Improving Student Persistence through Career Navigation Services in Health Sciences
Civitas is a powerful tool used at the College to assist students with academic planning and scheduling, to perform early alerts, and to provide targeted outreach to students. Additionally, the tool provides a means for an assessment of the impact on student success for programs and initiatives at the College. This important component helps the College to evaluate its institutional effectiveness.
The Office of Institutional Effectiveness utilizes the Initiative Analysis Tool within Civitas as one of its many tools to help assess the institutional effectiveness of the College, which includes the impact of initiatives and programs aimed at improving student success.
This tool provides information about an initiative’s success by looking at the “persistence lift” for students participating in a particular program. This score is determined by looking at the persistence rate (likelihood of the student returning the following semester) of students who engaged with a particular service, as compared to a set of students that are matched based on similar demographics (a comparison group). The persistence lift score provides insight into the impact of a program or service on a student’s retention (likelihood of returning the following semester).
Using Initiative Analysis, the IE Office analyzed the persistence lift (likelihood of returning the next semester) for students who utilized the services of the Health Sciences Career Navigator, Stacy Spence-Attleson.
A total of 401 students in the timeframe of Fall 2024 and Fall 2025 were included in the analysis, which showed a statistically significant persistence lift of 8.4% (+/- 4.4%). The +/- 4.4% means the impact of persistence could range from 4.0 to 12.8%. These findings indicate that students who utilized the services of the Health Sciences Career Navigator persist better than the comparison group ranging from 4 to 12.5 percentage points higher!
The Health Sciences Career Navigator is an important part of the Health Science Student Success Team. This position has been made possible with funding from a Department of Labor Grant: Community College Health CARES. The Career Navigator works to enhance and complement students’ academic advising with benefits such as career inventory completion, guidance to career pathways, and support in selecting the appropriate program for their professional and educational goals. In addition, the Health Sciences Career Navigator:
- Assists students with developing professional and employment skills, including resume creation and job search
- Partners and coordinates with Academic Advising and Success Coaches and assists students to connect to campus and community resources including the Accessibility Resources Office, Financial Aid, Counseling Services, and the Hornet Hope Center.
- Meets with students to explain and review Health Sciences Competitive programs and microcredential
- Coordinates the TEAS Test Prep Review Course and the ATI TEAS exam on campus, which is offered three times per year for SUNY Broome students applying to
- Presents at new student orientations and to Health Sciences Division classes upon faculty
For more information about the various services provided by Stacy Spence-Attleson, Health Sciences Career Navigator, please visit the Health Sciences Division Career Corner
Improving Student Persistence through Career Navigation Services in Health Sciences (pdf)
Submitted by: Office of Institutional Effectiveness
