Latest / The Gill Athletics Track and Field Connections Podcast / BONUS: BoSCA-Danica Perner the Asst. AD of Student-Athlete Services at Winona State University "Strategies to Improve Student-Athlete Retention Rates"

Transcript

BONUS: BoSCA-Danica Perner the Asst. AD of Student-Athlete Services at Winona State University "Strategies to Improve Student-Athlete Retention Rates" · The Gill Athletics Track and Field Connections Podcast

• 0:00
  It's bonus time. For the past few weeks here on
• 0:03
  the Gill Connections podcast, we've been giving you some
• 0:06
  amazing value from Bosca, the business of small college
• 0:09
  athletics, the convention they held in July up in Oak Brook,
• 0:12
  IL. If you haven't listened to the
• 0:14
  other, there's four others. This is the fifth one.
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  Please go back and look for amazing a DS from around the
• 0:19
  country talking about culture, leadership, just just topics
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  that we need to continue to build and become great in the
• 0:26
  track and field coaching community.
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  This last one here, our fifth week here, we got Danica Perner.
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  She's the assistant AD for student athlete services at the
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  great Winona State Universities. She's going to be talking about
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  strategies to improve student athlete retention rate.
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  She gives an amazing talk about what what the athletic
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  coordinators and and counselors do to help keep kids in school
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  successfully all the way through graduation.
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  I think there's a thing or two for us to learn here from Danica
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  and her team what she does there at Winona State.
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  So help me welcome Danica Perner, Winona State University.
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  Thanks, John. As John said, my name is Danica
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  Perner. I am the Assistant Athletic
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  Director for Student Athlete Services at Winona State.
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  For those of you that may not know too much about Winona, we
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  are a division two institution that is located in southeastern
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  Minnesota right along the Mississippi.
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  We are a part of the Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference
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  and so today I want to talk to you guys about what we do within
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  our student Athletes Services department that we feel really
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  helps the retention of our student athletes.
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  And so to give a little bit of background about our student
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  athletes Services department, we have a unique set up at Winona
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  State in the fact that we have two full time athletic staff
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  members that are solely dedicated to the academics of
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  our student athletes. We are the only institution in
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  our conference that has these resources for our student
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  athletes. So we really think it puts them
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  above and beyond when looking at holistic development for our
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  student athletes. Like I said, the department is
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  made-up of two of us. We oversee 15 sports, which
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  equates to roughly 400 student athletes and we split that
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  evenly by number. So I oversee 5 of the teams and
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  my counterpart overseas the other teams, but I oversee some
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  of the bigger ones such as football, track and field while
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  he overseas some of the smaller ones, but again, equaling
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  roughly 200 athletes in total. So some of the main things that
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  we focus on that really feel that it relates to our retention
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  is academic advising, which I'll jump into a little bit more
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  later on. We also handle all the academic
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  eligibility and monitoring both at the NCAA and institutional
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  level. We do create individualized
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  success plans for each of our student athletes.
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  And this is really, really key for the fact that we know that
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  each incoming student athlete needs different services to
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  succeed. And so sometimes that may
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  require them to have a certain required number of structured
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  study hall hours or additional meetings per week.
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  Whatever it takes, all those individualized success plans
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  lead to a path to graduation, which again, is our ultimate
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  goal. At the end of this, we do offer
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  priority registration, so all of our incoming student athletes do
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  register in front of the general population.
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  This really helps us when we're trying to avoid conflicts with
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  practice. And then our last thing is that
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  we oversee a lot of the student ethic development.
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  One of the big things I'll talk about in a little bit is our new
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  orientation program for incoming and transfer students, which is
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  called SHIELD. And then below you can see some
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  of our roles and responsibilities as academic
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  advisors. We are in a retention role.
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  And so it is a big goal of ours every year to retain a high
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  number of student athletes, which kind of leads into our
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  next slide here. So it's a little bigger in on
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  your USB drive too. But these are just some of the
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  retention rates and graduation rates for our student athletes
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  versus our non student athletes. The big ones I want to point out
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  are our second year retention rate.
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  As you can see for WC student athletes, it was 95% from 2023
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  to 2024 for our freshmen to sophomores.
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  And then you can see obviously our graduation rates again
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  roughly 20% higher than our general population.
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  Then the other big point to point out here is our students
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  of color. When you look at that, the six
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  year graduation rate average is almost 40% higher than our non
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  athletes of color. Similarly with the second year
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  retention rate, we're retaining on average at least 80% of our
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  student athletes of color compared to the university's
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  57%. So jumping into what keeps your
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  athletes at your university, you're going to always have
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  student athletes that choose your university because of its
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  geographical location. Do they have connections to the
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  university? Did their parents go there?
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  Do their class sizes really fit what you're looking for?
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  But a bigger reason may be why they have a sense of belonging
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  to the program or the culture you know.
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  Is the school a good fit for them?
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  Do their do they get along with their teammates?
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  Their teammates passions align with their passions, and so some
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  of these things are really important to keep in mind when
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  you're trying to set up what you're going to do in terms of
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  retention. We found that one big thing is
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  increased points of contact across campus.
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  At Winona State, on average, our general students probably have
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  at least four different points of contact on campus, whether
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  that's if they're living on campus as a freshman, in terms
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  of hall director or Ras. If they're a first generation
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  student, they're getting contact from our TRIO department.
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  If they're a student of color, they're getting contact from our
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  Office of Equity and Inclusive Excellence.
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  If they're an international student, they're being connected
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  with advisors in that area as well.
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  And then obviously student athletes are connected with
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  myself and Justin. And the last big thing here is
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  investing in the student and the athlete.
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  It gets really easy to focus on the successes on the field, on
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  the court, but also championing the athlete as an individual and
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  within their major. And so we really encourage our
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  student athletes to participate in clubs and organizations
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  outside of athletics, whether that be clubs or or
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  organizations within their majors, student Senate or other
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  opportunities on campus, really to just broaden their experience
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  while they're at Winona State. Additionally, we really try to
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  promote and give a holistic development opportunity,
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  obviously within academics and athletics, but also providing
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  opportunities for growth with, you know, the physical aspect,
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  the social aspect and the mental aspect too.
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  And so I'm going to jump in here to some of the retention
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  strategies that we focus on and then I'll jump into some
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  resources that we use for that as well.
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  So proactive advising is the approach to advising that we
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  take at Winona State. This is a very intentional form
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  of form of advising. We are reaching out to our
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  student athletes almost a year in advance to them even stepping
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  on campus when we know that they're committed to our
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  programs. We're reaching out about setting
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  up registration days and any questions and have you signed
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  your housing And really continuously continuing that
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  communication throughout the summer time into the fall when
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  they set foot on campus. And with our routine academic
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  meetings, our structure is any incoming student athletes we
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  meet with once a week that first semester.
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  And that's really to try and help them monitor, monitor that
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  transition from high school to college.
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  So in our weekly meetings, we'll talk long term, short term
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  conversations. In the short term, we're jumping
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  on our D2L and asking them how fast they're going.
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  Are there anything you're struggling in?
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  How are exams going? If there's anything that we're
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  stressing as a concern, that's a great opportunity for us to see
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  that and address it before it gets too far down the road.
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  And then in addition to that, for our most at risk student
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  athletes, we meet with them on a twice a week basis.
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  And again, that's just to really help give that additional
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  support that they might need for their academic success plan.
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  And then those most at risk student athletes also have, like
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  I said, the assigned structure study hall hours every semester.
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  And again, those assigned structure study hall hours are
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  times that we insert into their schedule to really allow them
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  that specific time to focus on academics.
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  And it's really proved helpful and students can graduate out of
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  structure study hall. Just because they might come in
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  as an at risk student athlete doesn't mean they're still in
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  that criteria the entire way through.
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  If they really show us that they've improved their time
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  management skills, that they're succeeding academically, we may
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  reduce those structure study Hall hours or again, take them
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  away completely for them. And again, our orientation
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  program, which I'll jump into in the next couple slides.
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  And then we're also in the process of developing a student
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  ethic development series. So this is more so for our
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  sophomores, juniors and seniors where we're going to cover
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  topics such as career readiness, financial literacy, life after
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  sport. And then giving them access to
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  an alumni database of student athletes, where they're located,
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  what occupations and fields our alumni are working in.
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  That way they have people they can reach out to for
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  connections. Also an athlete programming I'll
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  jump into as well. And then the student Athlete
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  Services department, we administer our end of the year
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  student athlete survey. If you don't do this in person,
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  I would highly encourage you to do it.
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  We intentionally do ours at the end of the academic year.
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  We pull the team in for a team meeting and we administer it
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  there. And we see a higher rate of
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  completion on those surveys and also more thoughtful and
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  thorough answers. And we say that we're in there
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  just to administer. We sit in the corner.
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  We're there to answer any tech questions, not to oversee
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  whatever they're submitting on those student athlete surveys,
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  but we found great return to do it in person versus sending out
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  as an e-mail and hey, complete this by a certain date.
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  So again, we've we've found that very helpful.
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  And then we compile that data and we look for common themes
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  not only amongst our entire student athlete database, but
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  then also within specific teams. I know quite a few campuses have
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  a campus early intervention program, but if but if not, I
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  would encourage you to talk to your administration.
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  What this campus EIP program is, is that if a student is
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  struggling academically, a professor can submit an EIP
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  which then gets sent to all of those points of contact that are
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  connected to a student. And so whenever an EIP is
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  submitted on a student athlete, myself and Justin are both
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  tagged in that and we respond accordingly.
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  And the thing I like to point out about our campus EIP program
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  is that it's been really successful in the past two
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  years. We've had 100% response rate
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  from all of the touch points that are connected to students,
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  which really just shows the all around support that our students
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  are getting at Winona State. And then the last strategy for
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  retention I'll touch on here too is involving stakeholders in
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  those retention plans. So working with different campus
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  partners and organizations across campus involving those
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  player associations and important offices on campus such
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  as alumni and admissions. So this is our breakdown of our
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  SHIELD course. For those of you that may not
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  know, the Winona State mascot is a warrior.
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  So that is how we involve SHIELD into the title, but SHIELD also
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  is an acronym for things that we want our athletes to build
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  pillars on and take away during their time at Winona State.
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  So SHIELD stands for Success, Health, Integrity, Excellence,
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  Learning and Discipline, and this new orientation course is a
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  completely online course. We launched this prior to the
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  2324 academic year. Prior to that, we did a life
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  skills course in person in the evenings in the fall.
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  And we just realized that really wasn't working for our student
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  athletes, especially those in fall sports where they would go
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  from practice to quickly eating dinner and then hopping into
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  class for another hour, hour and a half.
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  So building this online course really allows them to work
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  through this at their own pace. We're also very intentional
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  about releasing and launching this course for the new cohort
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  at the beginning of August every year.
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  The reason we do that is that way they have access to all the
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  materials before they even step foot on campus.
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  So they become, they can become familiar with how to use D2L,
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  where they can find, you know, financial aid or their advisor's
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  office before they even get to campus.
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  We do have due dates, rough due dates, assigned with this
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  course. It's more so to make sure that
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  they're working through the course on a routine basis where
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  Module 1 is due the middle of September, Module 2 is due the
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  middle of October, Module 3 is due the middle of November with
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  an all-encompassing quiz which just pretty much asks for
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  feedback of what you like, what you didn't like, what can we
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  improve on for next year? And again, there's no penalty if
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  they don't complete it. It's open the entire year.
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  But we really encourage them to work through it by those due
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  dates. The other really cool thing
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  about this orientation program is that we designed it in
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  collaboration with one of our former student athletes.
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  We really feel it's important to have a student athlete
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  perspective on something like this.
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  And so one of our former women's tennis athletes did a lot of
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  this with us and helped give us insight of what things they want
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  covered in these modules. So the first module is all of
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  academic success. We try to make all these modules
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  interactive as well. So it's not just watching videos
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  or reading articles, but really getting them engaged with
• 13:39
  different either departments on campus throughout the website.
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  But Module 1 covers a lot about effective communicating,
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  effective communication with professors, which was talked
• 13:48
  about earlier, but also how to handle missing class, what they
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  should be doing prior to missing class, what they should do once
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  they respond or return to the classroom after missing class.
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  We do have other information, Module 1, nil information, as
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  well as time management tips and apps.
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  You'll notice that we've finished every module of
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  resources for them. Those are downloadable PDFs with
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  all clickable links that can take them where they need at the
• 14:14
  click of a button. And so with the academic module,
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  we have stuff specific for WSU academics such as, you know, the
• 14:21
  student athlete code of conduct, where to find things, how to
• 14:24
  register for classes, but then also student athlete specific
• 14:28
  resources as well. Module 2 is all about nutrition.
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  The really cool thing with this module and the interactive
• 14:36
  pieces of it is that it's specific to a normal state.
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  So this how to eat smart in the calf, which is the first like
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  interactive element they come across, really talks about and
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  gives them a road map of where to find specific things on
• 14:49
  campus that they are looking for, whether it's additional
• 14:51
  protein, quick grab and go snacks, how to build a healthy
• 14:56
  meal on the go, what they can have for breakfast in the CAF
• 14:58
  that really, you know, gets them energized for the full day.
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  So that's a really cool interactive piece that our
• 15:04
  athletes have appreciated. And then this one has more
• 15:07
  videos on pre and post workout meal planning and then also how
• 15:12
  to get healthy when you're on the road.
• 15:14
  And then again, the resources for this module, it does have,
• 15:17
  you know, how to shop on a budget, how to make healthy
• 15:21
  meals at low costs. Again, things that are really
• 15:24
  relatable to the incoming freshman population.
• 15:29
  And then our last module talks about mental health and
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  Wellness. So again, we have two pretty
• 15:34
  impactful videos to start the module that talk about the
• 15:37
  importance of good mental health as a student athlete.
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  But then we also covered the other parts of mental health in
• 15:43
  terms of stress management and sleep.
• 15:46
  The other really cool thing with this is that we have a link to
• 15:50
  the WC Green Bandana project right on our D2L page.
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  So if our student athletes choose to, they can take the
• 15:57
  pledge and become an advocate for mental health and be an ear
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  for those that might be going through a mental health
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  struggle. And so that's kind of our Shield
• 16:05
  program in a nutshell. Again, just kind of talking
• 16:08
  through what it is that we offer our incoming student athletes.
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  The feedback that we have received is that this is such a
• 16:15
  great tool for them. Again, where they might not know
• 16:18
  where to go for certain things. This allows them to track those
• 16:21
  resources down. And then the other thing that we
• 16:25
  really help we think builds our student after retention is our
• 16:29
  all athlete programming. So the picture on the bottom
• 16:32
  here at the beginning of every academic year, we have a welcome
• 16:35
  back picnic. I'm sure a bunch of you do this
• 16:37
  as well, but it gives a chance for us athletic administrators
• 16:41
  to introduce ourselves to our student athletes.
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  We allow our SAC executive board to introduce themselves as well,
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  talk through any of the initiatives they're looking to
• 16:49
  implement that year. And then we usually have a lunch
• 16:52
  or a dinner and then play some games we've played, you know,
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  giant rock, paper, scissors, Simon Says, yard games such as
• 16:59
  spike ball and cornhole. So it really just gives them a
• 17:02
  chance to connect to student athletes across other teams that
• 17:05
  they might not see throughout the year because of their busy
• 17:07
  schedules. The top right two pictures.
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  We actually talked about this a little bit in our round table.
• 17:14
  We do a Warrior's Got Talent, so this is a way for our athletes.
• 17:19
  They raise money for Make a Wish in the process, but they really
• 17:22
  enjoy this because it allows them to do something that
• 17:26
  doesn't involve the skill of their sport.
• 17:28
  And So what it is, is it's a lip sync dance battle combination.
• 17:32
  And our teams prepare weeks in advance.
• 17:35
  They find times to choreograph with each other.
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  And then it's a bracketed system where two teams go head to head.
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  They they dance in front of the rest of the athletes and they're
• 17:44
  voted on by judges who are sometimes coaches.
• 17:48
  Our president was a judge the other year and they continue to
• 17:51
  move forward. And then we have an eventual
• 17:53
  winner. So again, they really enjoy the
• 17:55
  opportunities to get together, do things that are non
• 17:58
  athletically related. And then the top 2 left pictures
• 18:02
  involve our student athlete keynote speakers each semester.
• 18:06
  So the one on the middle left, I guess you would say.
• 18:11
  We had Porter Moser talk to our athletes about the Loyola
• 18:15
  Project, the 1963 men's basketball team, and breaking
• 18:19
  down the racial barriers on the way to win a national
• 18:21
  championship. And then on the far left, we
• 18:24
  have Mark Potter. Him and his wife Annette came to
• 18:27
  campus to tell their story about going through mental health, how
• 18:31
  to support somebody that's going through a mental health crisis.
• 18:34
  And we really base these all athlete programming and keynote
• 18:38
  speakers off of feedback we get from our student athlete end of
• 18:41
  the year survey. What do they want to see?
• 18:43
  What do they want more information on?
• 18:45
  And so that really helps them to provide us or really helps
• 18:47
  provide us with ideas going into the next academic year going to
• 18:54
  involving stakeholders and retention plans.
• 18:56
  So we really try to partner with different departments across
• 19:00
  campus where we may not have the expertise.
• 19:03
  So we'll use Marcom to help us design different graphics for
• 19:06
  things or logos for different events.
• 19:09
  We use our social media as a big tool.
• 19:12
  We post with our university account or our alumni account
• 19:19
  when big events are coming up in the fall.
• 19:21
  We're doing a celebration for 50 years of women's sports at WSU
• 19:26
  and that was a huge joint post across our athletics department,
• 19:30
  our alumni office, and then also our general Winona State social
• 19:33
  media accounts. We do digital signage across
• 19:36
  campus. So as a lot of you have, we have
• 19:39
  TV's in a lot of our buildings. We make sure to update that each
• 19:42
  week with what's going on in athletics, which kind of falls
• 19:45
  into the all university e-mail as well.
• 19:47
  So again, really just trying to connect our students and student
• 19:50
  athlete populations in all these different ways.
• 19:54
  With player associations. We have, I believe, 4 active
• 19:58
  player associations on campus or within our athletics programs.
• 20:03
  These are usually the most committed alumni that want to
• 20:07
  give back to their programs. So it's really important to tap
• 20:10
  into those networks. Usually those player
• 20:12
  associations are really good with.
• 20:14
  Working with our alumni office with player and alumni reunions
• 20:19
  and socials, they also, it also gives them a chance to connect
• 20:22
  with current students again in the hopes that when our current
• 20:26
  athletes graduate, they will then want to become part of the
• 20:29
  player associations and give back to the university and to
• 20:32
  the program that gave to them. With our alumni and admissions
• 20:36
  offices, we do a lot with alumni in terms of game day experience.
• 20:40
  So what this is is it started in the fall with football games.
• 20:46
  We tried to create a super exciting atmosphere around
• 20:49
  football Saturdays. So our alumni office, they get
• 20:54
  benders from around the Winona community.
• 20:56
  We have food trucks, there's campus partners that are there.
• 20:59
  We've had axe throwing and inflatables, but really trying
• 21:04
  to create a hype around the game day experience.
• 21:08
  And then it kind of culminates with what we call our Warrior
• 21:11
  walk. So our football team walks from
• 21:13
  the locker room, they're escorted by the WSU band through
• 21:17
  the game day experience down to the football field.
• 21:19
  And it's just a really cool atmosphere to see and to see the
• 21:22
  athletes get excited when they're intermingling with the
• 21:25
  crowd. And the fall game day
• 21:27
  experiences have been such a success that we started to
• 21:29
  implement a spring game day experience and also a winter
• 21:32
  game day experience on a weekend for both of our spring sports
• 21:36
  and our winter sports too. And then again, helping out
• 21:40
  other departments on campus. Our head coaches assist with
• 21:43
  admissions office duties when needed.
• 21:45
  If there's a lot of tours going around on campus, they'll ask
• 21:49
  our coaches to step in and pinch it and lead tours.
• 21:52
  And same thing when they're on the road recruiting.
• 21:54
  If they're going to a high school where there are, you
• 21:57
  know, four or five students interested in one on state,
• 22:00
  they'll bring materials, they'll bring swag, they'll talk to the
• 22:03
  counselors on those campuses. So again, if you already have a,
• 22:06
  A, the coach traveling to a school, we try to help with some
• 22:10
  of that admission stuff as well. These are some of the resources
• 22:16
  that we've developed to help with retention strategies.
• 22:20
  Some of these may seem like a lot of work up front, but after
• 22:23
  the initial development, it's a lot of just maintaining.
• 22:27
  So I promise you it gets a little easier.
• 22:29
  I'll jump into the reports a little bit more later on.
• 22:33
  We do have infographics developed for different
• 22:35
  demographics appreciation events.
• 22:39
  We do have an athletic review committee on campus.
• 22:41
  I know this isn't required by the NCAA, but we feel it's
• 22:45
  really important at Winona State.
• 22:47
  This really helps to bridge the gap between academics and
• 22:51
  athletics. And our athletic review
• 22:53
  committee is chaired by our faculty athletic Rep, and
• 22:56
  there's usually two to three faculty members that sit on that
• 22:59
  committee as well. There actually is no athletic
• 23:02
  administrators that are on the committee, but we're present at
• 23:05
  all meetings to answer questions.
• 23:07
  But again, this really allows for an open line of
• 23:09
  communication from the academic side to the athletic side and
• 23:13
  vice versa when talking through any issues or questions that
• 23:16
  might come up in regards to athletics or academics.
• 23:19
  And then we and Student Athletes Services, we have a presence at
• 23:23
  all new student registration events.
• 23:26
  So usually in the spring semester and over the summer,
• 23:29
  there's three to four new student registration events, and
• 23:32
  we're present at all of those. So when there are new undecided
• 23:37
  student athletes coming in, we take them from start to finish.
• 23:40
  We remind them it's OK to be undeclared when you come in.
• 23:43
  Don't feel like you have to have a major decided.
• 23:46
  We can help you figure out which pathway is the best for you with
• 23:49
  whatever end goals you see in mind.
• 23:53
  And then for those that have a declared major, they meet with
• 23:56
  the faculty advisor in those assigned areas.
• 23:58
  And then we simply check their schedules to make sure we don't
• 24:00
  see any glaring issues with practice times or an overload of
• 24:04
  credits or anything along those lines.
• 24:06
  And then we also are the designated liaisons for our
• 24:09
  departments on campus, so we work between housing and
• 24:13
  missions and tutoring. This really helps to streamline
• 24:16
  communication from our coaches. Instead of having 10 coaches
• 24:20
  reach out to admissions or housing with questions, we
• 24:23
  filter all those questions and then send them on to housing or
• 24:26
  admissions. It's really helped create a
• 24:28
  solid relationship with those different departments and helps
• 24:31
  them from not being overwhelmed with all the questions that
• 24:35
  they're being fielding or fielded.
• 24:36
  If they're just coming from one or two people with the reports,
• 24:42
  we worked with our Office of Research, Institutional Research
• 24:48
  that Matt touched on earlier to develop a lot of the reports
• 24:51
  that make our lives 10 times easier.
• 24:54
  So we have specific reports that our coaches access, but then
• 24:56
  also certain reports that we access within Student Athlete
• 24:59
  Services. The ones that are bold, that are
• 25:01
  just the ones that we use the most often or our coaches use
• 25:04
  the most often. With the free time report,
• 25:07
  you'll see an example on the next slide, but it shows when
• 25:10
  our athletes are free throughout the day.
• 25:11
  So when are they in class? When can I have them in for a
• 25:14
  meeting? The athletic schedule report
• 25:17
  that allows coaches to see if they're leaving on a Wednesday
• 25:20
  for a road trip. How many classes each day will
• 25:23
  their soon athletes be missing? You know, that helps in terms of
• 25:26
  could they leave a Thursday morning versus a Wednesday
• 25:28
  afternoon? And then the PSA coaches report,
• 25:32
  which is our perspective student athlete report that breaks down
• 25:35
  where any recruit is in the process of coming to another
• 25:38
  state. So it tracks admission status,
• 25:40
  it tracks if we've received their high school transcript, if
• 25:43
  they've completed their housing application, if they're if they
• 25:47
  qualify for any scholarships. So again, just a really great
• 25:50
  resources for our coaches to track those things.
• 25:53
  On the student athlete services side, we have a lot of
• 25:56
  additional reports that we use. Class check report.
• 25:59
  That's one that we view quite often during the academic year.
• 26:02
  It tells us which athletes are are not going to class.
• 26:06
  Athlete information by team. This one pretty much says
• 26:09
  anything and everything you want about your athletes.
• 26:11
  It tells you their current term GPA, their overall GPA, total
• 26:15
  number of credits completed, they're major, they're minor, if
• 26:19
  they have any holds on their account, anything that you're
• 26:22
  really looking for. And then again, more so on the
• 26:25
  research side, we have a A-Team GPA breakdown report, but then
• 26:29
  also a graduation retention rates report, which shows us
• 26:32
  breakdown of four year, five year, six year retention rates
• 26:36
  or graduation rates, excuse me. And then retention rates from
• 26:39
  sophomores, juniors, and seniors.
• 26:42
  The ones in the grave. We actually get automated emails
• 26:45
  sent to us every morning at 5:50 AM.
• 26:48
  The time was not my choice. So we usually wake up to some of
• 26:51
  those, but again, it just helps us on the academic eligibility
• 26:54
  and monitoring side to make sure that we're not missing anything.
• 26:57
  So we wake up to the 12, less than 12 credit report every day.
• 27:01
  This just makes sure it's a checks and balances system to
• 27:04
  make sure that anybody that's on that report either has an
• 27:07
  approved exception by the West or by the NCAA or the WIC or the
• 27:13
  NSIC for being less than 12 credits or they're on a waiver
• 27:18
  by the NCAA. And then whenever an athlete
• 27:21
  changes their major, adds a major changes, a minor, makes
• 27:25
  the schedule change, we also get an e-mail about that as well.
• 27:28
  So again, just really keeping us in the loop of what our athletes
• 27:30
  are doing. We do encourage our athletes to
• 27:32
  talk to us before they make any schedule changes or major minor
• 27:35
  changes just so they don't accidentally make themselves
• 27:38
  academically ineligible. But again, that's another checks
• 27:41
  and balances system for us too. And so these are some of the
• 27:45
  examples of the reports. Again, in the top right is the
• 27:48
  free time report shows you the the, the gaps in their day.
• 27:52
  Coaches can run this for their full team at one time too.
• 27:55
  So not just one athlete, but they can, you know, see OK, my
• 27:59
  whole team is done with class five, 3:00 PM.
• 28:01
  So it really helps in also trying to schedule practice
• 28:03
  times in team meetings. The right one there is AGPA
• 28:08
  breakdown report. It's not up on here, but at the
• 28:11
  bottom of the report too. It compares our student athlete
• 28:14
  GPA metrics to our general student GPA metrics too.
• 28:19
  And the bottom is our prospective student athlete
• 28:23
  coaches report all those athletes are fake athletes.
• 28:27
  But again, it just shows you the tracking of the progress that
• 28:29
  our coaches can see as to when they've completed their
• 28:32
  application status, scholarships are available to them, and then
• 28:36
  their housing contracting fees. And these are the infographics
• 28:41
  that I talked about. I believe they're on your USB
• 28:43
  drive too, But we developed three different types of
• 28:46
  infographics depending on the demographic that we're looking
• 28:48
  to send them out to, to, again, really increase the
• 28:51
  appreciation, the value and the work that we do within our
• 28:56
  office. So for faculty and staff, we
• 28:59
  usually send it out at the beginning of the year, usually
• 29:01
  to either the Deans or department chairs of hey, this
• 29:05
  is what our athletes are doing. We focus a lot about what we do
• 29:09
  within student athletes services.
• 29:10
  We touch on our missed class policy, but then also make sure
• 29:13
  to include such things as our student athlete graduation,
• 29:16
  retention rates, and academic successes.
• 29:19
  With our perspective student athlete one, that one looks
• 29:22
  completely different. We're really tailoring that
• 29:24
  towards what an incoming student at or student would want to see.
• 29:29
  So more general information about Winona State, what we do
• 29:32
  within Student Athlete Services, but then also the top majors
• 29:35
  among student athletes, NCA eligibility requirements and
• 29:40
  admissions requirements. And then the example you see on
• 29:42
  the screen here is our donor infographic.
• 29:45
  So again, really sending this out, including this in our
• 29:48
  sponsor packets of, you know, where athletes are from, the
• 29:51
  successes they have and also like the economic impact they
• 29:56
  they have through community service activities, appreciation
• 30:02
  events. I like to say this is where we
• 30:04
  go above and beyond. We really try to celebrate our
• 30:08
  student athlete wins and successes on the academic side
• 30:12
  wherever we can. The bottom photo there, that is
• 30:16
  from our Presidential Scholar Athlete Award night.
• 30:20
  So our Presidential Scholar Athlete Award is given to any
• 30:23
  student athlete that earns a term GPA of a 3.2 or higher.
• 30:27
  And so we usually recognize them at halftime of a men's or
• 30:31
  women's basketball game every year.
• 30:33
  This past year we ended up recognizing 373 of our student
• 30:38
  athletes for having above a 3.2 GPA, so we really do pride
• 30:42
  ourselves on having that academic success.
• 30:45
  In the top left two photos is a conference award, our Miles
• 30:50
  Brand Academic All All Academic with Distinction award.
• 30:55
  We go above and beyond with this too.
• 30:57
  They usually receive a watch and a certificate, but we like to
• 31:00
  make an event out of it. And that's evolved over the
• 31:03
  years. It's it's started where they
• 31:04
  would go to the president's house and have dinner with the
• 31:06
  president. We had them throw out a first
• 31:09
  pitch at a baseball game this past year.
• 31:12
  We had more of like a fireside chat feel to it.
• 31:15
  And so again, really celebrating those those successes for the
• 31:19
  Miles Brand Award, just to give a little context, those student
• 31:22
  athletes are senior student athletes that have a cumulative
• 31:24
  GPA of a 3.75 or or higher. So again, those that really
• 31:28
  excel in the classroom on the far right is part of our
• 31:34
  athletic awards banquet, our Westies.
• 31:37
  Part of that is the Warrior Cup, which is a coveted award from
• 31:41
  our student athletes and we tally points throughout the
• 31:43
  years. How do they earn points?
• 31:46
  Well through academic success, athletic success, community
• 31:49
  involvement, but but then also athletes supporting athletes.
• 31:52
  So this is again a year long competition amongst our
• 31:55
  athletes. At this Westby Awards, our top
• 31:58
  team which this past year was gymnastics is awarded the the
• 32:02
  Warrior Cup. Again, it just creates friendly
• 32:04
  competition amongst teams. And then on the faculty and
• 32:09
  employee appreciation side of things, we start an event that
• 32:13
  we call tap tag, take a professor to a game initiative.
• 32:18
  And so we ask our upperclassmen to invite a faculty member to
• 32:24
  one of their home games and they give us the name.
• 32:27
  We reach out to the faculty member, they're given
• 32:29
  complimentary tickets for them and their family to a home game
• 32:33
  of their choosing. This really shows appreciation
• 32:37
  and a thank you to our faculty for working with our student
• 32:39
  athletes when they're travelling or missing class for
• 32:41
  competition. And it also shows appreciation
• 32:44
  from us in terms of we're thankful that they're willing to
• 32:46
  work with all the student athletes for when they do miss
• 32:49
  class. And that photo is just from our
• 32:52
  Football Tap Hague event this past year.
• 32:54
  And then in addition to our tap tag, we also have employee and
• 32:57
  faculty appreciation games in the winter for our basketball
• 33:00
  programs. And one thing that's not on here
• 33:03
  that we do a lot of too is social media pushes.
• 33:06
  So actually July is our academic recognition month on our Student
• 33:10
  Athlete Services, Facebook and Twitter feeds or X, but we again
• 33:16
  re highlight any of the academic successes that our athletes have
• 33:18
  had over the past year, really just to show them, hey, we value
• 33:22
  what you're putting into our university.
• 33:24
  We value the time that you're giving us and we really want to
• 33:27
  respect and honor that and again, celebrate all those
• 33:29
  successes that they're having. I just want to follow and finish
• 33:35
  up here with one some quotes from our coaches 1st.
• 33:39
  And I guess my point of doing this is that you'll see that
• 33:42
  retention is not going to be the same for each coach, for each
• 33:45
  program, for each, for each institution.
• 33:47
  It's going to look differently based on what your resources
• 33:49
  are, what your focus areas are. One of our coaches mentioned
• 33:53
  that all operations work together to achieve high
• 33:57
  retention rates and that goes from coaching to equipment to
• 34:00
  apparel to travel, where another one of our coaches puts a bigger
• 34:04
  emphasis on the sense of family where they communicate with
• 34:07
  their incoming student athletes prior to being on campus through
• 34:10
  the time they graduate. So again, just looking at the
• 34:14
  different ways our our our coaches, excuse me, view student
• 34:18
  athlete retention and how they go about looking to retain some
• 34:21
  of their student athletes. And then the last slide, these
• 34:25
  are comments from our end of year student athlete survey
• 34:28
  about our student athlete Services department.
• 34:31
  Again, I understand that you may not be able to develop a student
• 34:36
  athlete services department or add 2 full time staff members.
• 34:39
  If you can, great. I would highly encourage you to
• 34:41
  do it. If not, I'm hoping that you're
• 34:44
  able to take away different pieces of the presentation and
• 34:46
  adapt them or revise them to fit what your athletics department
• 34:50
  needs are. But again, I think it's really
• 34:53
  important to focus on the retention of the student
• 34:55
  athletes and ways that we can support and make them feel
• 34:58
  valued on your campus. The transfer Porter's not going
• 35:01
  anywhere. So figuring out new and
• 35:02
  innovative ways to keep them involved and engaged at your
• 35:06
  campus. So that is what I had.
• 35:10
  I want to thank you guys all for listening.
• 35:12
  And if you have any questions, I'm open to hearing them.
• 35:19
  Yes, thank. You great presentation.
• 35:23
  You mentioned the embassies and survey pursued an athlete.
• 35:28
  Talk a little bit about that. I know you say you guys are.
• 35:38
  Facilitated just by being in a row.
• 35:42
  Yep. So on our end of year student
• 35:43
  athletes survey, our student athletes are giving feedback and
• 35:47
  evaluating anything related to athletics.
• 35:49
  So obviously the the coaches, assistant coaches, also Austin
• 35:53
  student athletes services, strength conditioning, athletic
• 35:56
  training, team travel, really any touch points there.
• 36:00
  And so after all of our teams have completed our student
• 36:03
  athlete survey, like I said, we gather all that data, we break
• 36:06
  it down, we actually pass that along to our director of
• 36:09
  athletics to then kind of start those conversations with what
• 36:14
  that feedback looks like from those specific teams.
• 36:16
  So we don't do a lot of the dissemination in terms of having
• 36:20
  conversations with coaches. We pass that along for athletic
• 36:22
  director to start those conversations.
• 36:32
  It is required for all of our student athletes.
• 36:34
  Again, we don't have heavy deadlines.
• 36:37
  Again, we understand that student athletes are busy,
• 36:39
  especially our fall athletes during that fall semester.
• 36:43
  Part of the reason we launch it early.
• 36:45
  That way, again, they can complete it before they get
• 36:47
  really into their busy time. We do reach out to coaches after
• 36:50
  each of those set deadlines to let them know, OK, the these of
• 36:54
  your athletes have not accessed the material, these of your
• 36:57
  these of your athletes have completed it.
• 36:59
  And again, we look at that after each of the modules.
• 37:02
  But yes, it is required for all of our new incoming, but then
• 37:06
  also transfer student athletes too to make them aware of the
• 37:08
  resources on campus. And again, I'm happy to show and
• 37:14
  go in more depth of any of our reports and SHIELD program or
• 37:19
  anything else afterwards as well too.
• 37:22
  So we're trying to incorporate something similar to your
• 37:24
  warrior. Cup.
• 37:26
  Especially like the athletes supporting other athletes, how
• 37:29
  do you go about tracking what teams are spectating other
• 37:33
  sports and whether it's just six people from the soccer teams at
• 37:36
  the basketball game or all 30 people from the soccer team are
• 37:39
  there? Yeah.
• 37:40
  So we actually use the app that's called Helper Helper to
• 37:42
  track a lot of that. Not only does it help us track
• 37:45
  attendance at athletic events, but it also serves as our way of
• 37:48
  tracking community service hours for our student athletes.
• 37:51
  So how we do that is there's a random code that's generated for
• 37:56
  each athletic event. It's shown to the student
• 37:58
  athletes, but usually not until third quarter or past half time
• 38:02
  of the games to really encourage attendance at those events.
• 38:06
  And they go on to the app, they enter in the code, they get
• 38:09
  points for attending that event. Yes, you can make it available
• 38:19
  whenever, but we're intentional about waiting until later on in
• 38:22
  the athletic events to really promote them staying through the
• 38:25
  duration of those events, Yes. Yep, Yep, awesome.
• 38:40
  Yep, are. Your reports that your IR team
• 38:43
  runs, are those template or are they custom that they've built?
• 38:47
  They've we've worked with them to build them all.
• 38:49
  We actually probably from the last year sat down our research
• 38:54
  and our iPad department is great to work with.
• 38:58
  We provide them a lot of apparel to make sure we stay at the top
• 39:00
  of their list. But we had just worked with them
• 39:02
  recently to build a overall all-encompassing GPA report
• 39:08
  where it tells us the highest GPA that teams have achieved
• 39:12
  over the lifespan of that sport. And so that way at the end of a
• 39:17
  semester, if a team like our women's basketball team had
• 39:20
  something crazy like a 3.93 GPA this past spring semester, we
• 39:24
  can go back and track that against all prior semesters with
• 39:27
  Gpas and send that information on to them to be like, hey, this
• 39:30
  is a record for your program. But they're all custom built to
• 39:33
  the needs that we have. If we think of something that we
• 39:35
  want to add to those reports, they're great to work with to
• 39:38
  add that on. We're working with them on our
• 39:40
  PSA report to add on registration date columns so we
• 39:43
  know when student athletes are coming to campus for
• 39:45
  registration dates. Awesome.
• 39:51
  Thank you all for your time.