Skip to Main Content

The University of Tennessee

Office of the Provost

Frequently Used Tools:



Announcements » Transition from previous Early Alert Program to a First-Year Intervention


Transition from previous Early Alert Program to a First-Year Intervention

To: Deans, Directors, and Department Heads
From: Susan D. Martin, Provost and Senior Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs
Date: September 9, 2009

The following message was sent to all professors, lecturers and GTAs who are teaching this fall term.

Colleagues,

Beginning this fall term, we are piloting a new approach to Early Alert with the goal of resolving a number of issues. This initiative, under the direction of Ruth Darling, associate vice provost, will focus on first-year students and identified special student populations (e.g. UT LEAD, student-athletes) who will be pre-loaded into the First-Year Intervention (FYI) database. We will consider the First-Year Intervention as an "administrative retention tool" rather than a "program" requiring student initiated registration. The goals of FYI are:

  • To provide first-year students (and other identified groups) earning a grade of "C" or below with feedback concerning their performance in courses with specific comments from instructors for improvement.
  • To provide administrators/academic advisers/academic counselors who are associated with specific academic support programs a way to be proactive with students in their efforts to support first-year academic success.
  • To provide a tool for early identification and intervention for all academically at-risk first-year students, not just those who registered for the program (as with the previous Early Alert).
  • To provide the administrator/academic adviser/academic counselor the opportunity to help students access resources for academic success (tutoring, supplemental instruction, talk with instructors, time management, study skills, etc.).
  • To provide students who are a part of the FYI process a copy of the feedback information from their instructors.

The IT processes underlying the Early Alert initiative have been modified to support the new FYI goals and will be integrated with Blackboard, making the system more easily accessible for instructors/faculty. The Student Success Center Web site will clearly explain the FYI process as a student success and retention tool used to support our first-year students and other identified student populations. We will work closely with the departmental coordinators of first-year courses to maximize faculty/instructor participation.

Posted: September 9, 2009