The Office of Student Success has launched CPP Connect, a powerful tool that enhances the holistic advising support Cal Poly Pomona offers to its students.

CPP Connect, powered by the EAB Navigate platform, gives academic advising and tutoring professionals a common advising notetaking system. In future phases, the platform will also have early alert and predictive analytics features. CPP Connect is replacing GradesFirst, a similar system that advising and tutoring professionals have been using for several years.

"CPP Connect will allow us to do more proactive advising," said S. Terri Gomez, associate vice president for student success. "Launching this tool demonstrates our commitment to reaching students in real time and giving them a more holistic academic experience."

The first phase of implementation extends to all eight college advising centers, the Bronco Advising Center, the Learning Resource Center, PolyTransfer, Early Start and three of the campus's specialized tutoring programs: the Reading, Advising & Mentoring Program, Maximizing Engineering Potential and ARCHES. In addition to using the tool to document their interactions with students, they'll use CPP Connect for setting up appointments, checking students into their centers and running reports.

Throughout the academic year, both the colleges and the Office of Student Success will nudge students for both routine and focused advising, offering tailored support. All students have access to CPP Connect and can log in to set up an appointment or view the center's drop-in hours.

Cecilia Santiago-González, director of strategic initiatives for student success, says that CPP Connect makes academic advising services more accessible to students.
"We offer holistic academic advising on this campus, and this tool pulls the puzzle pieces together," Santiago-González said. "It also helps us provide continuity of service, meaning that we have a record of our interactions. Wherever they go across campus, an advisor or tutoring professional can understand their experience. It gives us a better window of opportunity to outreach to students when they need support."

Future phases of CPP Connect implementation will involve expanding the tool to faculty and other campus partners, as well as setting up early alerts and predictive analytics functionality. This functionality will help advisors and tutoring professionals help students at critical academic moments.

"Predictive analytics will allow us to anticipate the support a student may need," Gomez said. "When a student takes a course that is essential to their degree progress and they're struggling, an advisor or faculty member can quickly intervene with tailored advising."

For the last year, the Office of Student Success has worked with the Office of Institutional Research, Planning, and Analytics (IRPA), the CSU Chancellor's Office and other campus partners to get the tool ready for its first phase of implementation. The CSU acquired a systemwide license in June 2017 and has been rolling EAB Navigate out across the system; 14 campuses use the platform, with three others in planning or implementation stages.

"With this platform, Cal Poly Pomona advisors will be able to have more meaningful conversations with students," said Liz Reed, assistant director of enrollment management technology at the Chancellor's Office. "By helping the CSU campuses roll this platform out, we're able to provide more opportunities for more proactive advising."

Santiago-González echoes Reed's sentiment.

"We are very excited about not only enhancing our students' experience, but that we're documenting the good and vital work our academic advisors and tutoring centers are doing every day," Santiago-González said.