Undergraduate Academic Affairs (UAA) Data Day Recap

I recently had the opportunity to attend Undergraduate Academic Affair’s (UAA) Data Day. Similar to the Division of Student Affairs Assessment 365 programming, UAA’s Data Day features individual departments reflecting on their previous year and highlighting their areas of “glow” and “growth.”

This year’s program centered on departments sharing assessment of one or more of their learning outcomes. You can view all the presentations in their shared box folder. Some takeaways included:

• Abby Hart-Grzechowiak from Academic Transition Programs (ATP) highlighted how their department consistently meets their learning outcomes but they would like to grow in the area of reaching more students who may not be taking advantage of their courses and programs (such as UNIV, first-year seminar, or summer bridge). Two populations they would like to increase participation include first-generation students and academic recovery students.
• Carrie Sauter from Individualized Study described some of the things their department is learning through preparing for their Academic Program Review (APR). This is something that occurs every seven years here at UMBC as required by the University System of Maryland (USM). Similar to our division’s annual report process, academic departments must provide a summary of their program; the educational goals, learning outcomes, and program assessment plan; data; and other components.
• Kendyl Walker from the Honors College spoke about the activities of the Honors College and Learning Partnerships. The latter is their work to prepare, recruit, and retain community college students. On thing that impressed me is their use of quantitative and qualitative measurement methods.
• Ronita Walker represented the University Innovation Alliance (UIA). Since we are a part of the UIA, you can request free access to the University Innovation Lab which is an online community that advances innovative initiatives to improve outcomes. Some of the work facilitated by the UIA include the Students Transferring and Redefining Success (STARS program), the National Institute for Student Success (NISS), and the Listening Lab (Focus Group) Initiative partnership with the Career Center. Many colleagues from around our division played a part in these efforts!
• Delana Gregg and Cliff Saul from the Academic Success Center (ASC) used propensity score matching to understand first-year outcomes and beyond of the students that took advantage of an academic advocacy meeting versus those that did not. They found that students that attended at least one academic advocacy meeting were more likely to be retained at a higher level in the first-semester, first-year, and second-year.
• Corris Davis, Ting Huang, and Aritra Samanta represented the Office of Academic Opportunity Programs (AOP). This includes programs such as McNair Scholars, Upward Bound, Talent Search, and Student Support Services that reach students starting from grade 6 through their senior year in college. Similar to our division, AOP activities for students connect back to NACE competencies along with other best practices.
• Mariano Sto. Domingo represented the Meyerhoff Scholars Program. Meyerhoff helps to foster student science identity through the built-in research opportunities including the summer research experience, mentorship, graduate school preparation, and research conference support.
• April Householder from Undergraduate Research & Prestigious Scholarships described some of the metrics connected to their program that includes the Undergraduate Research and Creative Achievement Day (URCAD), the Undergraduate Research Awards (URA), the UMBC Review, presentation grants, research opportunities, and prestigious scholarships (e.g., Rhodes, Gates-Cambridge, Goldwater). One highlight included the increase of 454 students participating in URCAD in 2026 compared to 313 students in 2023 (with the return to an in-person URCAD).

Key themes that I noticed from many of the presentations are their emphasis on how their individual programs support student sense of belonging and connection to the UMBC community. Similar to some of the assessment work we conduct in Student Affairs, UAA is interested in the exploration of their data by subpopulations (e.g., first generation, commuter, transfer). There was a desire to learn more about our “unaffiliated” students. While what characterizes an “unaffiliated” student is still being developed, we can think of this population as those students that aren’t involved in a club/organization, an athletic team, an academic program (e.g., UNIV, McNair Scholars), a living-learning community, and/or has no connection to any department, office, or program. This is why it is important for us to be able to track who are utilizing our supports, resources, and attending our programs to better understand those students that are missing from these experiences. Finally, while there were examples of ways the Division of Student Affairs partners with UAA, there are still more opportunities in the ways we can support each other's work to enhance the student experience.

I hope you will take some to check out the presentations! Additionally, be on the lookout soon for our division’s Assessment 365 presentations that will be happening virtually on the second Thursday of each month from 2 – 3 p.m. This fall we have an exciting lineup with content from the Career Center, Student Engagement, Retriever Essentials, and more! Information is forthcoming.