UNK Response to Meeting the Regents' Four-Year Guarantee

UNK is committed to assuring that institutional barriers do not prevent on-time graduation and that institutional mechanisms assist students in achieving timely graduation. Specific actions taken at UNK toward this goal are:

1. The Regents' Four-year Guarantee is routinely brought to the attention of prospective students by UNK Admissions Counselors, and communicated in publications and promotional materials.
2. UNK’s strategic plan highlights the intentional strategy to mobilize and enable all program-completion capabilities on campus. The strategic plan also highlights the importance of a comprehensive view of student success that integrates academic and nonacademic programming.
3. Student Engagement, particularly the Office of Student and Family Transitions, develops and executes programming designed to introduce students to university expectations and resources, and to increase retention and graduation rates. UNK works collaboratively with academic and student engagement departments to facilitate curricular and co-curricular experiences focusing on learning outcomes using a validating approach in which students take responsibility for their own education, and develop a strong sense of belonging to campus.Assessment shows that first year students participating in Student Engagement programs have a higher rate of success and retention to the institution.
4. UNK has undergone a major shift in the campus culture regarding assessment over several years. Now, assessment is a major part of our academic programs on many levels, particularly regarding academic outcomes. The effort aims to assess student learning outcomes and then adjust programs to produce better outcomes. Better learning outcomes mean more student success, which translates into more progress toward graduation.
5. The Academic Affairs Committee limits the number of credit hours that can be included in academic major and minor programs. In addition, "hidden prerequisites" are prohibited that would add to the length of a student's program.
6. At UNK, the General Studies Program is university-wide, so regardless of the college in which a student begins work toward a degree program, there will be no general studies impediments to changing a major to another college. This maximizes student flexibility and minimizes academic consequences of changing majors. This is particularly important because nationally, and in Nebraska, most students change majors several times before graduating.
7. UNK academic departments are committed to offering courses out of the planned sequence or providing alternate courses to assure that students who need a course to graduate can take it without adding time to their programs if they, through no fault of their own, find that a required course is not scheduled at a time that will permit graduating on time.
8. Every student is assigned an academic advisor and must see the advisor each semester to examine progress. Students are precluded from registering for classes until the advisor has lifted a flag indicating the advising requirement has been met.
9. The Academic Advising and Career Development Office provides additional advising to students seeking such advice, and to all students identified in the Early Warning Referral System. Once classes begin, faculty have the option of submitting an Early Warning Referral to the Academic Advising and Career Development Office, identifying any student who might be experiencing academic difficulty. These students are notified via email and offered assistance that might help them complete their classes successfully.  Faculty have found this process to be very helpful and supportive to students.
10. The Writing Center helps all students, and the improved writing skill it imparts bolsters students' academic success in general.
11. To further support student success on progress toward graduation, UNK has several online tools such as the web-based degree audit system, available to students and advisors. The audit, in particular, is a powerful aid in monitoring progress toward the degree as it provides test scores for proper course placement, GPA breakdowns, and it tracks any substitutions approved by the department.
12. The Registrar's Office automatically runs degree checks each semester once a student earns 95 or more credit hours. This audit is a summary report of the student's progress toward graduation and it is automatically sent to the student's e-mail address and to the student's advisor(s) electronically.
13. Tutoring for most undergraduate courses is available to all students with an academic need.

At UNK, we take seriously the commitment to enabling students to be graduated in a timely manner. To this end, we monitor each student in several ways:

1. Every student is assigned an academic advisor and must see the advisor each semester to examine progress. Students are precluded from registering for classes until the advisor has lifted a flag indicating the advising requirement has been met. At that time, the progress of a student and any institutional barriers to that progress can be addressed.
2. The Academic Advising and Career Development Office provides additional advising to students seeking such advice, and to all students identified in the Early Warning Referral System. Once classes begin, faculty have the option of submitting an Early Warning Referral to the Advising Center, identifying any student who might be experiencing academic difficulty. These students are then notified by letter and phone and offered assistance that might help them complete their classes successfully.
3. UNK's web-based degree audit system, available to students and advisors, is a powerful aid in monitoring progress toward the degree as it provides test scores for proper course placement, GPA breakdowns, and it tracks any substitutions approved by the department.
4. The Registrar's Office automatically runs degree checks each semester once a student earns 95 or more credit hours. This audit is a summary report of the student's progress toward graduation and it is automatically sent to the student's e-mail address and to the student's advisor(s) electronically.