George Mason University, Virginia’s largest public research university, and Northern Virginia Community College (NOVA), the second-largest community college in the United States, have partnered with student success experts InsideTrack to provide a support solution for students in the ADVANCE partnership.
ADVANCE is a nationally recognized effort to provide an integrated education experience for NOVA students who intend to transfer and complete a four-year degree at Mason. Through the InsideTrack partnership, students enrolled in the ADVANCE program will receive consistent, personalized support throughout their time at both institutions.
According to Ashlie Prioleau, executive director of ADVANCE, 319 students have enrolled in ADVANCE since it began in 2018. The coaching program will ensure that ADVANCE students receive tailored support at every phase of their journey.
“Improving collaboration between two- and four-year institutions is one of the most powerful levers available to improve college completion, and enhance social and economic mobility,” said Rose Pascarell, vice president for University Life at Mason. “This is the focus of our partnership with NOVA around the ADVANCE program. It is also why we are working with InsideTrack to ensure that students who begin their journey at NOVA and complete it at Mason enjoy consistent, holistic support that adapts to their evolving needs.”
During the three-year partnership, InsideTrack student success experts will work directly with Mason and NOVA advisers, faculty and counselors, providing training, development and certification of coaches, managers and program partners. InsideTrack will also develop an ongoing training, certification and quality-assurance program, and a success coaching handbook tailored to ADVANCE students’ needs.
InsideTrack’s professional student success coaches will directly serve 125 students in each of the second and third years of the contract. InsideTrack will then share insights gleaned from this experience with leadership and managers at both NOVA and Mason to guide the evolution of the coaching program and improve operational effectiveness.
“Through this partnership, we are not just deploying new student support resources,” said Frances Villagran-Glover, vice president of student services at NOVA. “We are reimagining the transfer process and creating a seamless transfer student experience.”
Over the past 18 years, InsideTrack has assisted thousands of individual academic programs and a number of state systems—including those in California, Indiana, Montana, Oklahoma and Texas—in providing more consistent, professional and holistic student support. They use training, consulting and organizational support to help institutions and systems identify program strengths and create new opportunities for collaboration and communication among student-facing teams.
“Mason and NOVA are developing an entirely new way to think about the transfer experience and pave the way for student success,” said Pete Wheelan, CEO of InsideTrack. “We applaud their innovation, leadership and laser focus on putting the needs of students first.”