Federal Requirement 4.1

8.      The institution evaluates success with respect to student achievement consistent with its mission.  Criteria may include enrollment data; retention, graduation, course completion, and job placement rates; state licensing examinations; student portfolios; or other means of demonstrating student achievement. (Federal Requirement 4.1)

X  Compliance           ___ Non-Compliance

Narrative:  

Southern University and A&M College at Baton Rouge (SUBR) invests specialized and strategic programming efforts to insure students receive a high quality academic experience. The mission of the University charges every unit to support achievement by providing every student with educational, engagement and public service opportunities. SUBR’s student success framework provides a holistic and multifaceted learning environment to assist students in reaching their maximum potential throughout the collegiate process and beyond. Southern University works tirelessly and collaboratively to reach the goal of developing the complete student. Our multidimensional approach gives students the platform to discover their intellectual, emotional, social, ethical, physical and spiritual characteristics and purpose. The indicators of student success
are not only retention, persistence, and graduation rates but also student advancement.

The ultimate aim of Southern University and A&M College is to graduate its students and assist them with gaining opportunities beyond the confines of the University. The university’s retention and graduation rates, performance on state licensure exams and success with job placement demonstrate its growing success with respect to student achievement. These criteria are appropriate for SUBR because of the very diverse student population that it serves. In keeping with its mission “to provide opportunities for a diverse student population to achieve a high quality, global educational experience,” SUBR educates students from a wide variety of backgrounds, from many countries, and with varying intellectual competencies.

Retention Rates
The United States Department of Education defines retention as “the percentage of a school’s first-time, first-year undergraduate students who continue at that school next year.” SUBR follows the US Department of Educations definition but also tracks the ability of those students to persist beyond their second year. The University has seen consistent retention and persistence rates for Fall 2010 cohort to Fall 2014 cohort. Unceasingly, SUBR researchers best, theory- based practices to purposefully enhance student support, thereby enhancing success rates.

Table 14
Fall 2010 to Fall 2014 Retention and Persistence Rates

Graduation Rates
As a benchmark, SUBR will use Fall 2005 to Fall 2009 sixth year graduation rates depicted in Table 15 to measure the graduation success of the Fall 2010 to Fall 2015 cohorts. On average, SUBR graduates 32.34% of the freshman cohort. SUBR has shown improvement in its sixth year graduation rate. The 2006 cohort has a graduation rate of 29.4%. However, the 2009 cohort has a sixth year graduation rate of 34.6 % which is an increase of 5.2 percentage points from 2006 which is evidence for the impact of the increased efforts toward college completion on student academic
achievement.

Table 15
SUBR Sixth Year Graduation Rates

State Licensure Exams
Licensure and certification examinations that are applicable to Southern University-Baton Rouge are the PRAXIS, NCLEX-RN, and the APRN. The PRAXIS is series of teacher certification examinations. The National Council Licensure Examination-Registered Nurse (NCLEX-RN) is a state and nationally mandated registered nurse licensure exam. The Advanced Practice Registered Nurse (APRN) exam is a state and nationally mandated licensure exam for licensed nurses who have earned a master’s, post-masters or doctoral degree in a nursing specialty and can practice medicine with the supervision of a physician. SUBR has shown great success in preparing education and nursing majors for the workplace by consistently yielding students who have the capacity to pass the aforementioned licensing exams.

Education
All education candidates, traditional and alternate certification, must pass PRAXIS I (reading, writing and mathematics exam) or have a 22 or above on the ACT or 1030 on the SAT and PRAXIS II (Principles of Learning and Teaching and the content specialist exam) in order to graduate. In lieu of Praxis I, alternate certification students may have a master’s degree. Over the past 5 years, all candidates who took the PRAXIS exam met the standard for passage, which resulted in a passage rate of 100%.

Table 16
Summary Passage Rates on Praxis Examination

Nursing
Nursing BSN graduates at Southern University are required to pass the NCLEX-RN before an RN license is issued. Our goal is to achieve a passing standard of 80% each year as required by the Louisiana State Board of Nursing (LSBN). The national exam is taken after graduation and scores are reported by the LSBN. From 2010 to 2013, Southern University consistently achieved the national passing standard of 80% with an average passing rate of
87.87%. In 2014 and 2015, students fell below the national standard with an average passing rate of 75.61%. In an effort to improve the pass rate to 80% for 2015, several strategies were implemented Fall 2014 and continued through Fall 2015. Although the pass rate increased to 78.30% for 2015, it did not meet the benchmark of 80%. The increase inthe pass rate from 2014 to 2015 is an indication that the strategies have begun to work; therefore, the program will continue with the action plan submitted to LSBN in March 2015. To date, the Fall ’15 class has an NCLEX pass rate of 90% with 2 students remaining to take the exam. The BSN graduates are 89% African American and 79% represent economically disadvantaged backgrounds. Table 17 illustrates the BSN program’s NCLEX-RN history for the past 6 years.

Table 17
SUBR NCLEX-RN Passage Rates 2010-2015

An APRN is a nurse with a graduate degree who has been licensed in an advanced role. APRNs include certified registered nurse anesthetists, certified nurse-midwives, clinical nurse specialist and certified nurse practitioners. Southern University’s School of Nursing’s Graduate Program consistently prepares competent and highly talented nurses beyond the bachelor’s degree as evident by high pass rates from 2009 to 2013. APRN is administered by one of the following
certifying bodies: American Academy of Nurse Practitioners (AANP), American Nurses Credentialing Center, (ANCC), National Certification Corporation (NCC) or National Board on Certification and Recertification of Nurse Anesthetists (NBCRNA). Table 14 illustrates the School of Nursing’s Graduate Program APRN passage rates.

Table 18
SUBR APRN Passage Rates 2009-2013

Job Placement
While the university’s retention and graduation rates have fluctuated over the last five years, primarily due to extreme budget cuts, it continues to demonstrate student academic achievement by successful passage rates on state licensing examinations and job placement of its graduates. In a review of SUBR’s strategies related to workforce forecasting, we found that of the occupations with projected 10-year growth greater than 500, and requiring post-secondary education, as
reported in State of Louisiana Projections for all Occupations to 2018, Southern University offer degrees in 13 areas of study that are aligned with the projected 10-year growth in occupations and workforce needs. In accordance with the 2011 Louisiana Employment Outcomes Report, the fields of studies with the most completers at the bachelor’s degree level are: Business, Management, Marketing, Liberal Arts and Sciences/General Studies, Health Professions, and Education. Southern University demonstrates progress in increasing the number of students placed in the workforce.

Table 19
Percent Completers Found Jobs

Supporting Documentation

Southern University GRAD Act Report 2011

Southern University GRAD Act Report 2012

Southern University GRAD Act Report 2013

Southern University GRAD Act Report 2014

Southern University GRAD Act Report 2015

Louisiana Board of Regents GRAD ACT Website

Southern University Baton Rouge Office of PAIR

Title II Reporting Services, HEOA -Title II Institutional Single Assessment Pass Rate