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Office of General Education Peer Academic Leaders Student Academic Engagement & Success

Spring’s Success Fest and Degree Planner completion campaign come to a close

The Office of General Education and the University Advising Center (UAC) have completed their Spring 2025 campaign for Degree Planner completion and Success Fest. Both offices collaborated on Success Fest, an event dedicated to promoting and adopting Degree Planner among undergraduate students.

The Spring 2025 Success Fest occurred on February 26th in Hughes-Trigg Ballroom C. Students were encouraged to complete their Degree Planner before this date to gain entrance into Success Fest, however, students were also able to complete their Degree Planner on the day of the event. In total, 69 students attended the Spring 2025 Success Fest.

Leading up to the event, on February 3rd, 2025, all undergraduate students received a To-Do message on their my.SMU Student Dashboard that prompted them to complete their Degree Planner by the university deadline of March 1st. Email communications also went out to students, encouraging them to seek help from their Peer Academic Leaders (PALs) or academic advisors to assist them in completing their Degree Planner. These efforts included and resulted in:

  • Four Degree Planner Workshops hosted by the PALs
  • Six Degree Planner Workshops hosted by the UAC
  • 32 appointments scheduled with the PALs

By March 1st, there were 2,497 students that completed their Degree Planner.

A new aspect to the initiative this year was a second promotional campaign that was run from March 3rd – 10th to target students who did not complete their Degree Planner by the spring academic calendar deadline. These efforts included and resulted in:

  • A second To-Do message was posted on students’ my.SMU Student Dashboards who had not completed their Degree Planner
  • Two additional Degree Planner Workshops hosted by the UAC
  • 20 additional appointments scheduled with PALs

In total, the utilization initiative resulted in 3,100 total undergraduate students completing their Degree Planner.

Students who completed their plans, were surveyed about their Degree Planner user experience while students who did not complete a plan were asked about potential barriers. These responses will be analyzed to make improvements to future marketing campaigns and vendor improvement requests.

Success Fest and the Degree Planner completion campaign will return in the Fall 2025 semester, but students can still complete their Degree Planner by utilizing OIT’s Degree Planner website or scheduling an appointment with their PAL.

Categories
Office of General Education

Updated and new admin imaging occurring in the Office of General Education 

The Office of General Education, in conjunction with the Office of Information Technology, collaborated to rename and update the drawer types used in AdminImages.SMU. Drawers store electronic records of general education and other important petitions. 

AdminImages.SMU provides an electronic document storage and retrieval system. Electronic documents can be scanned or captured in various ways, and all documents are stored in a secure, encrypted database. 

Previously, the drawer was initially named “SCH UG GEC” an abbreviation of School Undergraduate General Education Curriculum. However, the naming was changed to reflect our office’s current processes and the document types we will process moving forward. The updated drawer name is “PROV GenEd” an abbreviation of Provost General Education. The table below shows the previous drawers and types and how they have been renamed.  

Original  Drawer   Original Type  Renamed Drawer  Renamed Type 
SCH UG GEC  SCH UG Honors Petition  PROV GenEd  PROV GenEd Honors Petition 
SCH UG GEC  SCH UG Enrollment Request  PROV GenEd  PROV GenEd Enrollment Request 
SCH UG GEC  SCH UG GEC Individual Petition  PROV GenEd  PROV GenEd Individual Petition 
SCH UG GEC  SCH UG GEC Formal Exemption  PROV GenEd  PROV GenEd Formal Exemption 
SCH UG GEC  SCH UG Data Science Advising  Removed  Removed 
SCH UG GEC  Default  PROV GenEd  Default 
SCH UG GEC  SCH UG Transfer Credit Petition Reeval  PROV GenEd  PROV GenEd Transfer Credit Reeval 
SCH UG GEC  SCH UG Transfer Credit Petition Preappro  PROV GenEd  PROV GenEd Transfer Credit Preappro 

Viewing permissions and access remain the same. School records offices, the Registrar, and some advisors can access scans of completed (approved or denied) Office of General Education petitions.  However, two additional imaging drawers have been added to aid transparency and improve academic advising of students.  

New Drawer   Petitions Included 
PROV GenEd BRD Swap  New Fall 2023 catalog and forward petition tracking swaps in use of external credit 
PROV GenEd PREX  Pre-approval and fulfillment verification petitions used for graduation requirements (e.g., proficiencies and experiences) 

We share this information to increase visibility and accessibility to General Education processes and records offices. If you have any questions or concerns, please direct them to Lisa Cordoba (lcordoba@smu.edu).  

Categories
Student Academic Engagement & Success

SAES website brand migration update and media library cleanup begins this week

In June, we shared Student Academic Engagement and Success (SAES) began migrating unit websites to the new SMU-banded web pages.

The remaining migration schedule is below and will commence on or around the dates listed below:

  • August 11:
    • Office of Undergraduate National Fellowships
    • University Honors Program
    • Scholars’ Den
  • September 1:
    • President’s Scholars
    • Rotunda Scholars
    • Mustang Scholars
    • Hilltop Scholars

We expect the migration to be complete around September 15. If you discover broken links or issues, please direct them to academicsuccess@smu.edu to be routed appropriately.

Beginning the week of August 7, SAES will clean and reorganize our SAES Sitecore Media Library. The media library contains pictures, files, and other digital assets linked to our web pages.

Due to the migration and restructuring of pages, the Media Library will be updated into a structure similar to the page organization (e.g., academic support, academic enrichment, and initiatives).

Webmasters may notice folder organization changes and removing files that are no longer linked to any front-end pages following the migration. This will eliminate constituents from finding outdated files by accident in SMU searches. Plus, file names may be changed to improve accessibility and navigation.

The next communication on the webpage migration will be once all SAES units have been completed.