Proposal

The College of Education’s Office for Academic and Student Services (OASS) is devoted to providing a comprehensive system of student, faculty and staff support to enhance student success in progressing through the various programs in the College of Education. What distinguishes OASS in the COE is the commitment we have to our students, faculty and programs to ensure that the standards and requirements of each department are met through the support we provide. This support comes in the areas of recruiting, orientation, advising, program and credential evaluation and management of the college data system to assist with state and national reports. What will continue to distinguish us over the next five years and beyond will be the creative and innovative methods by which we deliver the services we offer by utilizing technology in an interactive way for recruiting, presenting orientation sessions and advising new and continuing students from admission through graduation.

The College of Education has approximately 4,000 undergraduate students enrolled in elementary education, exceptional student education, secondary education, early care and education and exercise science and health promotion degree programs. It should be noted that elementary education is currently the second largest degree program at FAU, and exercise science and health promotion is one of the fastest growing programs, currently classified as the sixth largest degree track at FAU. In the 2012-2013 academic year, our academic advisors held over 3,400 appointments with undergraduate students or potential students in the College of Education.  During 2013, the advisors also had contact with approximately 1,000 potential and/or admitted freshmen and transfer students through orientation, transfer student expos and workshops, articulation workshops with local state colleges and admission open house events. Additionally, OASS has an open door policy throughout the school year allowing for walk in traffic should current or potential students require assistance, or should undeclared students visit the college seeking information on our degree programs. The College of Education is particularly concerned with undeclared majors. Without a clear academic roadmap, undeclared students can be more vulnerable to certain pitfalls and may struggle to succeed. Maximizing our ability to provide meaningful advising sessions for both individuals and for groups is essential, and the goal of the New Student Enrollment/Retention Support System will be to improve College of Education retention and graduation rates through the use of technology.

The technology fee proposal will benefit all College of Education students as well as other FAU students who visit OASS.  The goal of the proposal is to provide efficient advising to our student population in a more interactive manner than we currently have the capacity to provide.  Our physical space for working with groups is currently limited to a fifteen seat conference room and an office work room which also doubles as a storage location.  We are seeking to retro fit these two locations with A.V, equipment and technology systems which will be used by both the advisors as well as the students allowing for more meaningful and interactive advising sessions and immediate availability to registration and access to vital degree program information.

Our purpose in modifying our group meeting spaces is to strengthen the connection between academic advising and the higher education experience. Our belief is that academic advising plays an important role in student success, and there is growing evidence to suggest that when students work with informed, capable advisors they are more likely to complete their programs of study.  Should our advisors have the capability to access and disseminate needed information in a format conducive to student learning, our belief is that student retention will increase.  Our goal is to foster the ability for our advisors to be instructional, mentoring and welcoming to new and continuing students and to allow them to establish ongoing academic relationships.  We are confident that using technology in this effort will enhance student development and positively impact student achievement and ultimately graduation.

ED 232 and ED 233 are rooms currently used by OASS for meeting students for college information sessions and group orientations.  These rooms are not currently equipped with any technology for the advisors or students to take advantage of, and our request is to transform these areas to create a fully updated, interactive technology environment which can be used by both the advisor and/or presenter as well as the students or potential students .   No substantive changes are needed in the facilities being used other than Project number P-6001 which is to install additional electrical outlets for the TV screens.

Two desktop computers with new monitors – $2,000.00

Ten laptop computers for student use - $10,000.00

Three tablets - $2,000.00

Cables and surge protectors for laptops - $250.00

Network cables for room ED 233 - $400.00

Two 80” Full HD 1080p 120 Hz AQUOS LED Smart TV - $7905.88

Two LCD Tilt Mounts - $314.50

Two CPU Adaptors – $30.40

Two Wall plates with VGA and Audio, HDMI - $106.66

Two VGA DA with Audio - $733.34

Two 12’ HDMI Cable - $120.00

Two 50’ HDMI Cable - $493.34

Two 12’ VGA and Audio Cable - $80.00

Installation materials – $500.22

Labor and System warranties - $3992.44

N/A

N/A

Timeline will be contingent upon availability of approved funds as well as the availability of the COE Technology Team and AVI and OIT Teams.  Our goal would be to provide the enhanced services with summer orientation beginning in May, 2014.

Our goal would be to provide maintenance of all equipment as per the guidelines of the COE Technology Team, and to monitor for any upgrades or modifications as the need should arise.

N/A

The COE Technology team will work with the AVI and OIT teams to implement this project.