A new quarter means a new opportunity to spotlight one of our fabulous CampusESP partner institutions and the creative, impactful work they are doing on their campus.

For 2021 Q3, we’re thrilled to announce that Georgia State University is taking home the ESP MVP Award.

Georgia State joined the CampusESP family in April 2020, diving right in with the full student lifecycle suite of CampusESP tools, including student enrollment, family communication, and FERPA. That last feature is why Georgia State caught our attention — in just three months, the team was able to more than double the number of families utilizing the FERPA feature to request and view their student’s information, a move that gives parents visibility into how their student is fairing and ensures families can provide support and reminders to students to keep them on track. Since we know that student persistence can increase by up to 15% when students share key aspects of their academic and financial record with parents, this growth has the potential to make a real difference in outcomes for this new class of students.

“The power of data and student success are our driving forces at Georgia State, and the opportunity to use the portal to give parents the ability to feel connected and give them real visibility just made sense for us,” shared Benjamin Williams, Director, New Student Orientation.

Setting goals for FERPA module adoption 

Georgia State has seen their portal usage grow since launching last spring, with more than 49,459 prospective families now in the system and 19,021 current Panther families participating. 

While that growth is impressive, we were wowed seeing how Georgia State was able to double the number of FERPA connections in their portal over the course of just three months, growing from 584 to 1318!

The massive growth wasn’t accidental — the Georgia State team set a growth goal for themselves and then laid out a multi-touch marketing plan to get them there.

“I very much like to operate with high expectations, so we set a goal for ourselves which was to double the number of FERPA connections by the end of the 2021 orientation cycle,” said Williams. “We had 4000 families attend, so we needed one in eight to take action. That was aggressive.”

Aggressive ... but achievable. With an aim to get 500 new families connected, Georgia State actually saw 700 connect during orientation, each one another step toward their overall mission to improve student success. Research clearly shows that students want support from their families during their college experience. With families having instant access to information like tuition balances and GPA through the FERPA connection, they can help students before they might slip, improving the student’s chances of success and Georgia State’s chances of retention.

As other first-year families in this class move from the student enrollment portal to the current family portal, the team hopes to see the number of FERPA connections continue to grow. 

The plan: help parents help their student

So, how did they do it? 

First, Georgia State took to heart the “why” behind the initiative. It wasn’t just about hitting a number, it was about improving student success.

“We have been very much reinvigorating parent engagement over this past year,” says Williams. “We were looking at and focusing on what parents want. FERPA access is about giving information to the family, but also educating students that this offering exists and that approving it can help their parents help them.”

So the Georgia State team developed a two-pronged approach to promote the FERPA connection to both parents and students. During orientation, families attended a presentation that not only highlighted the Panther Family Portal and FERPA feature, but also included step-by-step screenshots of how to register and request access. No surprise — families were whipping out their phones and taking the steps right there in real time. 

That same weekend, students attended a different presentation on the importance of staying connected to their families while navigating their first year on campus, and — you guessed it — some information on the family portal and why they should accept FERPA requests when received. 

These two in-person activities were backed up with postcards inside the orientation goodie bags that recapped all the family portal benefits and the FERPA request process. 

“Let’s just say it was all definitely effective,” said Williams. 

Following the data toward student success

FERPA adoption like this is a huge win, but Georgia State isn’t stopping there!

To see the real, long-term value of the FERPA connection, the team is following the data. An integration between CampusESP and their student information system, Banner, allows them to track which students have granted their families access through FERPA, and in turn how that visibility is improving persistence.

“We know that family engagement increases student success because you have that additional nudge — parents will nudge their students to take action,” said Williams. “Now with all this data, it helps us make those stronger connections so we can ultimately see students succeed.”

We love the powerful combo of passion, strategy, and data that this team is harnessing in the name of student success. Way to go, Georgia State!

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