Learning What Students Bring to College and Where They Hope It Takes Them

Thursday, May 22, 2025

10:45 AM – 11:45 AM East Coast USA Time

Location: Sebastian I1+2

Institution Type: 4-year institutions

Target Audience: Any

Presenter(s)

CB

Charles Blaich, PhD

Director
Higher Education Data Sharing Consortium (HEDS), United States
KW

Kathleen Wise, MBA

Associate Director
Higher Education Data Sharing Consortium (HEDS)
Crawfordsville, Indiana, United States
AA

Amy Armenia, PhD

Director of Institutional Analytics
Rollins College, United States
Eric Godin, PhD

Vice President of Strategic Planning and Effectiveness
St. Thomas University (Florida), United States
KL

Kristen R. Lindsay, PhD (she/her/hers)

Director of Institutional Research and Assessment
The University of Findlay
Fremont, Ohio, United States

Session Abstract: One path to promoting student success is to help students see the connection between their time at college and their longer-term goals for a successful life after college. Institutions also should try to identify issues that may disrupt students' sense of why they decided to attend college. In 2020, the Higher Education Data Sharing Consortium (HEDS) piloted a survey for incoming students to help institutions do two things: (1) better understand their students' immediate and longer-term goals and (2) intervene to help students who may be unsure about why they are attending college and the kinds of success it can help them achieve. In this session, representatives from HEDS will discuss how and why they developed the HEDS New Student Survey and share key findings from the national data. Representatives from three institutions that have used the survey will talk about why they used the survey, what they did with the data, and how it was helpful in their student success efforts.

Keywords: student success, student support, retention, first-year students