Student Affairs Using Human-Centered Design Approach to Help Students Succeed

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Staff in the Division of Student Affairs work in a Human Centered Design Workshop.

The Division of Student Affairs sought out the McMillon Innovation Studio to facilitate Human-Centered Design Workshops to aid in planning for this school year. Over three days in June, participants from various Student Affairs departments identified problems and created possible solutions designed to help students succeed.

"In order to help set our 2023-2024 priorities, we partnered with the McMillon Innovation Studio and used the Human-Centered Design method to identify where we should focus our time and efforts," said Jeremey Battjes, vice chancellor for Student Affairs. "Participants brainstormed existing issues, identified themes and then worked in teams to design solutions."

The McMillon Innovation Studio describes human-centered design as a creative approach to solving problems. It is different from other approaches because of its obsessive focus on understanding the perspective of the person who experiences a problem or has an unmet need. The goal of human-centered design is to keep the end user in mind throughout the entire creative process.

Working with the McMillon Innovation Studio, Student Affairs staff identified student success barriers and brainstormed solutions in six priority areas:

• Student belonging

• Well-being

• Collaboration/communication

• Financial assistance

• Student employment

• Affordable housing.

Each group concentrated on bringing one of their solution ideas to fruition for wider discussion in the division and possible implementation.

"I enjoyed participating in the HCDW as a process that brought folks together from across the division," said John Shaffer, assistant vice chancellor for University Housing. "It was an excellent way to gather people who may not otherwise have worked together to identify, and then purposefully engage in, implementing solutions for moving the division forward."

"The HCDW promoted effective collaboration across our division, which allowed our group to make quick, data-informed decisions in regard to improving on-campus student employment," said Teah-Marie Bynion, director of analysis and reporting for Student Affairs. "As a result, we were able to better understand the needs of our students and implement solutions that we feel our students will soon benefit from as they are currently being addressed." 

The question of how to make our campus employment opportunities more enticing and how to connect students with those opportunities was key for the student employment group. One of the ideas of that group was to create a full-time position for an associate director of on-campus student employment to help connect students with employment opportunities.

"This idea has already been implemented," Battjes said. "We created the position and found the right person for the job in Cecilee Essary." 

Another idea that came about was for a Motivation Station to help students with time management skills. This team learned about a new initiative coming out of Wellness that utilizes an "8 for 8" booklet, helping students set goals and reflect on all aspects of their wellbeing. This is a potential opportunity for collaboration.

"I'm very grateful for the (HCDW) experience," said C.J. Mathis, director of multicultural center retention programs. "I believe the scheduled, devoted time to think, be creative and engage with various colleagues provided me the opportunity to put things that have been randomly living in my head into a format that people can understand, make adjustments and begin to implement where appropriate. I'm very much looking forward to see how these ideas and others will push our division forward in contributing to student success."

Mathis was in the group that worked on financial assistance — how to assist students having financial struggles with paying tuition so that their well-being is improved, leading to a more positive college experience. The idea came up to create a payback program for students to be able to work on campus and receive a scholarship that would close the gap on their unmet financial needs. Students would work a minimum of 10 hours a week on campus in an area that matches their employment preferences and needs of departments. This idea is currently being explored.

Discussing barriers to student success through the Human-Centered Design Workshops helped the division identify six priorities for the academic year — student belonging, well-being, collaboration/communication, financial assistance, student employment and affordable housing. The division continues to look at all possible solutions generated and ways to implement innovations to help students succeed.