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Title III Advising Specialist Ashley Bigard shared Illinois Eastern Community College’s success with Appreciative Advising during a webinar on Oct. 13.
The event was hosted by Signal Vine, the provider of IECC’s text messaging platform. Olney Central College began utilizing the service in 2019. Its implementation coincided with the district’s move toward Appreciative Advising under the IECC Title III Block Grant initiative to enhance academic advising.
During her presentation, Bigard discussed the six phases of Appreciative Advising — Disarm, Discover, Dream, Design, Deliver and Don’t Settle — along with how OCC is using texting to complement the appreciative advising protocol.
“I think it has been an amazing addition to our Student Services and advising staff as a whole,” Bigard said. “I love being able to engage more with the students and expand our reach. We can send specific messages and streamline them to groups instead of texting one person at a time.”
The ability to connect with students through text messaging has also increased efficiency for Student Services advisors and staff, giving them the ability to send appointment reminders, registration announcements and even directions to sign up for IECC alerts. Financial Aid has used messaging to disseminate scholarship information.
With the two-way communication service, advisors can reach out to new students and establish relationships before they ever arrive on campus.
“We can utilize it to make them feel comfortable and let them know we are excited to see them,” Bigard said. “Appreciate advising conversations are open-ended and allow us to learn about the students. As we discover more about them, we can let students know we are here for them, and we are on their team. In appreciative advising, we learn what their dreams are and working with the students, we build a plan together to achieve those goals.”
Bigard’s webinar included actual text messaging exchanges — with the students’ names removed — to highlight the types of interactions occurring at OCC. She also explained how text messaging is being used for new initiatives including the Peer Coach Program.
Through Signal Vine, OCC Peer Coach Philip Henderson can connect with new students by checking in on them and fielding any questions that may arise to ensure they are getting the help and assistance they need to be successful.
Bigard’s presentation featured comments from Henderson along with those of Kyrah Buchanan, who utilizes text messaging in her capacity as the nursing program advisor at Lincoln Trail College.
Signal Vine also includes an analytic feature, which enables Bigard to review student response to each message. Monitoring the response rates allows Bigard to tailor future messages to maximize student engagement.
