Mission
The Office of Financial Aid & Scholarships is devoted to providing students the information and support our student body needs to pursue their educational goals. We provide access, aid, and advisory services to the UA Little Rock campus community to further student recruitment, enrollment, and retention. We strive to do what is best for our students.
Summary Narrative
1) Improve student recruitment and yield processes
- Supported Admissions and Recruitment events, including Discover Day, Experience Days, Orientation & Transfermation.
- Implemented new 50% off tuition and fees scholarship.
- Video award letters allowed the department to move away from ineffective hard copy letters.
- Continued to expand Ocelot Chatbot to give students the opportunity to get information 24/7/365 which also cuts down on emails and phone calls to allow staff to devote additional time toward processing.
- Financial Aid attended multiple recruitment visits at Amazon facilities to help grow our relationship and help interested employees learn about financial aid.
2) Stabilize the student aid portfolio necessary for effective merit- and need-based aid
- Implemented new 50% off tuition and fees scholarship for incoming freshmen in fall 2021 and spring 2022.
- Introduced New Trojan Pathways scholarship that will allow more local high school students the opportunity to receive scholarships for their freshman year.
- Simplified transfer scholarships by combining two scholarships into one simple, easy-to-understand scholarship.
3) Prioritize compensation, professional development, and work environment necessary to recruit and retain a diverse student affairs staff
- Reemphasized the value of professional development by sending staff to off-site conferences for training and development for the first time since 2019.
- Continued to leverage virtual conferences and webinars offered by national Financial Aid organizations.
At A Glance
- Implemented a new Scholarship Software and received over 15,000 scholarship applications.
- Met with over 2,600 students in the Financial Aid offices with an average wait time under 10 minutes.
- Implemented a new Chatbot that allows students to communicate with our office 24/7.
- Began using videos as a Financial Aid Award Letter to incoming freshmen.
- Continued to expand Ocelot Chatbot to give students the opportunity to get information 24/7/365
- Chatbot also cuts down on emails and phone calls to allow staff to devote additional time toward processing
- Awarded over $80 million in financial aid to students.
- Awarded 9000+ students emergency funds to help cope with the COVID-19 pandemic.
Assessment 1
Type of assessment (learning outcome or operational)
Student Learning: Knowledge acquisition / construction / integration and application
Alignment with UA Little Rock Goal
Serve as an active partner in the community
Activity or experience being assessed
Where do our FWS opportunities fall short and what do students actually want? We struggle to spend all FWS funds and need to ensure eligible students know they are eligible and are able to connect with a job.
During the 21-22 aid year the program Handshake was implemented in partnership with Career Services. The hope was that Handshake would provide students an easier way to connect to Work Study positions.
Assessment artifacts
Data: We will use available data to determine how much FWS funding was used and where it was used(dept. or off campus). That data will be compared to prior years to evaluate if there were any changes
Time period assessment was done
Summer 2022
Results
The final total of FWS wages paid for the 21-22 aid year was $254,084. This represents a decrease compared to 20-21.
The impact of implementing Handshake appears to have been minimal for the 21-22 aid year though it is impossible to know exactly how many students were connected to jobs or employers through Handshake.
Continuous improvement process
The decrease in paid work study wages shows that even though we made strides in our communication and advertising of these positions, we still have a long way to go. Moving into the 22-23 aid year we will increase our communication not just to students but also to departments across campus to better educate them on the availability of FWS positions.
Communication to departments will also begin to include information on hiring processes. Confusion with hiring processes and best practices within Workday continue to hinder hiring of FWS employees.
The expectation is that the increase communication and instruction will be continuous reminders to faculty, staff and students that these jobs/employees are available and can offer valuable support to offices across campus.
WHEN: 22-23 aid year
Assessment 2
Type of assessment (learning outcome or operational)
Operational assessment
Alignment with UA Little Rock Goal
Prepare students for success
Activity or experience being assessed
Advertise new scholarship software using direct communication to students. Encourage all campus offices to use ScholarshipUniverse so students may use one scholarship application for multiple opportunities of funding.
Assessment artifacts
Survey students to get more information on how much they struggle to finance tuition and fees and/or living expenses, and data on how much students had to borrow historically compared to the current year.
Time period assessment was done
Summer 2022
Results
We failed to get the survey out to students in FY22. A review of the data shows that students borrowed less funding in FY22 than FY21 but the reason is unclear. The intent of this goal was to use our new scholarship software’s external scholarship database to reduce the need for students to borrow. However, the software was not implemented until November 2021 so students did not have access to the external database for annual scholarships or scholarships, only for fall ‘21.
Continuous improvement process
Although the survey did not go out we have received feedback from students and faculty on the scholarship software and will use that feedback in FY23. The feedback we received showed that our communication plan was not sufficient when ScholarshipUniverse was launched. This has led to students struggling to understand the ins & outs of the software. In FY23, we will focus our communication on the external scholarship portion of ScholarshipUniverse to help students navigate the program and find scholarships.
WHEN: October 2022
Stateholder involvement / Communication plan
A presentation was given to the Provost Leadership Council in June 2022 that broke down the implementation of ScholarshipUniverse, activity in the software, scholarships award data, as well as some lessons learned. The lessons learned will be used to improve communication and guidance to students in FY23.
Assessment 3
Type of assessment (learning outcome or operational)
Operational assessment
Alignment with UA Little Rock Goal
Strengthen and support the human resources and infrastructure necessary to fulfill UA Little Rock’s mission
Activity or experience being assessed
Develop and implement training program for FA staff that tracks attendance & knowledge improvements for professional staff
Assessment artifacts
Observation and information on the number of training sessions.
Time period assessment was done
Summer 2022
Results
FY22 saw a significant increase in training opportunities for FA staff. Fourteen major training sessions were held throughout the year covering a multitude of topics.
Continuous improvement process
Implemented a written training program that sets out how new employees are trained and how training should progress throughout the FY22.
Final review of FY22 training shows improvement but leaves room for additional improvement. FY23 will see additional training sessions for our professional staff that will continue to deepen their knowledge of the federal aid system.
