Differentiated care recognizes that proactively understanding what level of care a
student might benefit from allows the university to strategically scaffold care for
students as a preventative rather than as reactionary. The below graphic shows how
a university might distinguish between student care needs and align resources based
on care. This differentiation can be done regarding support services such as tutoring,
writing center, financial support, etc. It can also be done when we think about facilitating
student enrollment and the differentiated steps students might need to take based
on the level of support, they need in navigating registration.
Note: we intentionally utilize the word “care” instead of “need” because WCU believes the
focus isn’t about a deficit within our students, but instead about the responsibility
the institution must see how we can support and champion our students’ success.
Coordinated Care takes the responsibility off the student to navigate the institution,
and instead makes the institution responsible for coordinating care for the student.
In coordinating care, the University will help to prioritize supports based on the
student’s need, will customize the supports for a student, and will help to ensure
communication, coordination, and priorities are clearly streamlined. We like to say
it doesn’t put it on the backs of students to figure out what communications to pay
attention to or what supports to prioritize.
The below graphics show how care can look in both an uncoordinated and coordinated
approach.
In a traditional model, a student would receive communications/outreaches from many
different offices offering supports. These multiple outreaches are well-intentioned
but may be confusing for a student to prioritize.
In a coordinated care model, student would have an advocate who coordinates care for
students. This advocate would have opportunities to build relationships with students
throughout their transition to WCU such as being at accepted student day, orientation,
student events, etc. As alerts/cases are issued for students this information would
go to the advocate to help connect students with resources.
The below figure shows how student feedback would go to an advocate who is assigned
to help connect students with resources.
The advocate helps to take the burden off the student to figure out how to connect
with services, prioritize care, and navigate the institution. Instead of receiving
outreach from across campus, the advocate is the primary contact with the student.
This is very similar to the successful COMPASS program we are currently utilizing.
The Academic Support & Advocacy Center aims to scale the success of COMPASS to help
coordinate differentiated care strategies to more students.
We utilize the word advocate to denote the university professional who helps to provide
high-touch care to students. This individual is helping students connect with resources,
collaborating across campus to develop plans that support student success, and being
a regular resource to the students they care for.
Advocacy is most often found to not be tied to a student’s discipline. It doesn’t
replace discipline-based supports such as faculty advisors, student success coordinators,
chairs and deans. However, it is often outside of the discipline and students connect
with an advocate for their entire tenure, so that the advocate doesn’t change if a
student changes majors or colleges. An advocate does not replace faculty advisors
but supplements their work.
There are many aspects of advocacy that WCU is still determining. For example, particularly
in the formation phase of ASA we are determining how students will be connected with
an advocate, which students will have an advocate, how the advocate will proactively
community with faculty and staff who are also supporting the student.
