In an effort to prepare our students for a successful transition, we eased our students' introduction to the College by offering a portion of the New START (New Student Advising and Registration Tutorial) online to disseminate important information and streamline their registration.  The online platform that we are using, Comevo, was purchased with Title III funds (Strengthening Institutions Program). This approach is allowing more time to discuss our program offerings, requirements and course selection when students attend the on-campus New START making this experience more interactive. We want to start a conversation about our different academic programs as early as possible and have students create their class draft schedules while introducing our online advising tools. This onboarding approach required revamping the content of our New START and a discussion of student learning outcomes for systematic assessment.

 We will continue to incorporate student feedback for improvement of our online workshop. We will continue to tweak our workshop in ways that best utilize our student learning outcomes data.

 To support the transition of students from the general advising office to faculty advising, we are requesting that the Academic Engagement Coordinator position, currently vacant, be staffed to facilitate training and group advising and online advising opportunities for academic departments. Regarding our advising services in Newburgh, hiring reception staff continues to be necessary to triage students seeking advising services. This model would mirror the one-stop setup in Middletown which has proven to minimize confusion and unnecessary wait time.