centered system for colleges to help increase credential completion and graduation rates for all students, and is a key part of the American Association of Community Colleges (AACC) recommendations through the 21st Century Center. The California Guided Pathways Project is a grant program that offers an opportunity for community colleges in the state to apply for grant money in order to adopt the guided pathways approach at scale within three years.
“Many colleges are seeking ways to engage in a redesign of their colleges using Guided Pathways principles,” says Randy Beach, South Representative for the Academic Senate for California Community Colleges (ASCCC) Executive Committee. “The ASCCC sees great potential in these tools as a strong starting point for colleges to fulfill their own guided pathways framework. For that reason, Starfish has been endorsed as a useful tool for designing a guided pathways framework and because faculty at pilot colleges using these tools have seen results and promise for their school.”
The Starfish Enterprise Success Platform employs data-driven capabilities to plan college coursework, through Starfish Degree Planner, and mitigates risks through early alerts, case management, and other advisor workflow tools. The Degree Planner is useful for fulfilling the four pillars of Guided Pathways, by clearly identifying the coursework and curriculum students need to earn their degrees. Thirty-four community colleges in California already have active contracts with Starfish.
“Having Starfish on board is essential for us to initiate Guided Pathways,” said Michelle Stricker, Matriculation/SSSP Coordinator at Reedley College and Co-Chair of the CCC Education Planning Initiative (EPI) Steering Committee. “We are now beginning to roll out Starfish Degree Planner and Early Alert, and expect to be live with the entire platform, including Analytics, by the fall. There’s a variety of components to the platform that really support the idea of Guided Pathways.”
“Not only does Starfish allow faculty to intervene when students veer off path, but it also ensures that students stay on that path and are celebrated for their efforts,“ said Dr. Mike Muñoz, Executive Dean of Counseling & Student Equity at Rio Hondo College. “Starfish is the high-powered, responsive solution that aids us in properly serving our 20,000 students.”
Starfish expands the efforts of academic counselors and faculty exponentially. As colleges with limited resources seek to serve a growing body of students both online and off campus, it’s essential to have the technology in place to serve thousands of students.
“We are proud to support the California Community Colleges as dedicated academic professionals strive to help every student succeed,” said Howard Bell, Hobsons Senior Vice President and General Manager of Starfish. “We applaud the colleges diligently working to motivate students towards credential completion, and are honored to be a part of the solution to help scale Guided Pathways.”
To learn more about Starfish, visit http://www.starfishsolutions.com.
About Starfish by Hobsons
The Starfish Enterprise Success Platform helps hundreds of colleges and universities efficiently scale their student success programs so that more students can achieve their academic and life goals. Starfish supports millions of students each term, using its analytics solution to identify at-risk students in real-time, pinpoint areas of concern, and connect students with valuable services. It also helps higher education institutions use reliable, actionable data to assess which services and interventions are working to keep students on track. Starfish was recently awarded the 2017 Guided Pathways to Success (GPS) Seal of Approval from Complete College America.
About Hobsons
A global leader in education technology, Hobsons helps students to identify their strengths, explore careers, create academic plans, match to best-fit educational opportunities, and reach their education and life goals. More than 12,000 K-12 and higher education institutions partner with Hobsons and leverage our solutions -- Naviance, Intersect, and Starfish -- to improve college and career readiness, holistic college admissions, and higher education student support for millions of students around the world.
Yurie Kwon, SutherlandGold Group for Hobsons, Inc., http://www.hobsons.com, +1 415-404-0805, [email protected]
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