Running head: FIELD OBSERVATION

Field Observation - ABAC Campus Partners Meeting

Alma Young
Georgia Southern University
EDLD 7431 - Spring 2016
Dr. Don Stumpf

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2
Field Observation
Introduction

For my field observation I attended the ABAC Campus Partners meeting at Abraham
Baldwin Agricultural College, a public two-year college located in Tifton, Georgia. Due to the
small size of the ABAC campus, partnership between different departments has always been part
of the college culture. However, before the existence of this group, only individuals or
departments who worked on a specific project would meet leaving everyone else out of the loop.
ABAC Campus Partners was an initiative created by Mrs. Donna Webb, Director of the Office of
Enrollment Management (OEM), as a way to create and maintain partnerships with
representatives of the different departments on campus. The purpose of the meeting is to meet
and share information and ideas regarding projects, programs, events, and any other relevant
information concerning to each department. The meeting takes place the third Thursday of each
month at 8:30 AM. Since this particular meeting took place at a busy time of the year, there were
several department representatives that were unable to attend. Since this meeting involved
receiving news and updates from most departments on campus, it was difficult to focus my
observation on one department as most of the information shared seemed important.
Observation
The meeting began with an introduction by Mrs. Webb in which she stated that the
purpose of the meeting and briefly introduced everyone in attendance. She then followed by
giving updates on recruitment and ABAC application update. According to Mrs. Webb,
enrollment numbers for the Spring Semester were slightly down, which she attributed to a drop
in Move on When Ready (MOWR) and transient students. Summer applications, on the other
hand, were up from the year before and she acknowledged that about 44% of the applications

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had been accepted. Mrs. Webb stated that she was certain that OEM would reach their goal of
5% increase in applications submitted and accepted students for the summer term. She attributed
this assumption to the implementation of a project between EOM and the Office of Enterprise
Information Services (EIS) which involved re-designing communication between ABAC and
prospective students which would ease the application process. Since a representative from EIS
was not able to attend the meeting, Mrs. Webb decided to postpone discussion of this project
until the next meeting. A scholarship update was provided by Mrs. Webb, who is also in charge
of awarding scholarships. She mentioned that the institution had already awarded over $220,000
and so far only eight students had declined the scholarship due to being offered better financial
opportunities at other institutions. Some scholarships were automatically awarded to some
current high-performing students as an incentive to continue attending ABAC. The committee
had a discussion on whether this was a successful strategy. This topic was very intriguing to me.
Since the meeting, I have found that a research article stated that the receipt of financial aid may
create a kind of loyalty effect; students who choose to attend a college based on student aid have
a higher likelihood of persistence (2011).
Orientation was a big topic of conversation during the meeting. The ABAC student
orientations are officially coordinated by EOM, however, the Office of Academic Support Center
(ASC) staff is heavily involved in the planning, organization, and implementation of the student
orientation events. Together Mrs. Webb, Mr. Nicholas Urquhart, Director of Academic Support,
and Mrs. Lisa Seibert, Academic Support Counselor, drafted an idea regarding the agenda for the
summer orientations. The group also discussed the possibility of changing the dates to ensure
that the date of the orientation did not fall into any high school graduation events. During the
planning of the agenda, the conversation drifted into a discussion regarding the new orientation

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agenda and making sure that everyone on campus was aware of the changes made by EOM
and ASC as to prevent miscommunication, which has apparently been a problem in the past. Dr.
Gail Dillard, the Interim Vice President of Academic Affairs, briefly changed the subject to ask
Mr. Urquhart several questions regarding welcome week events. While Mr. Urquhart explained
some of the problems that were encountered during last year event and how the issues were
handled, Dr. Dillard suggested that it would be wise to go ahead and plan Welcome Week
starting now in order to prevent those issues from happening again.
Mrs. Deidra Jackson, ABAC Comptroller, shared information regarding the new fee
payment deadline printed materials created by the Office of Student Accounts (OSA). Mrs.
Jackson mentioned that she would be attending the Advisors Trainings in which she will hand
out printed materials and explain the fee payment deadlines so that the advisors relay the
information to their advisees. This way, the administration is ensuring that the students are being
notified about fee payment deadlines as is possible that they may overlook the information if it
was sent in a different manner, such as email. Still, they must cover all bases and Mrs. Jackson
also asked Mr. Urquhart if he could send a mass email to students regarding fee payment
deadline and financial aid information just in case. Finally, she informed that budget reports were
sent that morning through campus email and to on February 26th.
Dr. Chris Kinsey, Director of Student Life and Housing (SLH), started his update on
housing application. At the moment of the meeting, he said that the numbers of applications were
up considerably from the 2015 year. The group had a discussion regarding the possible spike of
housing applications and Mrs. Jackson suggested to check the Neighbor Waiver application to
see if there was a correlation between the waiver and the number of application. Regardless of
what attributed the high application numbers, Dr. Kinsey said that he is actively promoting the

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ABAC student housing by adding promotional materials in the academic buildings. Additionally,
Dr. Kinsey gave a Corvias update. Corvias is a privately owned company which partnered with
the Board of Regents (BOR) of the University System of Georgia (USG) to manage the ABAC
student housing. This was a decision made by the BOR and the institutions had no involvement
in the decision. Since the appropriation, the ABAC housing had a positive evaluation from the
BOR and Corvias. However, it was decided that it was at in ABACs best interest to redesign the
freshman housing lobby, game room, and honors lounge to make it more student centered. While
there is a positive correlation between living on campus and enrollment, retention, and
graduation (Pascarella & Terenzini, 2005), the department representatives recognized that while
on-campus housing definitely increases enrollment, they also agreed that it was best for the
institution to have another company to take over the administration of the on-campus housing as
it appeared to be more of a burden than a benefit. Finally, Dr. Kinsey made a comment which
involved student email account issues which were causing problems with the housing application
as students were only able to use their student email to submit their housing application. The
group briefly discussed whether or not this issue would be solved after the implementation of
Centrify, an identity management software, which will provide a single-user sign on. This
conversation was also postponed until next meeting until a representative from EIS is present at
the meeting.
Mr. Urquhart and Mrs. Seibert closed the meeting by giving an update on the ABAC1000
course. This course is offered to first-year students who are placed in academic probation after
their first semester. For the spring 2016 semester, there are 173 students enrolled ABAC1000 and
so far, 80 of the students seem to be making progress through the course. There was a general
discussion with the group about problems the students may experience. Mr. Urquhart and Mrs.

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Seibert said that the trends that they have noticed is that student seem to be confused about how
GPA works and seem to think that their high school GPA carries through college. Mr. Urquhart
mentioned that they are in the process of implementing seminars throughout the fall semester to
address issues that the students may not know about, such as GPA. Finally, Mrs. Seibert said that
through their early alert system, faculty submitted 46 alerts in the fall semester. Out of those 46
alerts, she was only able to resolve12 because the rest of the students would not cooperate when
contacted by an Academic Support Counselor and/or did not make an attempt to seek help.
Intrusive advising has been an effective way to assist those students who may not be aware of the
different avenues of assistance (2010). Therefore, the ASC will be more proactive through
intrusive advising to ensure that these students get the assistance they need to succeed.
There were no reports by Enterprise Information Systems, Office of Financial Aid,
Registrars Office, and Dean of Students.
Conclusion
Observing the Campus Partners meeting was a very interesting experience. I was
unaware of the many important topics and issues that the administration discuss and solve at the
higher level. I really enjoyed watching the dynamic between the administrators even though at
times the opinions of the group felt a bit too honest. I believe this is due to the fact that the group
has been working together for so long, therefore, that they did not feel the need to sugar coat
any of their advice or opinions. When coming up with solutions, they would brainstorm as a
group in order to make the best decisions not only to accommodate the students needs but also
the ABAC faculty and staff. Since my observation, I was invited to attend the meeting as a
representative of the Office of Multicultural Educational Programs. I am looking forward to be
part of this group as they are doing a great service to the institution.

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7
References

Ganem, N. M., & Manasse, M. (2011). The Relationship between Scholarships and Student
Success: An Art and Design Case Study. Education Research International, 2011, 1-8.
doi:10.1155/2011/743120
Pascarella, ET., & Terenzini, P.T. (2005). How college affects students. San Francisco: JosseyBass.
Smart, J. C. (2010). Higher education: Handbook of theory and research (Vol. 25). Dordrecht:
Springer.
University System of Georgia | Corvias. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.corvias.com/campusliving/portfolio/university-system-of-georgia/