The CheatSheet: Featuring Alison Reed (SFA Academic Success Analyst)

Cracking the Code to College Success: An Introduction to Alison Reed

"Yo, what it is? You know what it is? It's your Man King Musa! Welcome to The CheatSheet, where we decode success for creators, professors, and business owners." In this episode of The CheatSheet, King Musa shifts focus to a topic crucial for every student: academic success. We're diving deep into what it truly takes to thrive in college, and who's working tirelessly behind the scenes to make that happen. Joining us is Alison Reed, the Academic Success Analyst with the Lumberjack Learning Commons at Stephen F. Austin State University (SFA).

Alison's role is pivotal; she works every day to ensure students not only stay on track academically but also gain the essential tools and resources they need to excel. Her primary tool? The Navigate platform, which many students might recognize as their go-to for advising appointments. However, as Alison explains, Navigate is expanding its reach, becoming a comprehensive hub for communication, resource connection, and proactive support services for SFA students. Get ready for some real talk about how SFA is empowering its students. From her unique background as an "Army brat" to her passion for fostering student achievement, Alison Reed is here to share her story and shed light on the invaluable academic support available to every Lumberjack.

Getting to Know Alison Reed

King Musa: “Love the energy. Love it. I appreciate you. Thank you for being here today. How's your day been so far? Little icebreaker, I have to know. It's July. It's hot. Thank you for bringing the water. I know you're staying hydrated, right? What do you do to stay cool? Splash Kingdom is open. Ebbe has the beautiful walks and everything. What are Alison’s ways?”

Alison Reed: “I like to hide in the air conditioning as much as possible, and we are beach people, so we go to the beach at least once a summer.”

What's your favorite beach to go to?

“It's a little away from Galveston, kind of a rural fishing community. I always go blank when someone asks me exactly where it is. (She's trying to keep it to herself. She’s not trying to have it out there. She's secret information. She really means that she likes to hide away).”

Can you introduce yourself and what you do here at SFA?

“Absolutely. My official title is Academic Success Analyst. I have to look at it every time because we have a lot of big words in our titles here at SFA. I’ve had a lot of roles at this institution. It’s been the love of my life, truly, working here. The biggest part of my job, and a lot of people don't recognize the name of it, is I run a student success platform called Navigate. Most students recognize it because they say, ‘Wait, that’s how I sign up for advising.’ Which is the main reason we use it, but we’re growing and expanding how we communicate with students, connect them with resources they need, and send positive messaging and support services through it too. So that’s my new baby. I’ve been in this role for about eight months.”

Background and Passions

Where are you from, do you have siblings? Were your parents in higher education?

“I have a very different story than most people here in East Texas. I am an an Army brat, so I’m a transplant. I landed here in Nacogdoches after my father retired from the military. My dad’s originally from the New York area, and my mom’s from Scotland. They met in Belgium. My mom worked for NATO for the British Royal Air Force, and my father was in the Army. She’s an amazing lady.”

Where did you grow up? I know military families go everywhere, so let's hear about the different parts of the world you’ve seen.

“Absolutely. We moved here when I was seven, so I was pretty young when I arrived in Nacogdoches. Before that, it was Oklahoma, Germany, Kentucky, Oklahoma. When my father retired, we ended up here because the trees reminded my mom of Scotland. That's why we chose Nacogdoches. It's really special.”

When you're not at work, what do you like to do for fun? What are your passions and interests?

“I’m married with one son. He’s a senior this year at SFA High School. He’s amazing and very involved here at SFA; he’s pretty much grown up on campus. Most of my life is about my family, and it is my true passion, just taking care of the ones I love. We live on a farm and have a million animals. I love being outdoors, trying to be fit and healthy as much as I can, and just taking care of my people. Keeping up with a farm is already fit and healthy!”

Alison’s Role at SFA

Can you explain your role and the day-to-day of your position?

“Absolutely. The Navigate platform that I talked about—most students see it from the perspective of, ‘I get an email that says, hey, it's time for you to book your advising appointment.’ You may have seen recently some of that messaging has kind of amped up. We try to give warnings saying, ‘Hey, if you have holds, here's where you need to go to get those taken care of.’ If you're considering a major change, or if there are pieces or parts you need to be successful in preparation for registration before it even opens, we try to send those pushes out early and send out resources. So essentially, support surrounding registration and getting advised is a big piece, but then there's stuff throughout the semester as well. We have something called progress reporting, where faculty give feedback on how students are doing. We really focus on freshmen and those core classes that we know students need to do well in to be successful. We'll get feedback from faculty saying, ‘Hey, this student didn't do too great on that first exam, so we’re worried about them.’ Then we do an outreach and say, ‘Hey, the AARC has specific tutoring sessions for you, go get hooked up.’ The AARC reaches out, the advisor reaches out, faculty say, ‘I’m here for you.’ So it’s a lot of layers of support to let students know. It's a collective effort across campus. I push a lot of buttons in the background and I do try to set timelines so that all students—because advising looks a little different across all the colleges—get similar messages at the same time. I’m kind of the outlier, the extra layer of warmth and fluffiness. We do try, because campus communication can sometimes be hard in a university environment. But it works!”

What are some of the challenges you run into with your position?

“Some of the main ways we reach out to students is through email. We know students aren’t always reading their email, which is fine, but there are often very important messages that come out for their success. Like, ‘Hey, we’re giving you 10 days' notice to let you know, here are the pieces and parts you might want to check out and get taken care of before registration opens.’ But if they don’t open their email until after registration opens, they may miss out on that early warning or that supportive message. We do layer in text messaging and other ways to connect. We are mindful not to inundate students, which is why we’re trying to get so many people on the same page about how we do messaging, so you're not getting 40 texts a day from SFA on different topics or duplicate messages. Sometimes it's hard to connect with students. And honestly, I’m not in the classroom right now; I'm not working very closely with faculty, so I don't feel as connected to students. I personally don't hear a lot of feedback on what's a meaningful way to reach out or what's a meaningful message that’s missing in how we’re supporting students. Like, ‘Hey, if you could get me right before midterms and send me a little something,’ or ‘If you could support me in this way,’ I would love that kind of feedback because I think that's the piece that's missing: hearing from the students on what they need more so than just what we're anticipating they need.”

King Musa: “From student to faculty, the answer to that question is just ask questions. From my position, I get to be on both sides, right? And a lot of the times it's, we have the right thing, the right resource. Either there's a ‘I don't know we had this resource,’ or ‘I don't know how to use this resource,’ or ‘the value of this,’ ‘the application of this resource.’ Or ‘I simply just didn't know it applies for this.’ So a lot of it is just lack of acknowledgement. We have a beautiful campus. Those little picket signs that students have to walk by are enough to just say, download an app or, you know, navigate through Navigate. It'll bring you one, two, three values. I’ve learned that SFA has every resource we need. But if I don't know what the resource is, or how to use it, or who it's for, then I just won't go to it. I would stay in my comfortable box of pain and suffering. We don’t want that for you. Unfortunately, students will do that. They would just sit and suffer and just hope, ‘I’ll figure it out at the end.’ No, we could have helped you this whole time. You didn't have to figure it out at the end. An example: I love Kara, and I love that through Navigate, I can just schedule an appointment. Before, I had to call the desk and see if she's available, send out an email, and then it was too many steps with no guarantee. To know that once I press this button, I’m booked on her exact calendar, and there's no back and forth of when, where, how—that was the benefit. Before I had Kara, I had Kelly Morgan, and she would tell me, ‘Book your next six appointments.’ Even after academic probation, when we got back on good standing, I got used to just knowing if I booked it every two weeks, I could see her. We’d keep up with everything. I’m already on her calendar, and it’s already open and available. So those are just a few of the benefits of using Navigate from a student's perspective.”

How would you define success in your position?

“Success for me is knowing that at the end of the day, I've done something that matters. I often tell my supervisor, Megan Weatherly, just how grateful I am to be in this role, because sometimes you do a job, you do a good job every day, and you check the boxes of the tasks you need, but you can't see how it applies to the big picture, how it applies to your life, how it impacts something bigger than you. This job, I can see the direct impact of how this actually helps students. I'm not talking to them every day and hearing, 'Hey, I got your message,' but sometimes I do. Sometimes I get an email and it says, ‘My husband's in class, and he saw the message you sent out. You had your photo in it. He’s never seen that before, but he remembers you, and it really stuck with him.’ So to hear feedback and to know that I'm actually doing something that's impacting students every day and helping connect them to what they need to be successful—to me, that's success. Just knowing that I've done something that's helping another person, especially here in a place that I love so much, an institution that does so much good for so many people. I’m proud. I like that definition of success. It truly. You didn't put a lot of people would put weight on success, like it has to be some type of result based, and I get this out of it. But to know, I’d rather throw out the seed. I’d rather just make sure that there's enough things out there for people. Someone’s going to get help in the midst of it. It's like the shotgun effect. And most people don't talk about that. I appreciate that.”

Alison Reed & Her Audience

How to Get Involved & Connect:

• My email address is Alison.Reed@sfa.edu. You can email me anytime with feedback or questions about how I can further support you.
• My office is in the library on the second floor, 220D. Students are welcome to drop by if they have feedback or questions.
• While I'm not a "do-all, be-all," I connect to every hub on campus. If I don't know where to send you, I will find the person who does, and we’ll get you connected to the right resources.
• If anyone has feedback on ways we can better serve students, whether it’s specifically through Navigate or something larger, I want to hear about it. If it’s impactful to students, it matters to me. So come find me!

How to Find Navigate:

• Navigate is in your mySFA portal. When you go into mySFA, you'll see it, generally when you go to your advising section.
• It's usually listed as "book an advising appointment" or similar, which links you to the Navigate platform. You might not see the word "Navigate" until you're already in it.

Advice for Students Using Navigate:

• Never hesitate to reply to a message from Navigate. You can reply directly to text messages you receive on your phone, and those replies go straight to the individual who sent them.
• Many people don't realize this, but we're trying to spread the word. Some messages even say, "If you still have questions, reply to this message."
• While it depends on the office's capacity, most are absolutely open to replies because they reach out to connect. Messages from me are always open for replies.
• If you have questions, please, please, please reply. A lot of students are hesitant to reach out because they don’t want to be a burden or think their question might be silly. We are literally sitting there waiting to help you. Please let us help you. We want to answer your questions.
• If you prefer email, you can email me directly at Alison.Reed@sfa.edu, or use Navigate@sfa.edu, which also comes directly to me and the administrator.

Leveraging the Lumberjack Learning Commons:

• I'm housed in the Lumberjack Learning Commons, surrounded by incredible offices.
• You can explore Study Abroad and International Programs for opportunities to study abroad and meet international students.
• I work with the Student Success Center (which has our Gen Jacks), the Maker Space, and the AARC Center for Teaching and Learning (who handle Brightspace support).
• Most of the time, when you hear from me, you're just getting information, but my colleagues are doing incredible work.
• We’re all in the library. Just come over and find us if you ever need us; we’re all here to support you. Everything you need is in the library!

Outro by King Musa

“Well, thank you, Alison Reed, for dropping some knowledge and encouragement today. Your work is making a difference in the everyday lives of Lumberjacks trying to reach their academic goals. To our listeners, don't wait until it's too late. Tap into your resources, ask for help, and take control of your success. Subscribe to The CheatSheet and follow us on social media and connect with us for more insight and interviews. This is King Musa signing off. Study smart, stay consistent, and keep leveling up. See y’all later!”