NEWS
The Path to Student Success 2.0: Expanding and Strengthening Graduate Enrollment & Education
This article is the second in a three-part series by the Provost’s Office looking at recent successes in undergraduate enrollment, graduate enrollment, and how lessons learned and collaboration between levels is yielding results as Georgia State pursues its strategic vision of Student Success 2.0. Here, we examine the graduate level.
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By Jeremy Craig, Communications Manager for the Office of the Provost
In addition to an increase in undergraduate enrollment at Georgia State this past fall, another remarkable development occurred at the graduate level.
Recovering from a post-pandemic dip, graduate student enrollment grew by more than 2,450 new students to a total of 7,528 at the university – positively moving Georgia State toward its long-term vision of expanded, high-quality graduate education.
The university’s Strategic Plan entails taking GSU’s well-known reputation for undergraduate student success and applying its strategies to the graduate level. It’s part of the BluePrint to 2033 Strategic Plan’s Student Success 2.0 pillar.
Getting to this stage required an intentional, comprehensive examination of the issues – from the individual student to the organizational level.
And it’s yielded results.
“We have the right programs,” said Dr. Nicolle Parsons-Pollard, Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs. “Let’s make sure that we’re offering the right modalities, move some of the barriers out of the way, and provide the right kinds of support.”
This is a story of what Georgia State has done, and plans to do, to make this component of Student Success 2.0 a reality.
From Graduate Programs to The Graduate School
The Student Success 2.0 pillar of the BluePrint to 2033 Strategic Plan calls for Georgia State to increase the number of high-achieving graduate students, with goals to:
- Build graduate student financial support and professional development resources
- Expand the availability of high-demand degree programs and other graduate-level credentials
- Adapt proven tools and strategies from Georgia State’s undergraduate student success model to graduate students for retention and degree completion
Indeed, it’s a furtherance of GSU’s longstanding ambitions and work toward graduate program expansion and success – forming the basis for GSU’s work for today’s BluePrint to 2033 Strategic Plan.
Under Georgia State’s previous strategic plan, the university sought to expand and support graduate education, building needed and wanted programs, tailoring others, and improving the admissions and enrollment process.
To achieve this, former Provost Risa Palm appointed Dr. Lisa Armistead as associate provost for graduate programs in the mid-2010s. During that time, she worked alongside others to evaluate where graduate education stood at GSU, examining the university’s strengths and weaknesses, and possible paths forward toward growth.
Most universities provide some sort of centralized support unit for their graduate programs, taking shape from small offices and departments, all the way to the more complex organization of a college or school within a larger university – a Graduate School.
At the time she began as associate provost, Dr. Armistead was not sure if a centralized Graduate School was needed to achieve the task, but whatever resulted from the evaluation, it needed to be deliberate, cohesive and supportive.
“What I did not want to do was build a structure that added a level of bureaucracy and red tape,” said Dr. Armistead, now dean of The Graduate School. “I wanted to ensure that what we were building was necessary, was value added, that that it could complement the outstanding work of faculty, administrators and staff in our colleges.”
A turning point came after the university consulted with the Council of Graduate Schools, which met with broad swathes of people and constituencies across the institution.
While their report did not explicitly call for the establishment of a Graduate School per se, they helped the university administration understand the need for a cross-institutional support structure.
“It made very clear the risks that we were placing ourselves in, in the absence of a more cohesive, centralized structure around graduate education, both in terms of the enrollment space and in terms of the student success space,” Dr. Armistead continued.
Far from adding unnecessary bureaucracy or red tape, it turns out that building the centralized support structure has yielded great benefits for GSU.
Increasing and Strengthening Graduate Admissions Through an Institution-Wide Approach
Admissions to graduate programs have traditionally been more decentralized compared to undergraduate admissions. Units know their subject areas and can determine best which students fit their particular programs.
With an institution as complex as Georgia State, and one with greater ambitions for student success, this can present a problem of resources and the need for strategic coordination in marketing and outreach to potential students.
Successful graduate admissions and enrollment requires the ability to lead research into the needs of the academic marketplace as a whole, and to lead in cross institutional policy and marketing initiatives.
The Graduate School’s work in admissions, enrollment and program marketing bring these together for a more effective route toward Student Success 2.0.
Admissions & Enrollment Growth: What We Did
Evaluate & Adjust
The route to success in strengthening graduate education was modeled after success achieved at Georgia State’s undergraduate level: a willingness to take a comprehensive look at facts on the ground to better serve students.
That means looking at the admissions and enrollment pipeline from start to finish.
“We looked at how we bring students in,” said Dr. Nicolle Parsons-Pollard, Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs. “We started thinking about where people are in the landscape, and how we can attract them.”
“Ensuring that people know that programs exist is extremely important, and I wanted to ensure we were marketing the right programs in the right places,” Dr. Parsons-Pollard said.
Streamlining the Process: The Graduate Enrollment Management Plan
An orchestra is led by a conductor: someone who takes the differing tones of a diverse range of instruments and coordinates to harmonize them.
If a university is an orchestra, The Graduate School is a conductor. And the sheet of music to support and boost graduate admissions and enrollment is the Graduate Enrollment Management Plan.
It brings together efforts to streamline admissions processes and provide targeted outreach through robust recruitment and digital marketing campaigns.
“Our enhanced commitment and resourcing of marketing has made a difference that we can see, leading to greater enrollments,” Dr. Armistead shared.
Admission and enrollment options such as direct admission and harmonizing the elimination of GRE or GMAT requirements for admissions to be consistent with national norms among universities have also made a difference.
Identifying potentially successful graduate students among GSU’s current undergraduates is also important, systematically and early on.
This is part and parcel of the Center for the Advancement of Students and Alumni’s work (more about CASA below), but supporting high-potential undergraduates also includes the university’s four-plus-one programs – where highly motivated undergraduates can start to pursue master’s degrees while still in baccalaureate programs.
“This is a great way in which undergraduate and graduate work together to maximize our students’ educational opportunities,” Dr. Armistead explained.
Tailoring Offerings to Respond to Student Needs
GSU has gained insight into what attracts students to programs and has found multiple factors influence students’ decisions.
“Oftentimes it is about modality,” Dr. Parsons-Pollard explained, “or having the option of part-time programs or certificate programs that are stackable and can also lead to a degree.”
Responding to course modality needs is an example of how The Graduate School has been essential in understanding market needs and how the institution responds to them, through research, evaluation, planning and assessment.
For example, thanks to the evaluation and research led by The Graduate School, the university will provide the Master of Public Health degree in a completely online modality beginning in the fall of this year.
Proactive Outreach
Part of Georgia State’s advances in undergraduate student success has been a philosophy of proactive outreach to students when there are early signs of academic trouble.
That spirit of outreach now extends to the graduate level.
The university has made a concerted effort to determine what obstacles have gotten in the way of completing graduate degree program, Dr. Parsons-Pollard said, and that continues on an individual, personal level.
“We have implemented callback campaigns where, when people stop attending, we call to find out what challenge or challenges they were facing,” she said. “Was it something about the degree program? Was it because of finances?”
With this information, The Graduate School has worked with the colleges to remove barriers.
Barriers to Persist
Entering a graduate program is one thing. Sticking with one is another.
GSU students (and potential students) shared a multitude of factors as to why they do not enroll, or do not complete, their degree programs.
“It wasn’t just about how we brought them to the university,” Dr. Parsons-Pollard said. “We wanted to know what barriers were in the way that stopped them from being able to persist.”
This resulted in valuable insights to address the issues surrounding the problem.
“Often, we found that graduate students needed more advising, so that became one of the focuses,” Dr. Parsons-Pollard said.
From outreach to students, other matters included (but were not limited to) examining the possibility that GSU’s graduate program offerings have non-thesis options, as well as alternatives to some programs’ internship requirements in order to lessen the impact on working professionals’ time.
“If students are already working professionals, they would do better demonstrating their knowledge through some other project which doesn’t impact their ability to work,” Dr. Parsons-Pollard said.
And just as Georgia State has long had an impact on first-generation college students, one of GSU’s graduate students suggested a “first-in-family” program that works with students who are the first in their family to go to graduate school.
“Going to graduate school becomes a hurdle if you don’t have the right support around you,” Dr. Parsons-Pollard said. “We want to ensure that we attract people, but once we attract them, we don’t put barriers in their way once they’re here.”
Beyond Admissions & Enrollment: Support Structures
Graduate admissions are an important part of the puzzle – the start of the road toward an advanced degree. But how can you make sure that students make it from the classroom to the graduation stage?
Georgia State has several efforts through The Graduate School, the Office of the Provost, the Office of Faculty Affairs and other partners on campus to provide infrastructure and activities to support graduate students and boost their success.
These are just a few examples:
Graduate Conference for Research, Scholarship and Creative Activity
The Graduate Conference for Research, Scholarship and Creative Activity provides a platform for Georgia State’s graduate students, regardless of discipline, to show their scholarly and creative work. Participants present their work through posters, oral presentations, films, artist talks, creative displays or musical performances. (The next edition is scheduled for Feb. 5.) Through the conference, graduate students have yet another venue to practice sharing and explaining their work to others. Other such opportunities include the annual Three Minute Thesis contest, where students must explain their work in three minutes in language suitable for non-expert, but intelligent audiences. (You can read more about 3MT here.)
Writing Supports
The Graduate School regularly offers “Write-Ins” to assist graduate students, including those working on theses, dissertations and research papers, with focusing on daily writing goals and improving their writing. The aim is to develop writing confidence and to receive constructive feedback – making students more effective and independent writers. Tutors offer tailored one-on-one consultations, workshops and resources for different disciplines.
Professional Development
Graduate programs aren’t just about making it through papers and presentations. To help GSU graduate students succeed, a variety of professional development workshops and resources are available through The Graduate School.
A professional development badging program provides training that touches on professional and personal life to enhance skills in leadership, research and scholarship, data literacy and technology, wellness and resilience, and career development.
The Graduate School’s Resource Library affords 24/7 access to on-demand webinars and other materials, addressing topics such as career development, CVs, giving scholarly presentations, collaboration, research protocols and best practices, and more.
Additionally, graduate students have access to a wide range of existing training offered by the university, including the NCFDD (offered to faculty as well as graduate students), pedagogy and teaching through the Center for Excellence in Teaching, Learning and Online Education (CETLOE), University Research Services & Administration, Instructional Innovation & Technology and LinkedIn Learning.
Graduate Mentoring
Part of ensuring Student Success 2.0 means institutional support for mentoring, and this is especially true at the graduate level.
To support faculty in mentorship of graduate students, with the input from university graduate students Georgia State launched the Graduate Mentoring website at https://graduatementoring.gsu.edu.
A project of The Graduate School and the Office of Faculty Affairs, it has a wealth of useful advice, references, trainings, guides and other resources aimed at strengthening the mentoring experience between faculty and students.
Read more about the Graduate Mentoring website, its development and how it meets Georgia State’s strategic needs here.
The Center for the Advancement of Students and Alumni
As mentioned above, the Center for the Advancement of Students and Alumni, or the CASA, is the university’s effort to support and encourage promising undergraduate to consider and apply for graduate education – bringing the possibilities of graduate education to all regardless of background.
“Many of our students have the talent and the intellect to succeed in graduate programs, but don’t necessarily have the models that show them those pathways,” Dr. Armistead shared. “The CASA does a great job supporting their concrete steps toward those outcomes.”
CASA’s students are welcomed regardless of whether they consider pursuing graduate degrees at Georgia State.
“We’re not necessarily looking to keep our students at Georgia State for doctoral programs, although we welcome them and many actually do choose to stay at Georgia State,” Dr. Armistead said. “They may be deeply connected to Atlanta, or might not be interested in leaving their families, or may be unable to do so.”
Currently administered through The Graduate School, the CASA will continue its legacy of encouraging undergraduates to advance to higher steps in their academic careers as it will report to the future Center for Undergraduate Research and Creative Inquiry (CURCI).
CURCI, part of the “Student Success 2.0” pillar of the Strategic Plan, will enhance the undergraduate experience through increased opportunities for experiential learning in research, scholarship and creative activities.
You can read more about the CURCI initiative here at the Strategic Plan website. As of this writing in January 2025, Georgia State is also conducting an internal search for the center’s inaugural senior director (read more here).
Plans Into Action Now: Latest Moves
Already, key moves are taking place, and they address not only the Strategic Plan, but also help to meet an initiative under the Collaborative on Academic Careers in Higher Education (COACHE) II Action Plan.
Strategic Funding for Graduate Programs
The Graduate School also secured one-time funding to enhance marketing efforts for high-demand graduate programs, and the Georgia State University Foundation has contributed to support graduate recruitment travel and other key initiatives.
Graduate Assistant Support
Graduate Teaching Assistants, Level B – or GTABs – are primary instructors of record for university courses and are important to how the university fulfills its teaching mission.
GSU President M. Brian Blake recently approved an infusion of $1.8 million in recurring funding to support a phased plan to increase GTAB stipends.
This helps to meet the Strategic Plan goal to increase graduate student financial support, and there’s also some overlap in achieving another important university plan: the COACHE II Action Plan, BluePrint for the Path Forward 2024.
COACHE (Collaborative on Academic Careers in Higher Education) is a cyclical improvement process to address issues raised by faculty in measures of job satisfaction.
Supporting GTABs is part of the action plan that addresses faculty concerns about teaching, including the quality of graduate students who teach.
By improving stipends, the university hopes to have another tool with which to attract and retain the best talent.
The Benefits of Collaboration
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