VALENCIA COMMUNITY COLLEGE

Alternative Self-Study: Strategic Topics Report 2003

Strategic Topic #2 - Implement the LifeMap (developmental advising) system

Executive Summary

LifeMap is Valencia’s name for a developmental advising system designed to increase students’ social and academic integration, development of education and career plans, and the acquisition of study and life skills. It is based on a developmental advising model that was developed through several years of grant-supported work on increasing student success through curricular and co-curricular interventions.

The LifeMap model describes the ideal progression of a student through Valencia in a five stage model that begins with postsecondary transition (pre-college experiences) and continues to introduction to college, progression to degree, graduation transition, and lifelong learning. Each stage has a stated outcome, performance indicator, and guiding principles.

The LifeMap system is the integration of the model into the curriculum and co-curriculum, the business practices and procedures, messages to the college community, and daily interactions among students, faculty, and staff. While specific interventions at each stage are referenced and documented, the infusion of the LifeMap philosophy into the college is similar to a cultural transformation that is difficult to fully document.

The development of the LifeMap model and the literature on which it is based is described in this report. The implementation of the LifeMap system through strategies with students, faculty and staff are described in categories of materials and tools, marketing, faculty and staff development, student programs, organizational strategies, and evaluation, analysis, and recommendations. Materials in the SACS Resource Rooms will provide further documentation of what has been done to implement LifeMap at Valencia.

The continued implementation of LifeMap is based on two main sources. The LifeMap Work Team that completed its work in June 2002 provided a set of recommendations that are being implemented in 2002-03. The Atlas system with its design emphasis on learning, connection, and direction provides the most powerful potential to move LifeMap to the next level of integration into the student experience at Valencia. With Atlas, we are in a cultural transformation that expands the opportunity for learning connections and amplifies the potential for LifeMap and the Core Competencies to support students in achieving their learning goals. We are approaching this next phase thoughtfully and intentionally using the Action Research model to implement and evaluate interventions that make a difference in students’ learning. 

Strategic Topic #2 - Implement the LifeMap (developmental advising) system

LifeMap is a system of shared responsibility between students and Valencia that is designed to produce social and academic integration, education and career plans, and the acquisition of study and life skills. LifeMap, Valencia’s “brand name” for developmental advising, is a student-centered approach toward developing an advising alliance among students, faculty, and other professionals. This alliance is developed through mutual trust, shared responsibility, and commitment to helping students identify, clarify, and realize their personal, academic, career, and life goals. Developmental advising is an ongoing growth process that assists students in the exploration, clarification, communication, and implementation of realistic choices, based upon self-awareness of their learning styles, abilities, interests, and values.

LifeMap also recognizes that students often enter Valencia with vague notions of their goals and minimal understanding of how to negotiate a college environment. With the ultimate goal of student self-sufficiency, LifeMap interventions are designed to provide more support to students in the beginning of their college experience and then to intentionally assist them in becoming more self-directed. We express this in a model we named as “The Big A to the Big S”.

A                 As                AS                 aS                      S

“A” stands for “Advisor or Faculty” member; S stands for “Student”. We acknowledge that in early interactions, students may rely heavily on faculty or staff to get started in college, i.e. What courses should I take this semester? However, LifeMap is designed to involve students early in an “advising alliance” (Frost, 1991) and to explicitly work with students to become increasingly self-sufficent in implementing their career and educational goals until they are totally directing their own learning process. This model has driven us to examine our policies and procedures so that we don’t inadvertently create student dependency when we mean to support and reward student self-sufficiency.

The roots of LifeMap are in our dissatisfaction with our students’ results as indicated by measures of institutional effectiveness.  In 1993, 84% of students were required to take at least one college-preparatory course; 57.4% of students completed reading, 50% completed writing, and 39.2% completed mathematics college preparatory course sequences in two years.  Just 30% of degree-seeking students graduated in 4 years. These rates were worse for under-represented students (e.g. Hispanic and African-American students). Services and support systems were fragmented and uncoordinated. And in this environment, student enrollments were increasing, which meant we were affecting more and more student lives. We knew we could do better.

The design and development of what became LifeMap began in 1994 with a Title III Strengthening Institutions grant whose focus was improving student results through instructional interventions and developmental advising. The developmental advising component of the grant was based on Susan Frost’s work on developmental advising (1991) which advances the idea that learning and motivation will be enhanced when faculty/advising staff share responsibility and understanding with students about how to direct learning towards the students’ goals.

Another important theoretical component of LifeMap is O’Banion’s (1994) model which proposes that students’ educational success is enhanced when their course selection follows an exploration first of Life Goals, which then leads to Career Goals, which then leads to Educational Goals, which then leads to educational requirements, and finally to course selection. Although students do not enter our doors with this in mind, the culture of LifeMap establishes this sequence as the “norm” and involves students in this exploration process as soon as possible.

A third theoretical concept in LifeMap is Gordon and Sears’ five-step career decision-making model (1997), which starts as the student:

1)      gathers information about him or herself via self-assessment tests,
2)      gathers information about educational options,
3)      gathers information about career options,
4)      interrelates these three sets of information in order to evaluate options, and
5)      makes an initial decision on a set of career and educational goals based on that evaluation.

This initial decision is then acted on, tested out, and may be adjusted based on more information and evaluation. The five-step process is therefore an iterative process.

The centralizing theme in these conceptual models is student goals. LifeMap is predominately about student goal-setting. It includes creating a norm that a student should have goals, establishing a system to establish and document those goals, facilitating a process of planning and implementing goals, developing assessment processes to re-evaluate goals and documenting the achievement of goals.

We assume that naïve though those goals may be when they first enroll, our students ultimately choose to pursue their education based on a set of goals.  Thus, very early on in student interactions with the college, we seek to channel this positive (albeit diffuse) goal-directed energy into a supported process of exploration, evaluation, and formal goal setting.  We challenge students to explicitly reconsider their goals in the context of access to more complete information and support from faculty, academic advisors, and career advisors.

The initial process of the development of LifeMap involved about 300 faculty and staff from 1994-1998 within the context of the Title III grants. Within work teams of 12-20 people, we reviewed the literature for conceptual models and best practices, studied with consultants, and piloted interventions with students. As we reviewed and discussed this effort, we began to formulate a model of developmental advising that focused on the student perspective and was named “LifeMap” in 1999.

Frost (1991), O’Banion (1994), and Gordon & Sears (1997) are the three main models on which LifeMap is built, although there were many others that contributed to our understanding. The first element in our model was the Mission Statement and Definition of Developmental Advising, which we wrote collaboratively in 1995 (http://valenciacc.edu/lifemap/mission/).   We added the Criteria for Implementation and formally shaped our recommendations for student achievement into a five-stage model that looks from the student perspective and provides guidance on “what a student should do when” to successfully achieve their career and educational goals at Valencia. Each stage includes an outcome, performance indicators, and guiding principles that tie to the literature on best practices in higher education, and specifies a time frame in terms of academic progression.

The Five Stages are:

• Stage One: Postsecondary Transition (Middle school to College Decision)
• Stage Two: Introduction to College (0-15 credit hours)
• Stage Three: Progression to Degree (16-44 credit hours)
• Stage Four: Graduation Transition (45–60 credit hours)
• Stage Five: Life Long Learning  (New career or career improvement)

The details on each stage can be found at http://valenciacc.edu/lifemap/stages.  Once students learn the LifeMap process, it is intended that they will be able to repeat it when needed throughout life.

While the development of the model was inspiring to those involved, it became clear that a significant change in student results would not occur until the developmental advising model was implemented through a developmental advising system. The implementation of the model has taken place through a systematic and intentional process. While much has been accomplished, we have come to understand that the full implementation of LifeMap will be a continuous improvement process without end.

Initial implementation strategies were as follows:

“Gap” Analysis 
We took the LifeMap model as the ideal and mapped the program and services that we had in place to the stages and each performance indicator and guiding principle. This provided a picture of what interactions were already in place for students that supported LifeMap. We re-focused interventions where needed and developed new interventions to better support the ideal we had described in LifeMap. An annotated description of programs by LifeMap stage is provided at (http://valenciacc.edu/lifemap/). Notebooks including documentation on programs in each stage will be in the SACS Resource Rooms.

Faculty Alliances
Faculty understanding and support of LifeMap has also been understood as critical to its success for students. Particularly in a community college, faculty have more interaction with students than any other group of staff. Students are often motivated by expectations that faculty convey. Developmental advising (aka LifeMap) has been emphasized with faculty and academic deans as a means to tap into student motivation through student goals and therefore connection to classroom learning experiences. This is the essence of Susan Frost’s description of developmental advising.

Faculty Development
Specific faculty development programs have been designed and implemented within grant work and established college mechanisms. Title III and Title V projects included developmental advising in the classroom context for the design of instructional strategies to improve student success (available in the SACS Resource Rooms). Faculty Academy (preparation for tenure track faculty) included a workshop on developmental advising and LifeMap (http://valenciacc.edu/lifemap/facacad). Workshops on LifeMap and its implementation have also been added to Leadership Valencia, the college’s staff development program. (Documentation in SACS Resource Rooms.)

Staff Development
Student services staff were also key stakeholders in the implementation of LifeMap. Many staff were involved in the Title III projects that resulted in LifeMap so they have an understanding of the concepts on which it is built. Content on the development and implementation of LifeMap is included in formal staff development programs such as the Advising and Registration Updates which are held three times annually for all student affairs staff, and it is built into department meeting agendas and staff evaluation processes.

Electronic Planning Tools (Cyber Suite)
Early in our developmental advising work, we developed a PC-based advising program that we named Cyber Adviser. It provided information to students on courses needed to satisfy Valencia degree requirements and included the pre-requisites for majors at the University of Central Florida, the transfer institution of choice for most Valencia students (83%). Cyber Adviser was intended to elevate the content of conversations between advisors and students to deeper discussions of students’ career and educational goals, since it provided basic information that was previously the main subject matter of advising conversations. It assisted faculty-student interactions in providing information that faculty did not have at their fingertips. It was a tool to support student self-sufficiency. The implementation of Cyber Adviser included integrating it into the curriculum of our Student Success classes, which enroll approximately 4,500 students per year. It also involved establishing Student Success Centers on each campus (computer labs) where Student Success classes and students at large could use Cyber Adviser. Cyber Adviser spurred the concept and development of other “Cyber” applications that we eventually referred to as the “Cyber Suite.” Cyber Registration enhanced the registration function by providing students a list of their required college preparatory courses, a real-time list of available courses, and a visual display of the courses they selected in terms of meeting days and times. Cyber Career supported the career decision-making function by allowing students to take assessments and access information on majors and careers as a guide to initial decision-making on career and educational goals.

Performance Evaluation
We continued to monitor progress towards improvement of the student results with which we were originally dissatisfied by regularly examining the college preparatory placement rates, the appropriate placement of students in required college preparatory courses, student enrollment in Student Success courses, student completion of college preparatory courses, student enrollment persistence and student graduation rates (available in the SACS Resource Rooms).

Marketing LifeMap
As we began to think more intentionally and explicitly about introducing the developmental advising model to students, we realized that we needed a mechanism to explain developmental advising in a manner that was more inviting and that tapped into the motivation of students. In 1999, our Marketing Department provided the expertise that created the “brand name” of LifeMap and the tag line, “Life’s a trip. You’ll need directions,” along with a stylized look and promotional campaign that was formally introduced in August 2000.

Another component of this effort was re-creating and re-designing current college publications and materials to tie into a single LifeMap message and effort. The Student Handbook represents the best example of this effort. The chapters were designed so that they follow the O’Banion model (e.g. Chapter One is Life Goals, Chapter Two is Career Goals, etc.). College programs and services are listed in the chapter related to the goals they support. Each chapter includes self-assessments and interpretations that students can use. The calendar pages provide a “day-timer” and include key college dates such as final exam dates and college holidays. “To Do” cues are listed on each calendar page and are tied to LifeMap developmental advising stages with icons that students can follow.  “Been There” quotes at the beginning of each chapter add advice from peers.

Other publications that were edited to include or focus on LifeMap were the College Catalog, the New Student Orientation Guide and career center materials. The LifeMap logo was also added to appropriate college brochures and flyers, and we began developing the habit of using the name in internal language both oral and written.

We began presenting the LifeMap name to faculty and staff in February 1999, with the first introduction to the Title III Opening Workshop (Faculty), followed by the March 1999 Advising and Registration Update (Student Services staff).

Student Information System
Early in our developmental advising work, we knew that our ability to improve student results would need to be enhanced through a web-based system that provided connection between students’ goals over time and the interactions they had with faculty and staff. We began to imagine and specify the components of this system in 1994 and greatly evolved in our thinking through the development of LifeMap and our experience with the Cyber Suite, particularly with Cyber Adviser. This evolution formed the basis for the development of the Learning Support System, now named Atlas, which is the subject of Objective 3 in this self-study and will be explained in greater detail there.

Integration of LifeMap into Valencia Community College
Since 1999, evidence of continued integration of the LifeMap (developmental advising) system has focused on engaging students in the LifeMap process through key strategies of materials/tools development, faculty and staff development, marketing campaigns, student programs, organizational focus, and consulting with colleagues. Previously mentioned programs have been sustained in addition to new and evolving initiatives.

2000-2001: Materials/tools development

• For Students: The LifeMap Student Handbook, 2nd edition (second edition of Handbook available on-site in SACS Resource Rooms) was revised and edited based on feedback from students and faculty on the 1st edition. The New Student Orientation folder was replaced by a LifeMap folder and the New Student Orientation guidebook was revised to include LifeMap more prominently. The Cyber Suite deployment continued with improvements based on curriculum changes and student, faculty and advisor feedback. The LifeMap web site was designed and deployed to support the LifeMap marketing campaign.
   
• For Faculty and Staff: The LifeMap information card  was written and published to support the LifeMap marketing campaign. (Available in SACS Resource Rooms.) It was intended to provide faculty and staff with answers students might have about LifeMap and how to contribute to LifeMap themselves. The card was distributed in August to faculty through the Academic Assembly and Campus Orientations and was sent to all professional and career service staff through campus mail with a cover letter asking everyone to support students through LifeMap. Definitions of developmental advising and Lifemap were included in the Learning-Centered Reference Guide for our internal learning community (http://faculty.valenciacc.edu/development/resources/flipbook). The LifeMap Student Handbook, 2nd edition, was also provided to all faculty as an additional LifeMap resource tool.
   

Marketing LifeMap
The LifeMap marketing campaign was led by the Marketing Department with input from faculty and staff. The project was approached with a full-blown marketing perspective for our internal audiences of students, faculty and staff. Design work included focusing on the main messages and the call to action intended. What did we want students to do as a result of seeing the LifeMap campaign? Fry Hammond Barr, a professional advertising firm with which Valencia had a contract for services, participated as partners.

The guiding principles for the campaign were:

• Creative messages should convey a “thirst” for career and educational planning and how to get started.
• Creative messages should urge students to utilize key college resources.
• Faculty should be included in the LifeMap marketing images.
• The LifeMap creative messages should reflect the “smart attitude” of Valencia marketing.
• The visibility of creative messages should be equitable on all campuses.
• Place “planning” messages on the exterior of college buildings with more specific “resource” messages inside the buildings.
• Concentrate LifeMap messages where student traffic is “high”.
• Provide “directional” messages for registration.
• Create a visual tie-in to LifeMap for specific offices on campus.

The messages or call to action were:

• Have a Plan
• Use college resources (career centers, advising, financial aid, LRCs)
• Take Student Success.
• Talk to faculty.

The resulting campaign included 109 banners with high-quality photographs and clever messages, 85 that were on the outside of campus buildings and 24 that were inside campus buildings. There were also 39 posters that were put inside campus buildings. Two LifeMap banners alternated on the light posts at the entrances of each campus driveway that had the two messages of “Life’s a trip”, and “You’ll need directions.” In total there were 16 different messages with stylized photographs of students and faculty. Student Services staff designed bulletin boards to complement the LifeMap campaign as well.

Faculty and Staff Development
Initial presentations to faculty coincided with the beginning of the 2000-01 academic year and the roll out of the LifeMap marketing campaign. The LifeMap theme was prevalent in the staging of the Academic Assembly and the President’s welcoming remarks specifically encouraged faculty engagement in LifeMap with students. This message was also conveyed by Faculty Association leaders, Deans of Students, and Provosts at the Campus Faculty Welcome Back and Adjunct Faculty Orientation events. Student Services staff were introduced to the LifeMap campaign through the June 2000 Advising and Registration Update. The College and Community Relations Department, which provides an orientation program for all employees called “Valencia Traditions,” added LifeMap to its curriculum. The annual Career Service Welcome Back social included a LifeMap theme. LifeMap workshops were included in the Leadership Valencia workshop program and in the Faculty Academy curriculum. 

The PBS Adult Learning Services teleconference on LifeMap: A Learning-Centered System for Student Success, held in November 2000, served as both an internal and external professional development program. Internally, it focused our reflection on how to describe LifeMap and its systematic implementation, its relation to our learning-centered transformational work, why we had developed it, and what evidence we had that is was improving student results. The tape of the teleconference, the resource book we developed for participants, and the website (http://valenciacc.edu/pbs/lifemap) document our accomplishment. During the actual broadcast, faculty and staff workshops were held on two campuses with discussion following. As part of our external work with colleagues, the teleconference was viewed by 126 colleges and we have had innumerable exchanges with colleagues on LifeMap following the teleconference.

Student Programs
Annotated description of LifeMap programs by stage are available at http://valenciacc.edu/lifemap/.  During 2000, special interventions were implemented to support the visible introduction of LifeMap through the marketing campaign. Student leaders were briefed on the initiative at the July 2000 Student Leadership Workshop and the April 2001 Student Leadership Symposium. New students were introduced to LifeMap through the New Student Orientation curriculum, which was presented to 13,061 students. The Student Success course was revised to specifically name LifeMap in the part of the curriculum that focuses on developmental advising.

In response to the encouragement of the President and engagement with the faculty development curriculum, many faculty designed specific instructional strategies to draw students’ attention to the call to action messages of the LifeMap campaign, and to planning and goal setting. We have examples of faculty response through anecdotal reports and faculty videos (available in SACS Resource Rooms).

The RoadMap to Success Awards were initiated in 1999 to tangibly reward students who completed a developmental advising co-curriculum. Students who complete their required college preparatory courses, complete a developmental advising sequence with an advisor, and integrate other co-curricular activities earn $500.00. This opportunity is announced to students enrolled in Student Success classes each fall (SLS1122). In 2000-01, 114 RoadMap to Success Awards were earned.

Organizational Strategies
LifeMap was integrated into the college institutional effectiveness program in several ways. Most prominently, the Strategic Learning Plan draft that was under development at this time included several references to LifeMap and its full implementation (SLP draft available in SACS Resource Rooms).  The strategic priorities of the division of Planning and Educational Services focused on the implementation of LifeMap and the core competencies. The Deans of Students included LifeMap and the core competencies in their departmental goals and staff evaluations. To help guide the implementation of LifeMap, a LifeMap Strategy Group composed of college-wide faculty and student services staff, led by the Director of Curriculum Development, Teaching and Learning, and the Assistant Vice President of Educational and Student Services met periodically to review feedback and recommend next steps.

Consulting with Colleagues
In addition to the LifeMap teleconference, Valencia hosted on-campus visits of many colleges from across the United States who were interested in learning more about LifeMap and seeing it in action (list of the visits that were hosted in 2000-01 available in SACS Resource Rooms).

In March 2001, LifeMap was presented at a regional conference on “Student Affairs in a Learning-Centered College,” hosted by Central Florida Community College. Dr. Terry O’Banion was a consultant to this conference, and stated after the presentation that he believed LifeMap represented a premier advising system in the United States. In June 2001, LifeMap was presented at the state meeting of the Council of Student Affairs, where it was well received and the Executive Director of FACTS (Florida’s electronic advising system, http://facts.org/) stated that LIFEMAP was a key model for career and educational planning which the FACTS system complements.

2000-01 Evaluation, Analysis, Recommendations
Evaluation of LifeMap in 2000-01 was conducted through review meetings, discussion groups, reports from faculty and staff, and feedback from peers. The overwhelmingly positive response we have received from peers through means such as the formal evaluations of the teleconference, the informal conversations with visitors and other colleagues, and the commendation from Dr. O’Banion indicate that the conceptual model for LifeMap is valid and the implementation strategies reflect sound, best practice in higher education. Consistently, the feedback indicates that our systematic, comprehensive implementation and focus on the student perspective is unique and appropriate. While we tend to focus on what we have “not yet” accomplished with LifeMap, our peers convey admiration for the breadth and depth of LifeMap, and on what we have accomplished in a relatively short time.

Our internal review through the LifeMap Strategy Group, division and department level discussion groups, formal Strategic Learning Plan initiatives, and reports from faculty and staff, indicates areas for problem solving and improvement. These are explained within the context of the following recommendations for 2001-02:

• Increase faculty involvement and engagement. A theme that plagued the introduction of the LifeMap marketing campaign was the perception that faculty had not been sufficiently involved in its development. For some, this extended beyond the marketing campaign to the original design of the developmental advising model. While we can document significant involvement of faculty through Title III in the development of the model and some inclusion of faculty in the marketing design, the perception of insufficient involvement has caused reticence or rejection of LifeMap by some faculty. We need to seek ways to engage more faculty in understanding LifeMap as a means to motivate student learning in the classroom and to authentically evolve LifeMap along these lines.
• Fully integrate LifeMap into everyday interactions with students. It takes time and sustained effort to truly integrate a new model into the everyday business of the college. Particularly with student services, we need to continue to work with staff to present LifeMap as the modus operandi of Valencia, not an “add on” initiative.
• Ensure that students have a deep understanding of LifeMap as a process to achieve their goals. Although LifeMap is visible at Valencia in many ways, we are not sure to what extent students understand the LifeMap process and how to implement it for themselves. We suspect the overall understanding may be rather shallow and that the full potential of LifeMap will not be realized until we can deepen and broaden this understanding.
• Conduct a formal assessment of students and faculty to evaluate their understanding of and commitment to LifeMap. A formal survey of students and faculty will provide us with data to check our assumptions and provide a baseline from which to evaluate future development.
• Design and implement a web-based learning support system to support LifeMap for students. It is increasing clear that we simply are not going to be able to realize the full potential of LifeMap in a college of our size without a web-based system that will sustain student connection with their goals and with advising alliances with faculty and staff. This initiative is more completely addressed in Objective 3 of the Self-Study.      

2001-2002
During 2001-2002, the continued integration of LifeMap can be described in the same categorical strategies.

Materials/tools development

• For Students: The LifeMap Student Handbook, 3^rd edition   was revised and edited based on feedback from students and faculty on the 2nd edition. The New Student Orientation Guidebook was revised based on student and staff feedback. The Cyber Suite deployment continued with the introduction of Cyber Bridge, which provides job search information on employers in Central Florida.  Improvements to Cyber Adviser were based on curriculum changes and student, faculty and advisor feedback. A total re-design of the Cyber Suite was initiated, described in more detail in Objective 3. A “What is LifeMap?” (http://valenciacc.edu/lifemap) card for students was written and published to distribute to students enrolled in Student Success classes. The LifeMap web site was updated.
• For Faculty and Staff: The LifeMap information card was revised and published based on feedback from faculty. LifeMap implementation examples in the classroom were added along with improved descriptions. It was distributed to faculty and all professional and career service staff through campus mail with a cover letter asking everyone to support students through LifeMap. The LifeMap Student Handbook, 3^rd edition, was also provided to all faculty as an additional LifeMap resource tool.

Marketing LifeMap
The LifeMap banners and posters on and in campus buildings and light posts, were sustained through upkeep and replacement. A Strategic Budget initiative for the evolution of the LifeMap marketing signage was approved, though the design process was delayed and was not fully implemented until 2002-03. LifeMap style signage was implemented to label prominently those campus offices where students need to complete the application and enrollment processes. The LifeMap “look” was applied to appropriate print materials when they were revised through a collaborative effort with the Marketing Department. The LifeMap teleconference was shown regularly on the Valencia cable channel and became a mechanism for educating students, faculty, and staff on LifeMap.

Faculty and Staff Development
Professional development strategies were sustained through the Valencia Traditions workshop (for all new faculty and staff), Leadership Valencia workshops (staff development program), Advising and Registration Updates (Student Services staff), Faculty Academy (Tenure-track Faculty program), and Faculty Welcome Back campus meetings.

Faculty development through grant activities continued to substantially include LifeMap. Online development programs especially for part-time faculty (Scenarios Online) included an explicit case study involving LifeMap concepts, and faculty participated in rich discussions of the application of LifeMap to classroom settings. A new “Connections” grant also began on the East Campus, the major focus of which is the implementation of LifeMap through learning communities for selected groups of students along the LifeMap developmental continuum.  An overview of LifeMap and the areas in which we need to expand its integration was presented to the Connections Leadership Team in January. Eight projects were designed by faculty and staff and piloted in Fall 2002 (http://www.valenciacc.edu/lifemap/).

Student Programs
Student programs described earlier were continued and expanded. Many faculty continue classroom interventions that introduce students to LifeMap concepts and use the LifeMap Student Handbook as a resource. Student services workshops were developed to explicitly teach students about LifeMap and how to engage in the LifeMap process. Career Program Advisors have built a system of interventions with students enrolled in Associate in Science programs based on the LifeMap model (Documentation available in SACS Resource Rooms).

Educational and Student Services leaders designed a model, plan, and proposal for implementing a Learning-Centered Student Services System that is based on LifeMap. The model re-engineers Student Services from a functional to a relational model. Services are provided based on the level of intervention the student is seeking rather than on the content of the intervention. Cross-trained staff provide the majority of student services in a central location, with specialists available as needed, and web-based information available in a student friendly manner. This new model will be implemented in Summer 2003 (Proposal available in SACS Resource Rooms or at http://valenciacc.edu/lifemap/redesign).

Organizational Strategies
The Strategic Learning Plan (SLP) was finalized and formally adopted by the Board of Trustees in November 2001. LifeMap concepts are interwoven into much of the SLP and are referenced explicity in Learning Goal 4, Strategy 4-D and Learning Goal 5, Strategy 5-B.

In July 2001, Valencia adopted a new governance structure which included the creation of  the College Planning Council (CPC) and the College Learning Council(CLC). LifeMap is closely related to the scope of each of these Councils. The College Planning Council has oversight of the SACS re-accreditation process and the Alternative Self-Study. LifeMap reports (written and verbal) are presented at every CPC meeting. Goal team reports of the SLP, including those that cover LifeMap implementation strategies (4-D and 5-B), are made to the CPC before they are presented to the Board of Trustees. The CLC was assigned oversight for progress towards Learning Goal 4, Strategy 4-D which states “Fully integrate LifeMap into curriculum and co-curricular learning experiences, and implement the Learning Support System (now Atlas) to ensure that all students have educational and career tools to plan and manage for success.” 

A work plan for this goal was submitted and approved by the College Learning Council in November 2001. It established the LifeMap Work Team to make progress towards this goal. The LifeMap Work Team was composed of faculty and staff representatives and met monthly from January to June 2002. Accomplishments included definition of what it means to “fully integrate LifeMap”; documentation of LifeMap implementation in student programs, faculty initiatives, and professional development; analysis of the LifeMap Student Survey results; design, implementation, and analysis of an online LifeMap Faculty Survey, done in Spring 2002 (the summary of each survey’s results is available in the SACS Resource Rooms). 

The LifeMap Student Survey data indicated relatively high levels of student recognition of LifeMap (52%) while fewer students were able to articulate its meaning (20%). It was noted by the Work Team in their analysis of the student results that there was little misunderstanding of what LifeMap is. Students who were able to describe LifeMap did so accurately (http://valenciacc.edu/lifemap/stusurvey). The Work Team concluded that the branding and marketing of LifeMap has been effective, while future efforts should focus on deepening student understanding of LifeMap. The LifeMap Faculty Survey data indicates high levels of commitment to the concepts of LifeMap (i.e. actively supporting student planning through in-class and out-of-class interactions with students), while not specifically embracing its “branding” as LifeMap (http://valenciacc.edu/lifemap/facsurvey). The Work Team’s analysis provided summative analysis and recommendations for further LifeMap implementation (http://valenciacc.edu/lifemap/workteam).

The leadership of LifeMap and its implementation has been shared and diversified. For example, various staff members have assumed leadership positions for presenting LifeMap to visiting colleges, for working with faculty to implement LifeMap, and for writing and editing materials to support LifeMap. The application of the LifeMap model that the Career Program Advisors organized for students enrolled in Associate in Science programs is yet another example of more widespread ownership throughout the college for the implementation and integration of LifeMap.

Consulting with Colleagues 
Colleagues from other colleges were hosted in 2001-02 (a list of visiting colleges is available in SACS Resource Rooms). Valencia staff also visited Johnson County Community College (JCCC) in Overland Park, Kansas in September, 2001 to learn more about their student services delivery model and its implementation. JCCC developed a one-stop student services center in order to help students focus first on career and educational plans before discussing course and schedule selection. It is the only “one-stop” model we have found that is based on a student development conceptual model similar to LifeMap, rather than purely on customer service models.

2001-02 Evaluation, Analysis, Recommendations
LifeMap continues to receive national recognition.  The National Academic Advising Association (NACADA) recognized the LifeMap Student Handbook with its Outstanding Advising Publication Award at the annual NACADA National Conference in Salt Lake City, Utah in October 2002.

The final report of the LifeMap Work Team forms the basis for continued direction for the full implementation of LifeMap at Valencia (LifeMap Work Team report to CLC available in SACS Resource Rooms).  As part of the conclusion of its work, the LifeMap Work Team reviewed and prioritized the recommendations for continued implementation based on greatest impact and most readiness within the college culture. These recommendations were translated into specific strategies and the assignments made for their design and implementation during 2002-03.

The Atlas system is another component that supports the continued implementation of LifeMap. The My LifeMap tab in Atlas and the LifeMap tools in particular are fertile ground for working with students on planning, setting goals, and assessing progress towards those goals.

2002-2003: Materials/Tools Development

• For Students: The LifeMap Student Handbook, 4th edition (http://valenciacc.edu/pdf/studenthandbook.pdf) was revised and edited based on feedback from students and faculty on the 3rd edition. The New Student Orientation Guidebook was revised based on student and staff feedback. The Cyber Suite was completely re-designed with the implementation of Atlas and the development of the My LifeMap tools. My Career Planner, My Education Plan, My Portfolio, and My Job Prospects were introduced to all students through Atlas between April and October 2002. The My LifeMap tab in Atlas was created to introduce students to LifeMap, its concept, its performance outcomes, and how students use LifeMap to plan and achieve their career and educational goals.
   
• For Faculty and Staff: The LifeMap Student Handbook, 4th edition, was provided to all faculty as a LifeMap resource tool. The Learning-Centered Reference Guide, available in print and online versions, includes definitions of developmental advising, LifeMap and Atlas. In January 2003, a new LifeMap Faculty Guide was distributed that serves as a companion to the LifeMap Student Handbook. Designed in a day-timer weekly format. It contains information on the Learning-Centered Initiative, Core Competencies and LifeMap, college calendar dates, important reference information, weekly hints for integrating LifeMap into the curriculum and specific strategies implemented by faculty in a variety of academic disciplines. It was written and designed by a faculty team from the Connections grant.

Marketing LifeMap
A Strategic Budget Initiative to provide for the next evolution of our LifeMap marketing campaign was funded and design work has begun with the LifeMap Work Team serving as the representative group for feedback into the design process. Some of the themes are: take the message beyond “action” to “transaction” or engagement; expand “Have a plan” to “Have a plan to learn and to graduate; and, point students to use the tools in the MyLifeMap tab in Atlas to create and store their plans, and transact with faculty and staff about their plans. The first phase will be implemented by March 2003 with the second phase completed by July 2003. The LifeMap stylized look is also applied to appropriate print materials as they are revised or re-printed. The LifeMap web site was updated and added as a link within Atlas.

Faculty and Staff Development
The tenure track faculty professional development program was substantially revised and renamed the Teaching/Learning Academy. LifeMap is included as an “essential competency of a Valencia Faculty Educator” as follows:

Incorporate LifeMap concepts as tools for learning

• foster social connections in classroom, library, counseling environments
• help students to continue clarifying and developing purpose (attention to life, career, education goals)
• establish rapport via student - faculty contact
• establish student services - faculty connections
• employ electronic tools to aid student contact (Atlas, WebCT, email…)
• seek out struggling students and identify options through dialog (and appropriate referrals)

College Learning Day replaced the Opening Day Academic Assembly so that all staff could participate and LifeMap was the content of several sessions presented by faculty and staff. Other professional development strategies that continued the conversation about LifeMap were sustained through the Valencia Traditions workshop (for all new faculty and staff), Leadership Valencia workshops (staff development program) and Advising and Registration Updates (Student Services staff).  At the October 2002 Advising and Registration Update, all Educational and Student Services staff wrote down on an index card one thing they would do within their work to “fully integrate LifeMap at Valencia.” These responses were collated and shared back to the staff (http://valenciacc.edu/lifemap/staffideas). Faculty development through grant activities continued to substantially include LifeMap. An overview of LifeMap and the Action Research questions to advance our work was presented to the Connections Leadership Team in December (http://valenciacc.edu/lifemap/research).

Student Programs
Besides the continuation of programs previously described (New Student, Student Success course, LifeMap workshops for students, RoadMap to Success Awards, faculty initiatives to integrate LifeMap into the classroom), a major thrust has been the promotion of LifeMap through Atlas. The New Student Orientation and the Student Success advising curriculum was revised to introduce Atlas and the MyLifeMap tools. Advising Centers also implemented a new business practice that students must have a print of their My Education Plan and their Degree Audit before meeting with an advisor. Students are directed to the Atlas Outpost for assistance with these programs in Atlas.

The pilot projects of the Connections grant implemented in Fall 2002 involved students in new curricular and co-curricular interventions related to LifeMap, the Core Competencies, and the use of Atlas as a learning tool that improved student success rates (data available in SACS Resource Rooms).

Organizational Strategies
LifeMap written and verbal reports have been provided to the College Planning Council (CPC). Strategic Learning Plan, Goal 4-D (fully integrate LifeMap) was also reviewed and reported by Goal Team 4. The College Learning Council approved the recommendation that the LifeMap Work Team serve as the representative design group for the new LifeMap marketing campaign.

The Learning-Centered Re-Design of Educational Services has continued with preparation for implementation in Summer 2003. New job descriptions and re-classification recommendations have been prepared, reviewed, and approved by the Executive Council and the President. Position announcement, search procedures and training plans are under development.

Consulting with Colleagues
We have appreciated the opportunity to host visiting groups from other colleges to learn more about LifeMap in 2001-02 (list of visiting colleges available in SACS Resource Rooms). We are looking forward to feedback from the Alternative Self-Study consultants and the visiting team to assist us with our development and implementation of LifeMap.

2002-03: Evaluation, Analysis, Recommendations
The implementation of the recommendations of the LifeMap Work Team will be analyzed and evaluated. The re-fresh of the LifeMap promotional campaign is currently underway and will occur in phases. To continue our “culture of assessment”, we plan to conduct the LifeMap Student Survey and the LifeMap Faculty Survey later this year. These results will be analyzed to develop future recommendations.

The major thrust of LifeMap development this year is the use of Atlas to integrate LifeMap more fully into the curriculum and the co-curriculum, and to measure the results of this integration. As the Atlas self-study report describes more fully, we have come to understand this process as a cultural transformation of our learning community that will take time and measured progress to achieve. We believe it is critical that we develop the habit of documenting the behavioral and attitudinal changes of our learners, analyzing the documentation, and making future plans based on our collective observations. To this end, we are planning an Atlas Fall 2002 report that will be our first attempt to document behavior and attitudes about Atlas, including use of the My LifeMap tab. We expect this first report to be rudimentary but plan to grow in our sophistication and ability to measure “learning.”  We plan to send the Atlas Fall 2002 report as a supplement to this document when it is available.

We are looking forward to feedback from the SACS Alternative Self-Study consultants to assist us with our development and implementation of LifeMap.