A five-year Title III grant totaling nearly $1.9 million to SUNY Oswego from the U.S. Department of Education will support a range of initiatives building student equity and success.
Titled “Student Success Equity Project: Advancing Equity Through Intentional Peer-to-Peer Supports and Inclusive Pedagogies,” the project was funded under the Title III Strengthening Institutions Program, with funding running from 2023 to 2028.
"We are thrilled to receive the support from the U.S. Department of Education to improve our programs and we see it as an important investment and vote of confidence in the direction that SUNY Oswego is moving," said principal investigator Kristin Croyle, dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.
The Student Success Equity Project is designed to increase the capacity of SUNY Oswego to engage, retain and graduate all students while addressing any potential gaps in course performance, retention and graduation rates.
Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs Scott Furlong is the project’s co-principal investigator. Michelle Bandla, assistant vice president for student support, serves as project coordinator.
One notable feature of the funded project involves establishing peer-to-peer tutoring systems, with mathematics providing an early example.
“We have students who serve as embedded tutors both in classes and outside of classes,” Croyle explained.
“Making these connections with the classes and the student tutors is very beneficial,” Furlong said. “It’s important to see that other students like them have made it, and figured things out.”
Developing financial materials that can help students in both short- and long-term ways is another key initiative under the grant.
“One thing that came through in the student focus groups was a desire for students to better understand their financial options, and what resources they can access, to support their decision-making,” Croyle said. “The Office of Financial Aid is developing financial literacy materials to address some of the uncertainties many students face.”
In addition, the university will develop a program with student financial literacy mentors, similar to the mathematics tutoring model, sometimes paired with first-year classes to ensure it reaches students early in their experiences.
The grant also supports specific groups of faculty working with the university’s Center for Excellence in Learning and Teaching to redesign courses and develop more inclusive lessons and processes that will enhance a sense of student belonging and course completion.
Strong foundation
The foundation for the grant project started as the university took part in an Equity Success Student Intensive study sponsored by AASCU, the American Association of State Colleges and Universities. That project explored data and created conversations dedicated to addressing equity gaps, often focusing on challenges to underrepresented, first-generation and financially challenged students.
“For that project, we examined data, hosted student focus groups, talked to our faculty and staff, and studied what other institutions do,” Croyle said.
Furlong noted that this initiative found that the biggest challenges included financial literacy and capacity, enhancing a sense of belonging and improving credit completion.
“We were beginning to think about what to do in these spaces when the Department of Education put out a call on these grants,” Furlong said. “It was great timing, as we were able to gather our data and ideas to develop a successful proposal.”
“We made an intensive and purposeful effort to understand student experiences and the barriers they faced, and that is what went into the proposal,” Croyle said.
“Receiving the grant allowed us to be more ambitious in what we can accomplish and allowed us to ramp up our efforts right away,” Furlong said.
The grant is intended to create permanent institutional change beyond its five-year cycle.
“This is a continuation and really an acceleration of our commitment to ensuring every student can be academically successful and can graduate,” Croyle said.