In an effort to cut costs and keep students from dropping out after their first year, the University this summer folded the Advising Services, Career Services and Professional Life Development departments into three Student Success Centers located at each USM campus.
Combining the three departments resulted in the elimination of 21 positions, 19 of which will ultimately be filled as new positions in the Success Centers.
A search committee that met in July and August did not recommend six people who worked in the old departments for rehire.
The search committee is looking internally to fill five remaining positions.
A team of advising professionals from other colleges reviewed USM’s advising services last fall. They found that departments in charge of advising students were convoluted and often hindered student success.
“We have many students who apply for graduation and don’t finish. I worry about them,” said Susan Campbell, associate vice president for Academic Affairs. “We need to monitor student progress to a degree – and through a degree.”
According to the Conceptual Framework document penned by Campbell and presented at a joint senate meeting in June, “the establishment of Student Success Centers that serve as the first point of student referral will reduce the ‘run-around’ that continues to plague our student complaints.”
“It’s an integrated model. What we’re really looking at is connecting with students in meaningful way from the point of acceptance [into USM],” Campbell said.
Changing advising services has been a major goal for Student Body President Maggie Guzman. The new streamlined Success Centers will help students get through a degree with fewer headaches, she said.
“You still have an academic advisor and a financial aid advisor, but now you have someone else who is kind of like ensuring that you’re getting up-to-date information,” she said.
A kiosk in Bailey Hall in Gorham was built to welcome students, Campbell said, because “there’s an awful lot on the Portland campus and in Gorham there’s not as much.” The new facility is the only physical addition to the University as a result of the new department, but Campbell plans to improve on the Center in Portland as well.
“We do want to look at that lobby area in Payson [Smith Hall]. I think it needs some work,” she said.
Campbell said the Strategic Plan – a five-year manifesto outlining broad changes to the structure of USM – was a guide for the decision to create the Student Success Centers.
“We have one University and three campuses,” she said. “We need to find a way to bring cohesion to services.”