Dickinson Charts Course for Student Success With Navigate App Launch
Photo by Dan Loh.
New platform fosters seamless communication and information sharing
by Tony Moore
Dickinson is raising the bar on student support with the recent launch of Navigate 360, a comprehensive software solution designed to guide students—and those who support our students—through every step of their college journey.
"Dickinson is deeply committed to providing our students with accessible guidance and tools to have an exceptional experience," says Tara Vasold Fischer '02, associate provost for student success & advising. "Navigate is a powerful tool that reflects this commitment, empowering students to confidently forge their academic and personal paths to success."
Navigate goes far beyond a simple student portal. Accessed through Dickinson's intranet, Gateway, it's a central hub connecting students, advisors, faculty and campus services, fostering seamless communication and information sharing.
It’s a platform that handles appointment scheduling, creates personalized to-do lists with timely reminders and provides easy access to a wealth of campus resources. It also allows advisors to identify and provide proactive outreach and intervention, all with a user-friendly interface accessible on desktop and mobile devices.
“My focus is on finding ways to decode or deconstruct barriers to student success,” Fischer says, noting certain items must be completed before students can request courses. “And, for example, Navigate helped 960 students this fall identify and then resolve holds that, if left unchecked, may have impacted their course requests or preparation for the spring semester. This, in part, led to the highest percentage of students requesting courses for the spring semester that Dickinson has ever recorded.”
Real-World Results, Impactful Connections
Clearly, Navigate’s impact is already tangible, as beyond helping nearly 1,000 students resolve holds, in the first semester of use alone it has also facilitated the following:
- More than 500 first-year students used Navigate to manage their to-do list, checking off a whopping 9,840 tasks and showcasing the platform's effectiveness in keeping students organized and on track.
- Study Buddies, a popular feature for connecting with classmates, saw 920 individual class requests for the fall semester, highlighting the app's role in fostering student connections and collaboration.
- Faculty used Navigate to provide academic progress updates on first-year students, tripling the number of reports compared to previous years, helping to ensure a strong student-faculty connection and academic success.
So far, 12 campus support offices are using Navigate, with more departments and partners poised to join in the spring semester, underscoring Dickinson's commitment to integrated support and utilizing Navigate as a central hub for student resources.
The Future of Navigate
Dickinson's journey with Navigate is just beginning, and in the coming months the college plans to leverage behavioral science and data analytics to proactively identify and support students, creating a seamless and holistic experience. And, of course, students are at the heart of it all.
“I see Navigate enhancing the student experience in a simplifying way,” says Denys Sharpylo ’26 (quantitative economics, data analytics), a peer advisor in the Advising, Internships & Career Center. “You can have a synchronized schedule with all of your academic and extracurricular activities, reach out to your financial-aid counselor, schedule an appointment with your academic advisor, resolve outstanding to-do’s for student accounts, reach out to your athletic team's coach and other things like that!”
Currently in full implementation, Navigate is readily available to every student. Dickinson encourages students to embrace Navigate as their daily companion, empowering them to utilize the wealth of technology, people and resources dedicated to their success.
“I realize that transitioning to Navigate might be a harder decision for some, and it might take some time for everyone to get adjusted and used to this platform,” says Sharpylo, encouraging everyone to get on board. “But I personally think that once you give it a try and see what it can do for you, it will be hard to go back to the previous way of things. It makes my experience a bit more straightforward and simpler, and I know it will do the same for everyone else.”
TAKE THE NEXT STEPS
Published February 1, 2024