Annual Report 2017-18

Starfish Success

In December 2016, SUNY Niagara purchased the Starfish software program to help track student progress and increase student completion. Starfish is both an Academic Affairs and Student Services initiative. After an initial installation and testing phase, Starfish was introduced to the SUNY Niagara campus community at the beginning of the fall 2017 semester.

Starfish allows faculty to indicate when students may be struggling in their classes. Students can be “flagged” for low participation rates, absences, and low grades. SUNY Niagara has assigned success coaches to work with specific student populations and follow up with any student who needs assistance.

Also, students can access Starfish to identify and contact their support network (assigned advisor, success coach, course instructors, etc.). Students can also indicate that they need assistance and would like someone to reach out to them.

SUNY Niagara is also participating in the Open SUNY Early Alerts Project. This initiative launched in spring 2017 and is a collaborative monthly forum to share collective learning on system-wide approaches to early alerts and student supports.

For a second time, SUNY Niagara has been selected to be a mentor campus for the project, which is part of SUNY’s Performance Initiative Fund. SUNY Niagara hosted the Early Alerts kick off meeting on the Sanborn campus on September 2, 2018 and will provide guidance and support to other SUNY campuses during the 18-19 academic year. There are currently 120 members in the group representing 32 SUNY campuses.