Agenda

Note: Hannah Ross will be taking over as lead facilitator for ILG. She also runs the Senior Leadership Group (SLG) for President Patton, so this change will parallel that structure.

Student Experience Team Presentation (Toni Thomas, Jill Stoffers, Gael Meraud, Ashley Arrocha)

• This was shared with SLG last month and will be shared with the Board in written form next month
• Student Support, Trends & Meeting Challenges 
• Introduction
  • 2009 creation of CACS, integrating career and academic advising
  • 2016 creation of SET to support health and wellness, US status (ISSS), etc.
  • Student Experience Team (SET) meets 2x/ month, 11 departments, 1/2 anchor functions, 1/2 reporting to folks in Monterey
• Who MIIS Students are:
  • Idealistic, pragmatic people who want to make a difference in the world.
  • Stats: Average age now 28.6 (older than in the past), 37% international from 34 countries
  • These #s don’t capture summer program/executive program/Canvas catalog students
• Biggest concerns for our students:
  • Finances:
    • Cost of degree, scholarship levels, opportunity cost, living in Monterey, incurred debt.
    • Please note MIIS financial aid is ONLY federal aid: scholarships are managed separately as tuition discounts.
  • Career:
    • Engaging students with career readiness programming, 1-on-1 advising, participation in employer recruiting sessions/ career fair/ site visits in DC, enhanced employer search functionality in our software, lots of LinkedIn connection
    • ROI: 90% employed within one year of graduation
    • Rule of thumb is that students should not borrow more than they can make in the 1st year after graduation – average $61k
    • 70-80% F-1 students tend to pursue Optional Practical Training (OPT)
    • The second highest destination outside US is China
  • Flexibility:
    • Increasing desire for flexibility, especially from online / hybrid students
    • International/veterans/study away students are required to be in person
    • Many reside in Monterey or elsewhere, and need to work part of full time and take care of family while pursuing studies
  • Health & wellbeing:
    • Launched Timely Care in August, which fills a real gap in that we don’t have on campus medical care
    • 67% of students are registered, and 60% are using our scheduled and on-demand counseling – and rating it highly
    • Proactive programming and support on stress management, mindfulness, fitness & yoga, and more.
    • Need to build out a more robust portfolio in the future, including destigmatizing some of the issues so many grapple with
  • Community engagement:
    • It’s important for students to feel they are a part of the MIIS community – over 29 student clubs help a lot, student council sponsors community initiatives and engages in advocacy and representation, MiCommunity also is a good platform for engagement.
• What we are noticing:
  • Highest number of probations since Spring 2019 (5.03% by FTE) (many suffering from PTSD, have challenges with housing, food scarcity, family needs, financial issues, health issues, etc.)
  • More part time students
  • Lower number of students on federal aid, lower debt
  • Increased need for mental health support and programming
  • International students struggling without on-ground support
  • Students spread across multiple time zones
  • Students enrolling remotely due to high cost of living in Monterey
  • Students working full-time while studying full-time
  • Conversations about students using AI to complete assignments – we have to think about how it’s going to impact our ability to serve our students moving forward
  • One size does not fit all
  • More changes to come, at an accelerated pace
  • More working professionals with competing priorities
  • Online students overseas need country-specific career support
  • More study away/undergraduates
  • Students who take a course or two, for credit or no credit – we don’t offer the same level of service, but how do we differentiate?
  • Rise of AI: impacts on admissions process and assignments; and how AI may affect perceived value of higher education in general
• Ideas to meet challenges: Leveraging resources across Middlebury
  • Provide training to support more diverse types of learners
  • Develop a student academic success center (like CTLR)
  • Current academic support: Graduate Writing Center, foreign language tutoring, META Lab, DLC/ DLINQ
  • Coordinate decisions with anchor function managers that impact student support at MIIS
  • Collect and analyze data of our changing student body needs so we can tailor our support going forward
• Next Steps
  • Share memo on this issue with the Board
  • SET will work with Institutional Research to collect data of changing student body needs
  • Work that Toni, Laura, etc. are doing on building student success center
• Related update from Katherine: IEM is going fully online, so interested in the support for online learners. With a little extra money from the Provost grant, we have hired Alisyn Gruener to do a lit review of best practices in co-curricular support for online learners, collect data from students about their experience, write recommendations about what we can do here from orientation to support during and after the student experience.
• Discussion/Questions
  • It’s important for us to do a climate survey to better understand how students are experiencing our programs (including an eye to DEI, looking toward the long term) 
  • Smita is VP of Student Affairs not just for the College but for MIIS as well
  • Are students starting full-time, then switching to part-time as things come up? Or starting part-time?
    • Typically we see working students starting full-time and switching to part-time
  • In terms of overseas students needing career support, are there a handful of countries where we have a lot of students or is it spread across dozens of countries?
    • China is by far the largest country that international students come from, followed by Korea and Taiwan. There is a smattering from other countries.
• Closing note from Jeff Dayton-Johnson: The SET is doing a great job promoting student success. Lots of complex reporting structures within this group – wonderful that you share information to break down silos and deliberate on issues – this makes a big difference to the student experience. This team has leveraged the shared commitment to the mission and our students to give students the best experience possible.