UCI Feature

Reframing Academic Probation: UCI’s Move Toward Recovery

Using a holistic, data-driven approach, the University continues its focus on student success

By Johnny Loc Nguyen

It’s the second week of June and the Student Center, like other communal study halls around campus, is teeming with students cramming for finals. Energy drinks, coffee cups, and half-emptied snack bags litter the tables, and an omnipresent sense of frantic nervousness fills the air. One way or another, our hard-working UCI students will try to end the quarter on a strong note.

But for some students, exam season is an especially critical time. Students facing Academic Probation are often anxious over their performance in their classes, wondering if their efforts that quarter are enough to regain good academic standing. Some may not know where to find the proper academic resources to receive help. Some may feel that the current Academic Probation system isn’t working for them. And because each school (plus the Collegewide Honors Collegium) historically sets their own academic probation processes, students may find it difficult to navigate to the proper policies and points of contact that apply to them.

On the other end, administrators experienced a complex system that contained inefficiencies and needed to be modernized and policies that needed to be more consistent across schools and programs. In response, the Office of the Vice Provost for Teaching & Learning (OVPTL) sought to revamp UCI’s approach to Academic Probation altogether. Now renamed ‘Academic Recovery,’ the new process and name better reflects the university’s commitment to ensuring student success and establishes consistency within the advising offices across campus.

“The main goal of the Academic Recovery initiative is to empower students and help them feel in control of their academic performance,” said Michael Dennin, Vice Provost for Teaching and Learning. “The Academic Recovery initiative represents a fantastic example of the campus coming together and utilizing data and analytics to make a meaningful difference in university structures.”

Spearheaded by Heather Cartagena, OVPTL’s executive director of academic advising, the mission to establish an all-new Academic Recovery process stemmed from a need to consolidate previous Academic Probation criteria and reach a University-wide, commonly accepted definition of what the status should mean for students. Keeping track of 15 variations of the Academic Probation system, all with their own criteria and procedures, from 15 different advising offices (one for each school, plus one for the Campuswide Honors Collegium) became tough work for administrators, and made resources harder to access for students. According to Cartagena, as the University quickly grew, each new school—from Humanities to Computer Science—independently established their own criteria and disciplinary measures surrounding the term ‘Academic Probation.’ As such, how each school defined ‘Academic Probation’ varied widely—an unexpected revelation for Cartagena and the Academic Recovery working group when they first convened in November 2019 to outline the new process. Following their assembly, the group examined current policies, benchmarked current academic probation programs at other Top 40 universities, and began curating recommendations before their work was interrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Following a one-year hiatus, the group reconvened to continue working on solutions and analyzing student data until they were ready for Phase 1 of the initiative’s implementation in Fall 2021.

During this process, OVPTL partnered with the Office of Enrollment Management, who, through their Compass Enrollment Management Analytics (EMA) tool, provided access to the only centralized platform containing the entirety of the enrollment data already in use by the 15 advising offices. According to Tony Hwang, executive director of the Office of Enrollment Management, OVPTL took the lead on establishing policy changes surrounding academic recovery, and the Office of Enrollment Management handled the technical implementation of the initiative through the Compass EMA tool. Furthermore, reports gathered using the Compass EMA tool are used by the advising offices each quarter to identify students who meet the criteria for Academic Recovery.

“The Enrollment Management Analytics unit provided critical support for this important change to the academic recovery process,” explained Hwang.  “Through our Compass EMA tool, we helped OVPTL develop and maintain the analytics tools and dynamic reports they needed to make Academic Recovery a reality at UC Irvine.”

What arose from this new initiative was a complete reimagining of the previous academic probation process. What exact criteria constitutes an ‘academic recovery’ status, equivalent to academic probation, became centrally determined within UCI as a cumulative GPA of 2.0 or lower. This is in contrast with previous academic probation criteria, which also included a GPA of less than 2.0 in any individual quarter and a variety of idiosyncratic “normal progress” indicators developed within each school.  Students who have a GPA of 2.0 or lower for only one quarter or are otherwise not making satisfactory academic progress, but do not meet the academic recovery criteria, are now instead placed on a set of ‘Early Alert’ statuses, which are still being refined  by advising offices.

This new approach has already shown early success. One undergraduate student, Ella Lee, realized her previous major was not the best fit for her after being placed into the new Academic Recovery process. Taking in the guidance she received through Academic Recovery, Lee was able to navigate to a new area of study that more closely matched her interests and passions.