Florence-Darlington Technical College

Building a Holistic View of Student Success

I have worked at Florence-Darlington Technical College for 24 years, with eight years of prior experience at Fordham University, where I also worked in Student Affairs.

This topic is especially meaningful to me because it connects student success, technology, data, and leadership, while allowing me to draw on my experiences across multiple areas of higher education.

As a Registrar, I saw students at the point of entry and throughout their academic journey. As an AVP for Student Affairs, I gained a broader understanding of the student experience and the many factors that influence student success. Through my work in Enrollment Services, I saw firsthand how institutional processes can create barriers for students. As a Student Conduct Liaison, I learned that student behavior often has a story behind it and that understanding the whole student is essential.

Today, as the Dean of Student Engagement and Student Success, I have the opportunity to connect these experiences and perspectives rather than viewing the student experience through the lens of one department or one transaction.

In higher education, we must understand that students do not experience college in departments. They experience it as one journey.

That simple observation has shaped my perspective throughout my career in higher education. Each role has given me a different window into the student experience. Over time, I began to see something important: student success is not the responsibility of one office. It is the result of how well all of our offices, people, processes, and technologies work together around the student.

The Student behind the Data

Higher education has become increasingly sophisticated in the way we collect data. We can monitor enrollment, course completion, persistence, attendance, engagement, and academic performance. But data alone does not tell us everything about a student.

A student who stops attending class may not simply be “at risk.” That student may be working two jobs, caring for a child, struggling to navigate financial aid, unsure how to ask for help, or experiencing a challenge they have never encountered before.

“In higher education, we must understand that students do not experience college in departments. They experience it as one journey.”

The question should not always be, “What is wrong with this student?”

Sometimes the better question is: “What is happening in this student's journey, and what can we do differently to help?” That shift—from identifying problems to understanding the student—can change the way institutions approach retention and success.

Technology Should Connect the Journey, Not Complicate It

Technology has tremendous potential to improve the student experience. Early-alert systems, student information systems, learning management platforms, communication tools, case-management systems, and analytics can help institutions identify patterns and respond earlier. But technology should never become the destination.

The goal is not to have more systems. The goal is to use the right information at the right time to help a student move forward. When technology connects information across the student journey, institutions can begin to see the difference between a student who simply needs information and a student who needs intervention, encouragement, connection, or someone to say, “We noticed. Let's talk.”

From Transactions to Relationships

Community colleges serve students with incredibly diverse experiences, responsibilities, and goals. Many are balancing work, family, transportation, finances, and academics while trying to navigate college for the first time. For these students, a confusing process can become a barrier.

A missed communication can become a missed deadline. A missed deadline can become a financial issue. A financial issue can become a stop-out. And a stop-out can eventually become a student who never returns. This is why I believe student success requires us to look beyond individual transactions and examine the entire journey.

We have to ask where the student experience creates friction, where we are making students work harder than they should have to work to get help and where technology can remove a barrier instead of creating another one. Perhaps most importantly, we have to ask where a human connection needs to happen.

The Future of Student Success is both Digital and Human

The future of education will undoubtedly include more artificial intelligence, predictive analytics, automation, personalized communication, and digital student services.

I welcome that future. But I also believe we must be careful not to automate the humanity out of higher education. A dashboard may tell us that a student has stopped logging into a course. An alert may tell us that a student has missed several assignments. Analytics may identify a pattern. But someone still has to reach out, someone has to listen, and someone has to understand the story behind the data, and someone has to help the student identify the next step.

Technology can help us find the student, people help us reach the student, and relationships help us retain the student. My experiences across multiple areas of higher education have taught me that students rarely fit neatly into organizational boxes. A registrar sees one part of the student, Enrollment Services sees another, Student Affairs sees another, faculty see another, Student Conduct may see a moment of difficulty, and Student Success may see a pattern. But the student experiences all of these moments as one life.

That is why I believe the next generation of student-success work must move toward a more holistic approach that combines data, technology, communication and, most importantly, relationships. The question is no longer simply how we get students enrolled. It is how we help students successfully navigate the entire journey from enrollment to completion and ensure they know they do not have to navigate it alone.

That is where technology becomes more than a tool. It becomes a bridge between data and action, between departments and students and ultimately between where a student is today and where that student hopes to be tomorrow.