Increase your capacity, realize your goals, and identify opportunities to become more student-centered
We define “student centered” as “responsive to and focused on the needs of students.” Student-centered programs proactively meet the needs of students, leading to better outcomes–for students and institutions alike.
We bring project management, facilitation, and a collaborative mindset to every project. Key to our approach is a focus on integrating the student voice and using co-design to ensure that solutions not only meet the needs of your institution, but also enable you to make the best use of resources.
Example Questions and Projects
If you have questions, we can help find the answers. Below are example questions we can help answer and projects with which we can assist.
How might we:
Better connect students to needed resources, such as wraparound services, benefits, and academic supports?
Reduce the number of “hassle factors” that stand between students and the assistance they need?
Ensure that our engagement and support efforts are truly addressing the most pressing student needs?
Make our processes, such as enrollment or course placement, more equitable?
Improve our student-facing communications by reducing deficit and stigma-producing language and improving clarity and plain language?
We’d like to learn:
How students are experiencing a particular program or service, such as orientation, and where to improve
Why students are dropping/stopping out or failing to complete an intended next step in a program or process
How and where to deploy limited resources for maximum impact on student success
How to effectively communicate with students, staff, and faculty without contributing to stress and overwhelm
How to develop and gather metrics to track and address student needs and student success
More About Our Services
Student-Centered Program Assessment
Assess effectiveness and impact through an equity lens
We can help identify equity gaps and hidden challenges in programs and services, plus uncover areas of improvement and opportunity. Tools and techniques include:
“Secret shopper” reviews of processes and programs
Analysis of student voices and student experience mapping
Qualitative and quantitative analysis of student outcomes
Student experience/student voice research
Research Support
Understand where, why, and how students are struggling
Using a wide range of methodological tools, we can collect and analyze data to help you better meet student and institutional needs. Tools and techniques include:
Surveys, focus groups, and in-depth or micro-interviews
Regression, hypothesis testing, and quantitative data analysis
Literature reviews
Structured, semi-structured, or unstructured observation
Intervention Design and Testing
Co-design solutions to remove critical student roadblocks
We embrace a participatory and human-centered design approach, rooted in understanding how people actually think, behave, and feel instead of how we assume they will. Tools and techniques include:
Customer journey mapping, empathy mapping, and behavioral mapping
Applied behavioral science/social science methodologies and techniques
Co-designing and testing interventions and solutions
Measuring the impact of interventions and solutions
Process Improvement
Eliminate friction and “sludge” in your processes and systems
We focus on making processes and systems less painful, enabling you to make the most of limited resources and deploy them effectively to foster student success. Tools and techniques include:
“Sludge” audits to identify unneeded steps and administrative burden
Process mapping to identify where bottlenecks and obstacles exist
Streamlining and simplification tools and techniques
Implementing continuous improvement systems
Snapshots of Our Work In Action
Access to Benefits at the Right Time, In the Right Way
The Student-Centered Design team is working with a large multi-campus community college to develop a systematic way to connect students with the right benefits and resources in a manner that is equitable, stigma-reducing, and scalable.
Part-Time Student Success
The Student-Centered Design team is working with an urban college to identify the barriers faced by part-time students and design interventions to address key barriers in a way that enables the college to better utilize resources to support student success.
