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Bridging the Gap with an App: The Heider Mindset Achievement Portfolio at Creighton University

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Solutions Used

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Description

When Creighton University's Heider College of Business needed a tech solution that identifies at-risk students and maximizes engagement, the Dean looked to Suitable.

By incentivizing engagement and utilizing Suitable's unique gamification features, CU's Heider Mindset Achievement Portfolio (H-MAP) has been bridging the gap between curricular and co-curricular involvement on campus.

Learn how the H-MAP team is achieving an 82% engagement rate, using 6 core 'mindsets' to create career-ready graduates and how they’re using Suitable to identify at-risk students and intervene earlier.

About the School

Creighton University is located in Omaha, NE. Creighton was founded in 1878 and is 1 of 27 Catholic, Jesuit colleges and universities in the USA.

Creighton University has approximately 8,750 students, with 1,150 undergraduates enrolled in the Heider College of Business. Heider College of Business holds AACSB accreditation for both Business and Accounting and carries an impressive 99%+ career outcomes rate for 8 of the past 9 years.

U.S. News & World Report has ranked Creighton University among the top third National Universities for 2022.

Other accolades include:

  • Named one of the top universities in the U.S. by the Wall Street Journal/Times Higher Education
  • The Princeton Review has included Creighton in the 2022 edition of its annual guide, The Best 387 Colleges
  • Named a 2021–2022 “military-friendly” school by the Military Friendly® resource and media group
  • Recognized by U.S. News & World Report for Innovation and as a Best Value institution
  • Named among the best online grad programs for 2021 by U.S. News & World Report

Challenges before Suitable

Before Suitable, co-curricular programs in the Heider College of Business used Canvas, the University’s Learning Management System (LMS), to track students’ portfolios and progress.

Student engagement relied heavily on email communication and events were tracked through Handshake using a card swipe check-in process. Sometimes attendance data was even recorded on paper or not tracked at all. 

In addition to inefficient engagement tracking, the HCB struggled with limitations from the Career Center perspective as well, such as:

  • Too many disparate curricular and co-curricular courses in Canvas for students to track
  • Rigid, linear technology forced a one-size-fits-all sequence of career activities on students pursuing various career goals and recruitment timelines
  • Limited engagement tracking and reporting capabilities hurt analysis and decision making

There were no gamification elements, no incentives and no mobile-first accessibility to get students to engage consistently. Data was difficult to pull and tedious to analyze. As the Heider College of Business remodeled its curriculum and strived for more flexibility in the student journey, it was clear they needed a more personalized, mobile-first solution.

The Dean of the Heider College of Business, Dr. Anthony Hendrickson, learned of Suitable in Summer 2018.

 

Life with Suitable

The Heider College of Business remodeled its curriculum, following the trends they were seeing from other flagship universities, the actions of Fortune 500 companies and Henry Mintzberg’s 2005 book ‘Managers, Not MBAs’.

Six Mindsets - Action, Analytical, Collaborative, Cross-Cultural, Reflective, and Service - emerged that would equip new Creighton graduates with the necessary skills for professional success. When combined, these six mindsets tell the story of Heider’s mission: The Heider College of Business educates strong thinkers (the analytical mindset) who appreciate diverse perspectives (the cross-cultural mindset) and can work well with others (the collaborative mindset) to adapt and improve (the action mindset) for good (the service mindset) with intention (the reflective mindset). 

Heider Six Mindsets

In the Business School, 82% of students are actively using H-MAP to complete activities, fulfill career-readiness milestones and earn badges.

Students are also preparing for life after graduation through The Career Portfolio Program, a 4-year career development program required for all Heider College of Business students. These badges are earned through attending workshops, networking events with employers and business professionals and 1-on-1 interactions with the Career Center. This program within H-MAP was designed to help students reach their career goals, enhance their professionalism and transition successfully into the workplace.

ASK THE ADMINISTRATOR

"With Suitable - just that ability to grab data and share it easily - we've been able to create a really efficient process to identify at-risk students and get ahead of that.

Heather Doering, MA
Assistant Director, Business Career Programs
Heider College of Business at Creighton University

Take a look at the accomplishments of the H-MAP at Creighton University's Heider College of Business

  • 82% engagement rate from nearly 1,000 students
  • Over 12,000 activities completed in the last 12 months
  • 82% of business students are actively using H-MAP to prepare for their futures’
  • Admin processes have greatly improved, making reporting and analysis much easier
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Additional Outcomes Achieved

Not only has engagement skyrocketed, but the administration has greater visibility into the progress of their students.

Suitable is helping the H-MAP team support student retention efforts, lightening the load for administration and giving students real-time access to tools and strategies that will set them up for success at Creighton and beyond.

 

Plans for the Future

As far as future goals go, the H-MAP team is planning an overhaul of their badge strategy.

With a focus on cutting “cluttered” content and streamlining achievement and badge completion, the team’s new ‘lane strategy’ answers the question: where do our mindsets fit within the greater picture?

The team at Heider is currently finalizing their four-year budget, incentive structure, Single-Sign-On integration and data feed.

The H-MAP team is planning to shift the focus Career Center to Heider College of Business ownership and create a strategic plan to incorporate all curricular/co-curricular activities in one place.

They’re also adding one final co-curricular program (Dean’s Honor Roll for Social Responsibility)

And working on sustainable processes for adding activities, grading, incentives, etc.

The H-MAP team is looking to go “all in” on faculty adoption now that all 4 grade levels are on Suitable and expand use of the app.