LINN  — State Tech Vice President of Student Affairs Dr. Chris Bowser told Regents on Friday that while the college is down about 176 applications from this date last year, admissions increased by 23 students during the same period.

“I think it’s an anomaly,” he said. “I’m not ready to call it a trend yet. When I speak to other professionals around the country, they are seeing almost the reverse. They’re seeing a little uptick in applications, but they’re flat or down in deposits. It’s interesting to note that all of those other schools are test-optional. My friend who works at the University of Iowa said they were up in applications by about three percent, but 80% don’t have an ACT score.

“I still don’t know what that exactly means, but I will tell you, at least, at this point today, we’re about flat in our world,” Dr. Bowser continued. “I don’t think having testing is negatively impacting our ability to have qualified students in the program. In fact, I think it’s quite the opposite. That helps us continue to have qualified students for all of our programs.”

As of Friday, Dr. Bowser said the college had received 2,821 applications, with 825 students admitted and enrolled.

Dr. Bowser added that one focal point is highlighting how State Tech provides a four-year campus experience on a two-year technical college campus.

“We continue to work with residents in student activities, student government, and intramurals,” said Dr. Bowser. “Brandon (McElwain) and his marketing team put together a student-life page that highlights not only all the things that we do but also what is available to do in Osage County, Linn, and even in Missouri. We’re starting to highlight that and a lot of our communications to our students about not only do we have these great programs with the best graduation rate and placement rate in the state, but we have all these things to do outside of the classroom that help make it a great experience.”

• Dr. Bowser updated Regents on Counseling Services and the Academic Resource Center (ARC).

Student Wellness Coordinator Mandy Adams worked at the college using the Excels Grant for two years. She is now a full-time employee. “Having her here in that role has been fantastic this year,” said Dr. Bowser. Students utilize these folks for academic problems, absenteeism, anxiety, and depression.”

He added that one of the benefits of having Adams, a licensed professional counselor, on campus is that she can make appointments with students facing more challenging life issues.

She has 20 one-hour appointments scheduled every week in her office. Adams counsels students on anxiety, stress, panic attacks, OCD, social anxiety, depression, sadness, grief, difficulty with motivation, relationships, intimate relationship issues, family dynamics, gender and sexuality, struggles with making friends, roommate issues, trauma, PTSD, personalities, and struggles in utilizing healthy coping skills. “Mandy’s ability to work with these students is keeping them engaged and on track to graduation, which I think is really important,” Dr. Bowser said.

Before Adams joined State Tech, Dr. Bowser noted that students needing counseling were referred to partners in Jefferson City. “They were about two weeks out on scheduling appointments, and we couldn’t get them with someone immediately,” he added. “They had to travel 30 minutes to get there. To be quite honest, many of our students weren’t using that service, even when we were setting appointments for them. So it’s great to have Mandy on campus.”

Adams works closely with counselors Jason Hoffmeyer and Becca Mehmert. “They are the folks that respond to all faculty early alert reports when faculty sees there might be a red flag or an average student exhibiting behavior that might be leading down to a road toward not being successful academically,” said Dr. Bowser. “They also talk about life problems, things that are happening, maybe bubbling under the surface, that are happening at home, relationship problems, self-defeating behaviors, substance abuse, and things like that. We are very thankful we have those three. We use the term ‘counselors,’ I think, because of our history.”

State Tech began as part of the Linn R-2 system and then developed into its own entity. Dr. Bowser believes the counselors at State Tech are very similar to professional school counselors in K-12 schools. “These folks also play kind of those quasi-academic advisory roles. They are life coaches and quasi-parents as well, so they are involved in a ton of different stuff with our students on a daily basis.”

In terms of impact to service the students, Dr. Bowser pointed out the college has seen an increase in earlier reports every year since State Tech instituted its software.

“That’s great,” he added. “This year, we saw a small increase in the fall. I think the most important part is that those three counselors helped with the speed with which we responded. Last year, I talked to you guys about how we had crept up in the time to respond a little bit.”

Dr. Bowser added that part of Adams’ job as a full-time counselor is responding to those early alerts, too, so that’s gone back down.

Early reports in the fall topped out at 1,450, up 40 from last year and well above the previous two years — 1,286 in 2021 and 1,046 in 2020.

On the flip side, response times dropped from 2.86 days in 2020 to .51 in 2021, .59 last year, and 0.4 this fall.

“The time to respond when one faculty member or staff member refers a student and says, ‘Hey, I’m worried about this student,’ it’s taking less than a day for us to create that case and reach out to the student, which I think is really good,” Dr. Bowser said.

By far, counselors saw 934 early alerts for students earning a D or F at some point during the semester, followed by 385 (not turning in an assignment), 311 (low test score), 242 (irregular attendance), 183 (85% attendance or below), 61 (currently failing but can make up the work) and 37 (missed test).

Dr. Bowser told Regents the alert system’s categories were modified to make it more sensible. “Instead of just the mark for attendance, we had an arbitrary number in there saying 85% attendance or below, and it wasn’t really based on anything,” he added. “It helped us to redefine that as attendance percentage that impacted the student’s ability to pass. That has been impactful, I think because then faculty don’t just arbitrarily report absenteeism — it’s absenteeism that’s impacting a student’s ability to pass the course. That’s a big one.”

Though the referral numbers are relatively high at 934 among 720 students, Dr. Bowser happily reported that 851 students made the Dean’s List this year. “The work of the faculty in the classroom and our staff getting them back into connection with the faculty and going to class again is a big deal,” said Dr. Bowser.

Regents VP Steve Sellenriek asked how many students received multiple referrals. “That’s a good question,” Dr. Bowser replied. “If I look you up, it’s going to tell me how many times you were referred. The short answer to that it’s a lot, with several students reported very early in the semester. The pattern is that they get back on track for a couple of weeks. Then, they drift into bad behaviors again, and they get referred. Then, we have that same conversation again.”

A grant has allowed the college to offer a 24/7 wraparound service called Top Campus, linked to the State Tech student app. “They just click on it, log in, and they can talk to your counselors about anything that’s bothering them, which is great, especially when we’re on extended break,” said Dr. Bowser.

Aaron Kliethermes developed the link to the State Tech app, for which Dr. Bowser expressed his thanks.

In the 30 days before Friday’s meeting, students accessed the app 34 times, mainly those aged 12-24 (97%), with the rest being 25-34. Dr. Bowser said the average session lasted 12 minutes, and the top category was relationships, followed by family, mental health, studies, health, anxiety, overwhelmed, and lonely.

“They have licensed professional counselors on duty who can escalate those in need and notify campus,” said Dr. Bowser. “We have not had any escalated beyond peer counselors.”

• Dr. Bowser also spoke about the Academic Resource Center, which provides tutoring services for math, communication, science, history, paper, editing, resume, and cover letter assistance. “We have added some programs called adulting sessions, like test preparation, for example,” he added. “This is a highly utilized area of our campus.”

Dr. Bowser noted the partnership between the ARC and the Admissions Department.

“As many of you know, a lot of higher education has gone test-optional admissions, so they don’t require testing,” said Dr. Bowser. “We have the level of testing; we utilize testing not only for admissions but for placement in a lot of our general education classes, specifically math, science, communications, and reading. We noticed we were having an issue with students moving from a category of prospective students called admissions retest and being admitted. We were seeing a lot of students struggling to achieve the scores to get admitted. Admissions and the Academic Resource Center created test-prep sessions. They partnered with admissions to help students who need assistance to bump up their score a little bit so they can be admitted. They created this session, and they have in-person and virtual options.”

Test-prep sessions are taking place again this week, with 26 students registered for the event. Last year, 32 people who went through test-prep sessions were admitted and enrolled.

Academic Resource Center tutors Lorinda Smith, Desiree Franken, and Nathan Richard had 1,329 visits this fall for 1,269 hours of service to students. The ARC is open Monday through Thursday, from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. and Fridays, from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.

• Student engagement has been a driving force for the college. “Our students are always engaged in a lot of activities outside of the classroom,” said Dr. Bowser. “And I always want to make sure that I take the time to thank Kim Carter and Chelsea Williams in our activity center to govern intramural. They also work very closely with all our clubs and activities because they all have the ability to run their own events, which is a good thing. Having the clubs and organizations able to run their own events allows the college to continually put on a variety of different events almost every day of the week.”

He added that doesn’t mean there are activities all day, every day. “It’s a good partnership,” said Dr. Bowser.

The fall semester began with a highly attended barbecue on campus, with a band. “We had free coffee, hot chocolate, and doughnuts on Tuesday, and a paintball event in the afternoon that was extremely well attended with over 300 students,” said Dr. Bowser.

During State Tech’s Week of Welcome, the college held a part-time job fair with local employers in attendance. Also, during that week, students visited the Show-Me Ax House and held an ice cream social. Dr. Bowser noted students created tie-dye t-shirts, a popular event. On Saturday night, more than 17 faculty and staff teams competed in a trivia night.

Following a recommendation from State Tech President Dr. Shawn Strong, the college’s first Saturday event was a wrestling match last spring.

State Tech’s Student Government Association (SGA) has decided to present a $5,000 award to the most engaged program every fall. This fall, the SGA selected Welding as the most engaging program.

“They will use that immediately for program enhancements to put tools and experiences in the students’ hands,” said Dr. Bowser of the third-year award, noting that Auto Collision and Precision Machining won the first two awards, respectively. “It’s highly competitive.”

Dr. Bowser and his staff put 37 jars out with program names on them. Staff manually counted entries to determine who was the most engaged during the Week of Welcome.

Now, however, students can show their ID, which automatically reports itself. “It makes the opportunity to calculate those things and see who’s the most engaged and takes a lot of the manual work out of those things,” Dr. Bowser said, thanking Cam and Kliethermes for creating the scanning process.

Along those lines, Dr. Bowser said students can download an app on their phones. “They can click on that and see where they stand in terms of participation and how many tokens they have to be able to spend at the end of the year,” he added. “Aaron created a method for Student Affairs to post leadership in the State Tech app. They can also begin thinking about how to bid on silent auction items.”

In the fall, 5,447 students were engaged in various activities, from rock, paper, scissors (924) to holiday cookies and karaoke (42). More than 700 students attended the overkill grill event, at which a whole steer was roasted and served.

In the fall of 2022, the college recorded 4,188 student engagements, up from 2,444 the previous year and 2,227 in 2020-21.

Dr. Bowser is focused on ensuring an extremely successful engagement in the classroom. “But everyone is making sure students have a great experience outside the classroom, too,” he said. “I know Dr. Strong likes to say ‘work hard, play hard,’ and I think that’s exactly what that is.”

State Tech holds a year-end barbecue and silent auction, with great prizes at the event, from X-Boxes and PlayStations to minimal prizes. “Students come in and get a stack of tokens, like poker chips, which they spend like currency,” said Dr. Bowser. “It was wildly successful the first two years, and we’re hoping for another great year-end event.”

Dr. Bowser praised the marketing department’s efforts to draw students to campus and said the SGA is also very engaged. “They’re taking our social media and putting it on their social media, so they’re attracting their folks,” he said. “In housing, for example, they have group chats, and when they see a graphic on social media, they’re sharing in their group chats, too. We have a lot of folks trying to promote activities outside of the classroom, and I want to thank (everyone) for putting all that stuff on.”

He spoke of Osage View, the new golf center, which includes dining, a movie theater, activities and games, and a driving range nearby. “We see our students going to movies and stuff like that,” said Dr. Bowser.

Other business will be presented next week.