Bridging Recruitment & Retention Efforts: The Emerging Scholars Program

In this episode of Admit It, host Dr. Alex Fronduto sits down with a team from SUNY Brockport to explore their SEM Conference presentation, “Bridging Recruitment & Retention Efforts: The Emerging Scholars Program.”

Joined by Dr. Sara Kelly, Vice President for Enrollment Management; Jianna Howard, Academic Success Coordinator; and Thomas Chew, Director of New Student and Transition Programs, the conversation highlights how institutions can better align recruitment and retention strategies to support student success from day one.

The team shares the development and impact of the Emerging Scholars Program, offering insights into how cross-functional collaboration—spanning enrollment, academic success, and student transition programs—can create a more seamless and supportive student experience. They discuss the challenges institutions face when these efforts operate in silos, and how intentional design can bridge those gaps to improve both access and persistence.

This episode provides practical takeaways for enrollment leaders, student success professionals, and anyone looking to better connect the front end of enrollment with the long-term success of students

Host:

Dr. Alex Fronduto
Faculty Lead, M.Ed in Higher Education Administration & Associate Teaching Professor
Northeastern University

Guests:

Dr. Sara Kelly, Vice President for Enrollment Management, SUNY Brockport 

Jianna Howard, Academic Success Coordinator, SUNY Brockport

Thomas Chew, Director of New Student and Transition Programs, SUNY Brockport

Transcript

0:09

Hello and welcome to the Acro Admitted podcast. This is your host, Doctor Alex Ferrandudo from Northeastern University. I'm joined today by 3 amazing higher education professionals, Sarah, Gianna, and Thomas, who are all from SUNY Brockport, and they're gonna talk about bridging recruitment and retention efforts, the Emerging scholars Program, which was presented at our semiannual conference a couple of months ago. Well, thank you all 3 for being here. Thanks for having us, Alex. We're very excited to talk about this program and some of the exciting things happening at SUNY Brockport. Awesome. Well, of course, like I mentioned, I know this presentation happened at our SEM conference, which was again widely attended. We loved to hear the program and so I thought it would be great. For you to talk to everyone else that might be listening to this podcast, maybe couldn't go to the conference, or maybe unfortunately went to a different session. And so I would love first for each of you to introduce yourselves, and then we can kind of have a discussion about what you talked about. Sounds great. Um, my name is Doctor Sarah Kelly. I serve as the vice president for enrollment management at SUNY Brockport, and, um, I was previously in student affairs. I've been in this role for the past few years. Um, I have the kind of standard recruitment areas and enrollment management, some of the student service areas, and the new student and transition programs, which brings me to my colleagues, uh, Gianna and Thomas that are here that they can introduce themselves, um, that are more intimately involved with our emerging scholars program. My name is Gianna Howard. I'm an academic success coordinator at SUNY Brockport. I've been here for almost 3.5 years. I oversee the emerging scholars program that we're going to talk about today, as well as our Fannie Berrier Williams Scholars Program and our first-gen student programming. And I am also a SUNY Brockport alum. Woo hoo!-- I love-- that. Um, and I'm Thomas Chu. I'm the director of new student and transition programs. Um, I work directly with both Sarah and Gianna. I supervise, uh, Gianna in the programming, and we all work together to collectively identify, um, where our students are at and where we want them, and then program around those things. Awesome. Well, I love that all three of you are here. I think getting each of your viewpoints is gonna be really crucial to understanding the program and for others, maybe how they might be able to adapt it for their own institution, for example. And so, first, let's start from a high level. Overall, if someone has no idea what an emerging scholar program is, what is it? Yeah, so I can, uh, help explain that. So it's part of our strategic enrollment management framework we have a strategy focused on a subset of our incoming first year students. We call them the emerging scholars. They're students who are just at the fringe at the edge of our traditional admission standards that we see potential in, right? So, um, they make about 200 of our 1300 incoming first year class, um. And again they are right on the edge of our traditional admissions, uh, standards so we see potential in them and this program is really designed to from a recruitment standpoint and a retention standpoint, help them find their place at SUNY Broadcourt, help them get, um, settled in, get skills, um, and support that they might need to be successful, go on to graduate and get a career that they love. So, um, part of the reason we're featured this program. At ACROSEM is because we've seen some great results. So in 2021, our first year retention rate of our emerging scholars group was only about 50%, and that's increased by about 17% in the last three years because of some of the programming that we're gonna talk about today. Oh wow. Well, I love data, so thanks so much already. That was gonna be a question, of course. People want to know, is it working? Are you still doing it? So thank you so much for saying that. I mean, obviously this came to be for a reason, and so I'm curious first, like, how did you said it's been 3 years, so how did it come to be and kind of what's the purpose around that piece other than just obviously recruiting and retention, um, so just kind of the historical piece would be helpful too. Yeah, so we've had, um, students in this special admit category and many institutions have students that might fall into a similar group, right? Um, and we've changed over the years how we've approached that group of students knowing that maybe they need some additional support. Um, we went from decades ago having a full month summer bridge. Long before any of us were here to kind of having that um kind of go away and then there there wasn't a lot of communication to the students in this group that they are in a group that might need additional support so then we've transitioned to improving our communication to the students and letting them know they're in. A group that we're investing in, right, that we see their potential, we're gonna provide support to them and this is a special program that is an asset for their development and their growth. So that's where the name Emerging Scholars kind of came out and we've aligned a lot of our communication from the recruitment standpoint and the retention standpoint to be student success focused. So I don't know, Thomas, if you wanna chime in on that as well about kind of where the program has grown from. Yeah, absolutely, um, really, the in the institution, um, uh, years, about 10 years ago, a little less, um, in our strategic plan really focused on student success, um, as a transitional point in higher education is uh. A strategic point for Brockport in one of those areas where how can we help these students who might not be um who might be struggling more than other students and so we really started, it came from the data. It started looking at like these are students who we are here and we know are struggling more than other students, so what can we do to help them? And it's been the program itself has been iterative every year, um, from starting with just communications, saying how. Can we help to um a coordinator sending additional communications and adding a three-credit first year seminar um class to give them more direct support to the bridge, to making the bridge mandatory, to including parents and families into that. So every year that iterative approach of here's what we learned, here's how we can make it better, and you mentioned the data, Sarah mentioned the data, um, we always use the data to inform. Our growth or how we're addressing the needs of the program year from year because we know it's going to be different. I really appreciate also Sarah, when you were talking about transparency essentially with the communication. I think as you mentioned, a lot of schools do something to this, you know, degree, whether it is like you said, a bridge program, a summer program, specific classes, you know, even alternate majors, right? There's all these different pieces, you know, how institutions run that. But like you said, essentially, Communicating effectively to the student, knowing that they are part of it. It's not just something that's like flagged somewhere in a database that like, oh this is, you know, a a high alert student or a high need student, and so I, you know, I appreciate that because like you said, there's a lot of benefits to it. It's only going to help the students succeed and ultimately that's why they're attending the institution, right? They want to succeed, they want to have that outcome. And to know that the institution is there to support them through it, through all of these various mediums, which I'm excited to hear about, um, I just appreciate, you know, both of you, Thomas and Sarah, kind of acknowledging that piece, cause it's not something I hear with every institution when it comes to these types of programs. They kind of just sometimes offer it to specific people or sometimes they'll offer it to everyone, and it's just if you don't know specifically who your population is, it's harder to be able to really fit to their needs. And so, obviously the next piece is pretending where we are today with your program, kind of without going too far in depth, but what does it include? So if I decided that I was going to enroll, I'm going to be in the emerging scholars program, like what does that include or mean? You want me to touch on that?-- That would be I-- think so. I thought, I think that would be great. OK, so there's a few different things. Um, the first thing they hear about is all emerging scholars participate in this bridge program a week before classes begin. So if they're residential, they move in about 4 to 5 days early. Um, if they are commuters, they don't have to move in on that Sunday, obviously, but they participate in the program Monday through Thursday. And then our welcome weekend stuff for all freshmen begin that Friday through the weekend. Um, so the students move in early, they do this program. It's usually, it's like 3.5 days. I try to be nice and give them a half day on the last day. And a lot of their, a lot of their roommates are moving in and things start happening that Thursday. So I let them go do that. But, um, I'll get in more detail about the bridge program in a second, but they do the bridge program. All of the, all of our freshmen at Brockport take some form of our academic plan. Planning seminar course. So, the emerging scholars take a three-credit version where they earn a grade. The idea is it should be a nice easy A. Um, they also get more time with their advisor and just more supplemental help. We talk more about study skills, more about time management, and some of the things that they need that other courses aren't talking about as much or in as much detail. Um, They also get biweekly emails from me, so lots of reminders like, hey, don't forget the last day to add a class is coming up, the last day to drop, hey, we're in withdrawal period. Don't forget these things are, are coming up or around you. Don't forget about these events. Um, What else do they have? New this semester, we started, I checked in. So before they got here over summer, any of the students in tougher majors that we identified, so mostly STEM majors, um, we talked to them. They had meetings with me before the semester began, where I just let them know like, hey, you are in a tougher major, you absolutely can do this. There are resources to support you, but just know, like, STEM in college is way more difficult than STEM in high school. Um, We also have a parent communication program specifically for emerging scholars. So, students have to sign up for FERPA or sign people up for FERPA. So those guardians, parents, whoever can call us and ask for whatever info. But we have an additional program specifically for them where in a few specific instances throughout the semester, if outreach is needed or support is needed, I would reach out to whoever they Added to this. So it could be a parent, it could be their older sibling if they don't want mom to know. It could be their cousin that's cool that won't snitch on them. Um, so that's, I think, everything that we have for merging scholars.-- Am I-- forgetting anything? I mean, I'd say that's, that's a very distilled, uh, like view. I think something that's really important, um, that we've learned throughout the years is during the bridge program, bringing in faculty, connecting them to. Um, not only the sport resources like tutoring and, uh, career design and our health services, things like that, um, but we have them, we work with our academic departments so that they have like, this is academic, you, like your faculty or people, um, and they want to help you and they're here, and here's some, how they want to interact with you. So, um, that learning is a big, um, part of it, as well as the A sense of belonging and comfort on campus. Jana um does a wonderful job at saying that you're here. Some of you don't necessarily want to be here or understand why you're here, but by the end of the program, you're probably going to. And that's what our feedback. chose us. By the beginning of the program, what some of them are like, I don't want to be here, and by then it's like I really see the value of that and accepting them where they are. It's not like we are mad at them for feeling that way, that's the way they feel and sometimes their parents and families don't understand, they don't understand, but, but by the end of the program, uh, or the bridge program at least. There is that familial, um, collective, you now know more about SUNY Brockport than 80% of 85% of the rest of the incoming class. How cool is that? Um, and they really feel that. Um, I'd say that is a big portion. The other one is, Jana, do you want to talk about what you do with that 3-credit first year seminar class as far as bringing in the other instructors that it's a collective group. You want to talk a little bit about that? Absolutely. So, our course that the emerging scholars take, the course code is GEP 125. So we have a GEP 125 committee that I'm currently the chair of. So we try to improve the curriculum every summer, but this past summer, 2025, I feel like we did more in-depth where we had like weekly meetings for about 4 or 5 weeks. Um, each kind of took on different tasks. So, Some of it's basic, like the first few weeks of the course, we're getting them acclimated, how to use the technology, how to find the IT help desk, how to use Brightspace, which is our learning management system, um, things like that, where things are on campus, how to sign in as a walk-in at our academic success center. Um, and then we kind of move on to meet them where they are. h r ough out the semester. So midterm time, we're doing midterm check-ins. We're asking them about their goals. We also have mandatory one on ones week 3 of the semester. So we cancel the class, and they all have to meet one on one with their advisor to kind of talk about how are you feeling so far? What do you need? What are your goals for the semester? What are you trying to get out of all of this? Um, Later, a big, about a month of the course is spent on advisement and registration. So we teach them from the start, how to see what courses they need for their major and for their gen edd requirements, where to find that information, how to look at a four-year plan, how to use our course schedule to look up courses, what these different things mean, if they can take it, what pre-reqs are. Um, and then toward the end, it's just wrapping things up, like, again, kind of where are we? How are we feeling? What else do we need? We've also had this semester, which was kind of new, kind of brought back. Um, a lot of campus partners came in to do different presentations or we went places. So all the students had a session in the library, where they got a quick spiel, like, Hey, this is all the resources we have here. Here's what we can help you do as far as finding research articles. You might not need them your first semester, but you probably will later. You can come talk to us about that. We'll help you cite papers. Um, we had our health promotion and prevention office come in and do a session. We had some grad students in our counselored department come do a self-care session. We had two of my colleagues actually in the academic success Center that has some financial aid background, talked about like, hey, FAFSA's coming up. You have to do this every year. Here's what you need. We talked about financial aid compliance. So, All of the things that they haven't had to worry about because you don't have to worry about these things when you're in high school that now you come to college and it's like, hey, you need to know this and you have to be the one to figure it out. We're kind of giving them the, here's the reminders, here's how you do it, because you won't be with us in future semesters. So here's all the knowledge now. But we are still there for them in future semesters for sure. Of course. And I think I really like how you're doing academic, but also all of the non-academic, right? I think that's commonly lost. I You know, it keeps going back and forth if you look in the literature, like in the beginning it was like we need to think about everything academic, and then it was like, OK, we have to think about everything non-academic, and then it won't go back again and like I think institutions are still struggling how to marry the two. And so it looks like that you've spent a lot of time trying to find that balance to know that again, a student is a whole person, and so understanding the whole person, especially with the rise in mental health concerns in college students and everything else like that I really liked like the self-care piece. I thought that was really interesting to hear about. Um, so I have uh some follow ups cause there was so much there, so I obviously have more questions, um. So let's go back to the summer piece. So the summer piece, as we kind of mentioned, many institutions do it. In some ways, again, pre-orientation and trying to have that balance of like, what do you cover in this versus what you cover in orientation, and so I'm curious. Again, the strategy behind how you chose like kind of what is the emerging scholar need to know versus what would everyone need to know. Yeah, I'll just really from like a again a big picture standpoint, um, we start those conversations about what the program is during the recruitment process we do webinars with families and students before they've even made their choice and we offer them this opportunity as part of their admissions process, um, we get into here's what the program is and we start communicating that we start covering kind of why this is here and how it's going to be an asset for them and then they go into. Um, the traditional orientation program, which we do still a series of overnight orientations all summer. So there's smaller, um, groups that we kind of chunk out over the course of the summer and then that goes into the bridge program. Um, I think what we, we try to do, what I'm trying to get at too is making a fairly large place feel small, right, a sense of community, um, and then from a content standpoint, I don't know, Thomas, if you want to chime in about the orientation versus. Yeah, um, I would say more is better. Um, students, uh, especially in orientation, what we know, students and their families both come in sometimes with very specific sets of questions, and every single student in their family have different sets of questions. And so sometimes that's where they focus and they don't necessarily hear or, um, get the rest. So it's not a bad thing to say it over. And over again and in different venues and in different alleyways, um, and we have an entire communication plan built throughout the summer, um, from like do you want to be here at SUNY Brockbo like Sarah mentioned, um, to the orientations coming up, come meet Gianna at orientation to learn more about emerging scholars to the you did orientation, what questions do you still have? Here's the bridge and here's what we're going to do. So there's definitely overlap. There's overlap between orientation, between the summer bridge, um, and between the uh first year seminar class. There's a lot of overlap in theirs, but as their skills are building, we rely more on what did you learn at orientation, what did you learn at the bridge so that they can help teach each other, but also reminding them that they're. Active, uh, listening and active participation is really important. So it's OK that you didn't pick it up when you read the email or when you came to orientation. Lots of students did, but you're here now at the bridge, so let's Hit it home. Um, so it really starts with that communication plan that Sarah mentioned and that Gianna designs, um, and involving the parents and families has been a big part of that because we know that the nature of higher education is being questioned in a lot of places and our biggest, um, partner in all of this is making sure that they're the people who are supporting our students know how we're also supporting their students. I think that's a really important point, just kind of thinking about in general, right? Especially on an enrollment management podcast, right? Like that whole through piece, not, you know, from beginning to end and understanding the value and the service that you're providing and that you are set up for student success, which you've obviously talked about multiple times. And so I'm curious. I think repetition is important, reflection is great. I think that's all makes perfect sense. And so, how about the faculty piece? I know you, we kind of briefly talked about it, but I think that's also a crucial role. We see that in a lot of institutions that they're bringing faculty in earlier, some might even have them in residence halls for those that are like on campus, so I'm curious. If there are specific things that you think are innovative or different that you do, that an institution, another institution might be like, oh, we should add this. Hm, do you wanna talk, Gianna, about the, cause we've embedded more of the faculty engagement and the bridge program over the last year, couple of years, but really last year was, was one of our better years with that. Do you wanna talk about what that entails? For sure. So I'll just start with some of the feedback I had gotten from students in previous years. Like, I wish I got to meet some of my professors. I wish I got to hear more about my major. Um, so the last couple of years we've been doing that where part of the bridge program, we build in like a two-hour session where The departments themselves have to host the students. So I let them know like, hey, there's this many students, or excuse me, this many emerging scholars in your specific major department. They're gonna be here. Please figure something out for them to do for the next 2 hours. Um, and so this past year, off the top of my head, so we're broken into, well, now 4 different schools, but the one major emerging scholars cannot come in as originally is a nursing intent. So they have their own school now. But after the first semester. If the students have a 3.0, then they can declare nursing intent. So, as far as the other four schools, um, our School of Arts and Sciences, they all met and then they break out by major, and Everybody kind of does something different. So some do more like meet and greet style where they have a ton of their faculty and the students get to talk to them, ask any questions. Some bring out four-year plans like, hey, here's the courses you'll be taking. Here's what's involved. Here's potential career paths you can go down. Um, they do fun. Things as well, so I know off the top of our head some of our health-based majors, they had like an ice cream truck come, um, so the students got to meet faculty and mingle and play yard games outside, get free ice cream. That's fun. I wanna go. I don't get to do that with my students that I teach. Um, this year I actually did something new as well where I did have, so a lot of students, even though they can't declare nursing right away, they know this is what I wanna do. So they might come in. Undecided, or they do biology or something that's gonna help them on that pre-rec track to eventually declare nursing. So I had a separate session this year where I had someone from the nursing department come and I told the students like, hey, if nursing is your plan, you don't have to go with your assigned major, you can stay here, and she's gonna give you a rundown of how that works. And so she did like, hey, our nursing program is competitive. Here's what it looks like. Here's what you need to do, X, Y, Z. Um, so I know a lot of them found that helpful. And then, It's one of those things which, this is with all parts of the bridge program where I've learned as a young professional being here the last few years, like, I can't please everybody with everything. So, some of the sessions, like some of the students in the exact same majors and exercise science sticks out to me, like 75% of the students' reviews are like, oh, it was so awesome. This person was so cool. I learned so much. And then a few were like, it sucked. It was boring. I wish I did more. Um, but overall, I think At the end of the day, it's helpful, and I think they like to get to know some of their future potential professors. Um, I also get the comments that are like, I remember psychology also sticks in my mind. A student literally go, I know I am in the right major. Like this was amazing and I learned so much. So, I think it's helpful just to give them. That quick overview, because most of the time, a lot of them come in and they're taking just gen ed courses their first semester. So they're an exercise science major, but they're taking US history and dance and other things, and they're like, what the heck? But now they know. All right, I have to do this my first semester, but I know 2nd semester, I'm taking anatomy and this, this and that. Yeah, no, I think that's great. No, go, go ahead. No, go on, go ahead, please. No, I was just gonna say that. I mean, I think that's great to think about, you know, where those integrations are, and it seems like some of them are more social versus like, you know, what I would typically think of like when you're at open house or orientation, that's very, you know, has to be presentation based typically just because of the size, and so I think that like informal nature is very interesting and Helpful, I think to break down those walls because again, most students are not willing to approach their faculty. We know that as written everywhere, especially, I mean, if you're talking STEEM, come on, I mean there's already a competitive nature that's built into STEM courses, and so that's just another hurdle on top of just having a faculty presence. So I, I think. It seems like you've been very intentional to think about that and think about that is a piece of where retention can really struggle, right? Like if they're not willing to advocate for themselves, ask for help, go see a professor, you know, in addition to all of the other self-care options, obviously, you know, resource wise. Yes, I, I wanna add that's something that's one of the sessions I built into this year's bridge program. It was like an hour presentation about academic expectations and how college is different than high school, but I talked about the value of building rapport with your professors, how it can benefit you later as far as letters of recommendation or even with your grades. Um, I give them like an anecdotal story. About when I was a college freshman in my biology lab, I, uh, I told my lab professor my goal was to get a B+. And when I calculated my points, I think it was gonna be a, but I went to office hours every week and I somehow ended up with a B+. Um, we also talked about that in that GEP 125 course. One of our lessons is about how to approach your professors, how to just start a conversation with them. Don't be scared to ask questions and the value of doing such. I love that. I just wanted to give, uh, when we're talking about uh the integration of faculty, um, and our students feeling the sense of belonging too, um, a lot of our emerging scholars are first-generation students as well. And so, Gianna being the person who also does first-generation outreach and some programming there. That intersectionality matters a lot. Having our faculty engaged not only in the bridge program, but in our entire STEM plan, like Doctor Kelly, Sarah does a great job at our SEM plan is our enrollment management plan and enrollment management at any institution, as we all know, is everybody, you know, and so like really understanding. Um, who our emerging scholars are and how big of an important part of our student body they are is really helpful for our faculty, you know, I, it's, so I think having this be one of our SEM goals and having um them being uh. Our faculty and our academic affairs partners um be on the SEM committees and in these meetings and part of the bridge program and part of the summer orientation program and working together on that curriculum, all of it is builds an atmosphere of care, um, and I think it really comes from uh. Not only Doctor Kelly, but it definitely comes from Sarah. Um, she wants to make sure that everyone knows what we're doing for our students, and they can help if they want to help. Well, that was great. I love that. Um, and I think what I'm interested is also kind of the logistical nature. So you brought up a lot of communication plans and all of this, so of course, especially putting, you know, the SEM hat on, all we talk about is like CRMs, databases, etc. So how much of this, and I hope it's not. But like, is you, Gianna, like by yourself typing an email versus how much of this is like scalable, programmable, utilized. And again, I think there's a balance to both, right? Like I don't want, I don't think everything should be impersonal, but I think that also might help people realize like, what is that balance that you're doing for them to think about at their institution. I think a lot of it is me solo typing up individual emails, but I'm working on making it more scalable, but I also just think that's who I am as a person. I really value being genuine and relatable. Um, And I often say this to Thomas, I like being the best at everything I do. So I'm always putting in max effort and trying to really help these students. And I was also a first-gen student, and um academics were fine, but I was figuring everything out on my own. Like I could not ask my mom about financial aid and all these questions cause she had no idea either. So, as cheesy and cliche as it sounds, I try to be what I didn't have when I was an 18 year old. Uh, starting college. So that's how I try to think. And there was a learning curve for me as well with the emerging scholars because, not to sound arrogant, I was a really good student. Like, I graduated high school, straight A's and got straight A's in college. So there were times where I'd be talking with Thomas or other colleagues where I'm like, why don't they read their emails? I don't understand. And it's like, hey, you gotta meet them where they are a little bit. OK, well, cool. So a perfect example is this past summer for orientation, we started. We have 6 orientation sessions. So each one, I would go through and see which emerging scholars are going to be here today. And I'd print a list and give it to our orientation leaders and say, after they check in, I'm gonna be sitting right there, send them to me. So, half of them, I'm like, I'm Gianna. Have you been getting my emails? Do you know what being an emerging scholar is? And they're like, yeah, of course, da, da da da. And then half are like, No, what are you talking about? And I'm like, oh, I'm so glad you're here. Let's talk about it and come to my presentation at 2 p.m. So, I, uh, I, I do a good job of trying to meet them where they are, but it is a lot of me solo. And I do think that a lot of the success of the program, um, is that I'm very detail-oriented and I don't know, try to make things both informative and enjoyable. I was just telling my GEP class yesterday. It was the last class. And so I tried to tell them like, yes, I'm teaching you stuff that is valuable as a college freshman, but I'm also trying to give you life lessons and things I wish I knew when I was 1819 years old. And I think what Jan is really highlighting too is the human element of all of this program is so important and we try to embed that throughout the university and especially for the emerging scholars group. Yes, we have Slate as a CRM and we have, you know, more automated communication to the recruitment process. We have, you know, things built out for reminders, but at the end of the day, you know, the students and their families wanna know that we are people caring for people. Right, that Gianna's a real point person for them that's invested in their success. All of us are here. We're not sending generic emails with no name at the bottom, right? Like, so I think that we're highlighting kind of the personal nature of all of it because every student in this program or not really does have their own individual goals and experiences, and we wanna make sure that of course there's systems that create, um, good experiences for everybody, but also the people that can help students when. Maybe they feel they're off track or maybe help them find an awesome internship, right? It's not always about students that are struggling. No, I think that's a great point, and I think, you know, it's always that balance as you're saying of, OK, then can you scale it, and so that's why I always ask is like, do you feel like you're, and this is kind of a SEM question as we think about kind of my next questions are all future related. Will you stay at similar numbers, thinking also demographic cliff, things like that, like, is it something that you're thinking about scaling? Is it something you're going to keep consistent numbers across the board, um, again, based off what your projections are over the coming years. I think we're looking at, you know, pretty much keeping the cohort a similar size. Um, it, it does work. Anything larger would require a little bit of a different structure at this point, so it seems to be working for us, you know, we have experienced kind of modest increases in our student retention rates with this group in particular, so we're gonna keep working towards that, um. I think the student feedback part of that is really important too. So, you know, I did want to share, uh, just a couple of quick tidbits. So students had some testimonials that Gianna collected, and I just love them. I think they're the best ever. Um, so I'll read just a couple of, uh, their perspectives. Um, one of my favorite quotes was, um, from one of our students, and, uh, he's a PE, physical education major, and he starts out by saying I was a big slacker in high school. I only went to school my junior and senior year to be eligible to play my sports and go to games and practices. Um, I believe between the two years in high school, I took my book bag in 3 times. Then he goes on to say some more, and he says, I was heavily considering dropping out of college. I took some, took some. Soul searching and some meetings with Gianna to make me realize this was all worth it. I locked in and started getting better grades and truly started caring about school since I was seeing good results from my efforts and all started meaning more to me. I would not still be enrolled at SUNY Brock for my junior year without this program with a 3.4 GPA. And I share that because when we talk about, you know, the personal attention we give to students and how this program is designed and whether we scale up and what we do next, we have to make sure that we're making that experience, right, where they have people that can dedicate their time to them occurs in all settings. I mean beyond Gianna's role. And Thomas's role, but in the classroom and otherwise. So, um, we are really committed to preserving quality and making sure that the students have that high quality experience as we implement any future enhancements and changes like Thomas kind of highlighted before. Yeah, and those stories, uh, are so important. Um, and one of the big changes we, we've integrated past emerging scholars back into the program because I love that, um, that, uh, sometimes there's a negative mindset of I'm not good enough, which is why I'm in this program, and we try to say like, no, look at how you can thrive through this program, you know, and so we had uh Gianna had I think this summer 9 students who are all former emerging scholars or we're trying to get more and more back to talk about their experience, to share the. Those quotes, which those quotes are just the best, aren't they, um, but that student feedback and that student involvement, so it doesn't feel like so many of our emerging scholars are so successful, um, and sometimes that's, uh, lost on the incoming. New students of, well, how if I'm not a traditional admit, then how am I going to be successful and we get to say, we'll show you. Here, meet this person and like meet these people who are so successful by embracing this program. Right, I think it's just relatable too, right? Like you said, like this is someone that's been through it and they can relate to maybe, yeah, I also wasn't super excited day one, but like here I am today, and so I think that's really crucial to talk about as well, and I love that you're incorporating them back as well. I think I, I would hope that they want to give back, right, if it's helped them so much, so. I mean, as you said, you're always looking at data, you're always looking at obviously these great quotes. Have you thought about what's next? Like if it's not scaling, is there other things? It seems like every year you're iterating. Have you thought about anything that's next, that you want to add, change? Well, we're still assessing some of the um impacts of the STEM outreach program that we started last year to determine. How did that go, right? Are students still in those majors? Are they changing their major? Are they staying? So I think that's one thing we're still evaluating along with the parent and family program side of things, um, so yeah, I think we're, we're making incremental changes to the program. Gna, I know you talked about. Some changes to the bridge and kind of some enhancements there, um, and we, we do get student survey data and again we look at fall to spring retention, um, you know, fall to fall so, uh, we'll see what pops out but did you wanna touch on any of those changes, Gianna, that you have kind of coming? Sure. So, um, one thing a lot of the students said this past bridge program was that they wish they had They tell me the icebreakers are cheesy, but I think they secretly like them cause they're trying to make friends. But some did say like, hey, I wish we had more time to get together in smaller groups. Now, I do want to note that I do evening activities during the bridge program that are optional, like fun things. I've done tie-dye, game night, speed friending, whatever, and then they won't be Highly attended and then they'll be like, oh, I wish we had more stuff and I'm like, Oh, you did, but um I'm that's common though. The presence still matters though. That's what I tell everyone, even if you don't have a large show rate, knowing that it's happening is sometimes half the battle. So I'm just gonna try to make you feel better too with that. Thank you, um, but I thought of, so this past bridge program, there were a few. Sometimes we broke them out by their GEP section, but that's still 20 to 25 students. So now I'm thinking in future bridge programs, I think it would be cool to still break them out by GEP section, but then break them down a little more into groups of 4 or 5, so that maybe they can make at least one friend from their GEP class before the semester even begins. Um, this past year, I got all of the advisors involved a little more, so they could at least put a face to the name of their advisor, but I would like them to be even more involved. Like maybe they host their class for one of the hours of the week. Um, so things like that, just getting them more integrated. Um, as far as the GEP class, a few of the things we tried this semester. I personally wasn't a fan of. We're actually doing a survey right now. Um, this last week, we have our students doing a quick little GEP 125 survey with 5 multiple choice, like based on our course goals, and then there's a box of like What should we get rid of? What should we keep? What should we add? So seeing what they're thinking. But again, I've, I've looked through some of the responses already, and it's so funny. Some are like, I love the scavenger hunt. Keep it. Definitely do it. And then somebody wrote, Take out the scavenger hunt. So, I can't please everybody, but we will use that. Like I actually do enjoy reading those things and seeing, um, what they think, how it was helpful. So that's great. Well, I'm so excited to see and hear how the program continues to develop. Thank you all so much for being on it and explaining it. I hope that other institutions find this to be valuable and understanding, again, like you said, I think the individual support is really a theme that I Saw throughout, which again, especially in this environment, sometimes it's hard to argue, but I hope learning from the retention data and everything that you share that other institutions can show how important it is to have that individual touch. But again, thank you all so much for being on it. Thank you. Thanks for having us.-- Thank-- you.