Page 8 - Academic Report FINAL VERSION WEB

FEATURES

Momentum Year at MGA supporting “students’ resilience in the face of set-
backs” and helping them “avoid becoming demoti-
Dr. Michael Gibbons vated and disengaged with their academic pursuits”
(USG, “What is a Momentum Year?”). This mindset is
In Fall 2018, Dr. Tristan Denley, Executive Vice incorporated into the curriculum, advising sessions,
Chancellor for Academic Affairs and Chief Academic and student life, with a team from each department
Officer for the University System of Georgia (USG), working on folding growth mindset initiatives into
launched the Momentum Year initiative across the each area of college life.
USG. Momentum Year is an evidence-driven ap-
proach to programming students’ first year of college A few other changes implemented under the
to maximize their chances of success. This initiative Momentum Year initiative include changing learn-
helps first-year students avoid common mistakes ing support courses from a prerequisite to a coreq-
that hinder their progress and cost them time and uisite model. Research showed that students were
money on their way to graduation. more successful when they took an intensive support
class along with their required math and English core
All USG schools are implementing Momentum than when they took a remedial class before the core
Year elements, but the schools themselves decided course.
which elements to implement and how to do so. At
MGA, the Momentum Year initiative includes several Finally, gateway courses have been redesigned,
components. tested, and scaled over the last two years. Gateway
courses are courses in which student success at all ap-
One initiative includes restructuring the freshman titude levels is strongly predictive of later success. It’s
year to strongly encourage students to take 15 credit not that better students succeed at gateway courses
hours in fall and spring of their freshman year (for 30 and following courses. Rather, students at all levels
hours total) as opposed to the minimum of 12 hours who succeed at gateway courses succeed at higher
required to be a full-time student each semester. rates in following courses. At MGA the first gateway
These 30 hours also include 9 credit hours in their courses that were redesigned and tested were Intro-
major area. ductory Political Sciences and Psychology courses.

For the same reason that students are being en-
couraged to take courses in their major area during
the first year, Enrollment Management redesigned
new student orientation to more fully introduce stu-
dents to their major, advisors, and faculty within the
school in which they are studying. Academic Affairs
consolidated career advising and academic advising
and moved them into the schools. All of these chang-
es allow the students to be immersed into their de-
partment and school more quickly.

The advising reorganization also included switch-
ing to a caseload management model. This model
assigns students to specific advisors and also des-
ignated faculty mentors. Advisors can be proactive
to more closely monitor their students’ progress and
keep an eye out for early problems. Assigned faculty
mentors allow faculty to give future career and topi-
cal advice to students early in their academic careers.

While students are still free to explore and may
change majors if they wish, research suggests that
“undecided” students are more likely to fail than stu-
dents who are placed in a major or field of study early
on, including those who might change majors. With
all of the changes noted above, MGA is moving to a
model in which students are placed into Focus Areas
of study immediately, doing away with the “undecid-
ed major” designation.

A second goal was to help build students’ aca-
demic mindset, modeled after the “growth mindset”
theory. According to the USG, this mindset empha-
sizes learning and growth over a focus on grades,

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