Southeast works toward degree mapping

With more jobs requiring education beyond high school, Southeast Missouri State University is trying to increase the percentage of people with certificates, associate or college degrees.

To this end, the university has rolled out several programs to help students earn degrees faster and help them focus on a path, said Debbie Below, vice president for enrollment management and student success and dean of students.

The university's initiative is part of national ventures by the Lumina Foundation and Complete College America, among others, whose goal is to get 60 percent of Americans to obtain high-quality postsecondary degrees or credentials by 2025.

Two ways of putting students on a more-focused path are degree maps and offering them advice. The 8.5-by-11-inch information sheets, which feature all students need to know about a major and its requirements, are meant to provide a systematic way for students to see what is required academically to complete it.

The maps also provide the college those degrees fall under, employment and graduate school opportunities, whether the program is nationally accredited and who they contact for more information.

"We'll have 150 of these just at the undergraduate level when we're finished with this project," Below said. "Then we will move into creating similar maps for our graduate programs."

Below said a commitment to work on degree mapping was made in September, and plans are to have most of them in place when students register for fall classes this spring. The project began with assigning work to campus departments, researching how other institutions displayed the information to students, then agreeing to a consistent format.

"The goal is to help students complete in a more timely manner. We wanted them to see upfront what that would take to accomplish that goal," Below said.

There are students who come to college thinking they want to pursue one career field, but find they may not have the acumen.

"Part of the degree map is making sure you are in the right program of study. So this is what Southeast says that we will do for you to help you prepare for a career," Below said. "In your first semester, you'll complete the FOCUS II assessment, and you'll develop a career action plan ... based on the results of the FOCUS."

Since there has been a lot said and written about job growth in science, engineering, technology and math fields, many students think they may want to pursue one of those majors.

"And yet the results of their FOCUS may say that they are wonderful with people, they love playing the guitar, they'd be great at sales," Below said. "How [you] begin match those things up, I don't know. Maybe it's music therapy. You can still work in health care, but don't go to school to be a physician because you have no interest in being a physician. We have to have those conversations upfront with students."

Below said the university talks to students about the cost of repaying student loans. "We want you to think about how much you borrow as you begin at the university and align that with the earnings in your potential career field so [you] can just begin thinking about these things in [your] first year, knowing of course these will change," she said.

An automated degree tracking system called

DegreeWorks, implemented about three years ago, also helps students keep track of their GPA and categorizes their met and unmet degree requirements. "They can also run what's called a 'what if,' so in their senior year if they said what if I changed my major from X to Y, it would show them how many more hours would be required so that they don't make that decision without that knowledge," Below said.

FOCUS

Michele Tapp, director of academic advising and career services, said the

FOCUS is an self-guided online assessment students are required to take.

"What it does is it creates a road map because it [takes] them through a series of questions that they answer; their interests, aptitudes, hobbies, things they're good at. They answer series of questions based on a strong interest inventory, but it also puts them in general categories to be thinking about," Tapp said. "If they're artistic, entrepreneurial, more geared toward math and science, it provides possible career paths based on those interests."

"It gives you a nice range of things to think about," she said, adding it meets the students where they are.

Then there are career counselors such as Katie Crawford.

Crawford said about 80 percent of the students she works with already have taken the FOCUS assessment and have the results.

Crawford said the assessment is not meant to label students.

"It's a tool we use to help facilitate that brainstorming process; start figuring out what they want and connecting that with [what that] can mean career-wise and major-wise at Southeast," Crawford said.

rcampbell@semissourian.com

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