Team profile: Student Transition, Retention and Success

The STaRs team
The Student Transition, Retention and Success (STaRS) team focuses on improving students' transition into higher education studies, as well as their experience during their first year of study – often an exciting but overwhelming time.


 
 

Who works in the STaRS team?

  • Associate Professor Betty Gill (Institutional Leader)
  • David Roach, STaRS Project Officer

The full STaRS team consists of academic and professional STaRS coordinators within all UWS Schools.

The STaRS School Coordinators are:

School of Education:

  • Kerry Staples
  • Jenni Dewberry

School of Humanities and Communication Arts:

  • Dr Matthew McGuire
  • Roman Goik
  • Karen Lewis

School of Business:

  • Francine Garlin
  • Sharon Taylor
  • Patty Hodgson

School of Law:

  • Nikki Bromberger
  • Jane Lindsay

School of Computing, Engineering and Maths:

  • Haiping Zhu
  • Upul Gunawardana
  • Monique Pirihi
  • Tracey Hanson
  • Yenna Salamonson

School of Nursing & Midwifery:

  • Jane Koch
  • Rebecca Oswald

School of Medicine:

  • Joanne Lind
  • Lyndal McCulloch

School of Science & Health:

  • Andrew Broderick
  • Maria Pagnan
  • Caterina Tannous
  • Jacqui Nicola

School of Social Science & Psychology:

  • Alison Hine
  • Leigh Bambury

APVC (Education - Arts):

  • Lynn Burnett

What does the STaRS team do?

STaRS has been established to provide institutional leadership and strategic oversight and direction to the planning and implementation of initiatives and activities to support student transition and enhance the first-year student experience. Sector best practice shows that this requires a student-centred and coordinated institution-wide approach, supported by academic-professional partnerships, alignment of curricular and co-curricular dimensions, informed by data analysis, robust evaluation and continuous improvement – these are the principles underling STaRS.

Where is the STaRS team located?

The core project team is located on Campbelltown campus in building 6.

Who does the STaRS team work with?

The team works collaboratively across UWS. A Commencing Student Planning Network with representatives from the Academic Registrar's Office, Student Services, Library, Student Recruitment Services, Internal Communications, along with the School STaRS coordinators has been formed to enable shared planning and enhanced coordination and coherence of the total student experience. Smaller working groups are formed to address specific issues and opportunities for improvement as they are identified.

What would be a good example of the work that you are involved in?

Two examples demonstrate the scope of STaRS work.

First, a review of student communications has been recently undertaken in collaboration with a range of key stakeholders across the University. The review included a student email audit and student survey of their communication needs. It unambiguously demonstrated that there is significant room for improvement in how UWS, as an institution, communicates with our students so as to ensure students receive coherent and coordinated advice and information that is up to date, timely, accurate and presented in a consistent manner, using appropriate language.

Second, three key institution-wide strategies have been implemented across all Schools from 2014, including:

  1. Student transition messages implemented in a core unit in all courses
  2. First Year School Contact Officer (FYSCO) roles in all Schools for the first few weeks of session to support and enable students to seek help 
  3. Key improvement strategies in first session assessment practices.

What challenges does the team face?

The success of the STaRS project is dependent on the engagement of all staff across UWS, as transition and the student experience are everyone's business. The Academic and Professional STaRS coordinator roles within Schools are essential in this regard – they are the communication conduit between the core STaRS team and indeed the staff from other divisions involved in event planning and initiatives generally. It is therefore essential that their roles are truly embedded within the Schools, and that they have the appropriate recognition and support to perform these vital duties.

Community of Practice forums are coordinated by STaRS to support and connect the coordinators from across Schools; to share best practice and to help them to achieve scholarly outputs from their work which will assist their career progression. In addition, a recent briefing to UWS Executive has stressed the need for recognition and appropriate support of these roles.

What is the team focusing on in the next 12 months?

Top priority is getting our STaRS website live, so that we have a platform for disseminating information. Over the next 12 months we hope to significantly build up the resources for staff to help them implement best practice strategies to support students transitioning to university study and enhance the student experience. Our aim is that the resources be very practical – we want to provide tools and strategies, not just the principles –  which will assist staff to improve the student experience and their experience of teaching often very large cohorts of students who need support to realise their potential.