California State University, Bakersfield and CSU Northridge have formed a partnership focused on enrolling more students from Antelope Valley College (AVC).
CSUB and CSUN each received $250,000, two-year grants from the College Futures Foundation to expand the knowledge base of their chatbots — Rowdy and CSUNny, respectively — with the goal of increasing transfer rates among AVC students.
“It’s really exciting. What a great feather in our cap,” said Jaimi Paschal, senior coordinator of student success systems at CSUB. “This is an awesome way to provide a path, an easily navigable path, for students from a community college to a university.”
Debbi Cours, associate vice president of undergraduate studies at CSUN, said she is grateful for the grant and is looking forward to working with CSUB to conduct this pilot effort.
“We are committed to transfer success, and research shows that sense of belonging is so important to student success,” she said. “If we can help our students feel connected to us, even before they transfer, that may help students, particularly those who are first-generation college students or from historically minoritized communities, to see themselves on the pathway to the bachelor’s degree.”
While both schools’ existing chatbots can answer general questions and are largely targeted to existing students, the grants will allow the institutions to target incoming AVC students and provide information specific to the needs of those students.
“We want to see if giving students access to information about the four-year institution from the moment they come to AVC will help more of them transfer and transfer faster,” said Dr. Elizabeth Adams, dean of the CSUB Antelope Valley (AV) campus. “The idea is to see if they can picture themselves as CSUB students before they can even apply.”
Dr. Adams said the intention is for the two chatbots — which is available through the universities’ websites and via text — to direct students to either CSUB or CSUN, depending on their major and other factors.
“We want to push students to both AV and the main campus depending on what students want to do,” she said. “If AV is a better fit, we’ll direct them there. The same goes for the main campus.” AVC students often overlook the Bakersfield campus when considering where to transfer, Dr. Adams said, especially for students who can’t relocate and are under the misconception that Bakersfield would be farther to commute than CSUN.
“One of the things AVC students often don’t recognize is that even if they can’t relocate, coming to CSUB isn’t any farther in terms of time than going to CSUN. Northridge is physically closer, but the traffic is worse in L.A., so in the end it would take them longer,” she said.
While students have been able to initiate contact with the chatbots themselves through the universities’ websites, the grant funding will allow CSUB and CSUN to reach prospective Antelope Valley students via text message campaigns that can be targeted in various ways, such as directing messages to sub-groups of students.
The first campaigns using the improved chatbots will begin in January with the start of the spring semester.
Dr. Howard Davis, interim assistant superintendent/vice president of academic affairs at AVC, said both CSUB and CSUN have long been critical transfer partners and that he is excited to see how this new endeavor will encourage more students to transfer.
“While we send hundreds of students every year to these excellent universities, we know that we can increase those numbers even further,” he said. “The chatbot grants will make the process more informed and seamless for students. We are most excited about the chatbot nudges and interactions providing abundant support to students who need it the most.”