Grant helps students navigate through college life with 'Roadmap' program

By: Andy Blais

Posted: 11/2/07

11/02/07 - Navigating the way through a college education can be tough for any student, but earlier this month, the University of Rhode Island received a $643,000 grant to help change that.

The grant, given by the U.S. Department of Education's Fund for the Improvement of Post-Secondary Education, will help fund an "Academic Roadmap" for both URI and the Community College of Rhode Island.

The roadmap will be digital and is geared toward helping students and their families to acquaint themselves with the steps needed to succeed in college.

"We needed a much fuller academic roadmap that is an advising program," said Deborah Grossman-Garber, URI director of Student Learning, Outcomes Assessment and Accreditation.

Grossman-Garber believes that the academic roadmaps will be up within six to 12 months. The roadmap will suggest course paths for students, as well as ideas for internships, undergraduate research topics and other useful information.

She also said that the program will be "linked with hot topics on what the current events are in the field ... it includes little profiles of students' experiences in certain classes."

Each path will be personalized for each student, their major and their career path.

Grossman-Garber said that maps are already in the process of being created for nutrition, dietetics, wildlife conservation and biology, geoscience, and animal and veterinary sciences majors. They will be able to develop two more maps for biology and nursing with the grant.

"We've been working on a program with this idea for about six years," Grossman-Garber said.

She said she hopes that the online academic advisory program will serve as a supplement to advisors that students at URI already have. She also said the program should help students become more organized and prepared during their college years.

The roadmap is not just a URI program, but is also connected with CCRI. The program will assist CCRI students in their academic pursuits. Grossman-Garber also hopes that it will "help students make that transfer from CCRI to URI ... so they can clearly see the path to URI."

The grant was one of 16 grants handed out this year by the U.S. Department of Education. There were 400 grant applications sent in this year. Grossman-Garber was one of the 11 principle investigators for this grant. Other URI investigators included professors Catherine English, Thomas Husband, Katherine Petersson, Anne Veeger, Daniel Murray, Carolyn Hames, and Marian Goldsmith.

The group applied for the grant before this year, but did not receive it. It decided to reapply in June after they being encouraged by the Education Department. The grant writers got the news about receiving the grant in October.

"It was competitive," Grossman-Garber said. "This is one of the only grant programs for higher educational change programs."

The program has already begun to be tested with students in certain majors, Grossman-Garber said.

There are also bigger plans for the program. Grossman-Garber believes that the Academic Roadmap will be associated with URI's e-Campus within the next two years.

As for now, Grossman-Garber is hoping to achieve one goal. "We are really hoping that it aids your experience as a student," she said.