From Cigar City to Campus Culture: Dr. Dosal’s Vision for Student Success at FGCU

In this engaging episode of The Adjunct Files, co-hosts John Roth and Maggie Hohne sit down with Dr. Paul Dosal, a fourth-generation Floridian and seasoned higher ed administrator, to explore his journey from Latin American historian to student success champion. Dr. Dosal shares his personal and professional background, including his academic roots in Tampa and Tulane, his tenure at USF and UCF, and his recent transition to FGCU.

The conversation dives deep into:

• Institutional culture as the key driver of student success.
• The importance of genuine care over metrics and technology.
• FGCU’s potential to become a national model for student success among regional comprehensive universities.
• The development of a Coordinated Care Management system, inspired by healthcare models, to provide holistic support for students.
• The critical role of adjunct faculty in shaping student experiences, especially through real-world expertise and passion for teaching.
• Challenges and opportunities in course planning, enrollment forecasting, and faculty inclusion.

Dr. Dosal emphasizes that student success is everyone’s responsibility—from groundskeepers to adjuncts—and that FGCU’s size and culture make it uniquely positioned to innovate and lead.

Theme music composed, performed and produced by James Husni.

Adjunct Nation is a collaborative podcast under the auspices of The Lucas Center for Faculty Development at FGCU. You can learn more by clicking on this link:

https://www.fgcu.edu/lucascenter/

Transcript

Welcome to the Adjunct Files.

We're a growing, diverse community who face challenging work in an ever-changing, higher

education landscape.

Your co-hosts for this podcast are with you in this.

I'm John Roth, Adjunct since 2015 and now a coordinator for Adjunct Faculty at Florida

Gulf Coast University.

I'm Maggie Hohne, Adjunct since 2022 and currently work in the Office of First-Year Seminars.

Together we hope to have conversations to empower, support, and elevate Adjunct Faculty.

This conversation today is one to do just that.

Hello everyone, welcome back to the Adjunct Files.

John, how are you?

I'm doing well.

We are midway through the semester and that is shocking.

There's just so much that's been going on and it feels like it's only been three or

four weeks, not eight.

It does.

We're doing midterm reflections in class and the students are shocked that it's already

week eight because the first two weeks they were so worried.

I teach exclusively freshmen and now that it's week eight, they can't believe it.

They're like, wow, this is like my second home now.

I can't believe time has flown.

It is flying.

I have a feeling it's been flying for our guest today.

Yes, very much so.

Dr. Dosel is the Vice President for Student Success and Enrollment Management here and

he has been here only a few months actually on the job.

Is that correct?

Since July 21st.

Wow.

Hold on, right?

It's been quite the ride I'm sure.

Thankfully, you have a lot of experience at universities in Florida and probably a lot

more than that.

We'd love to just hear your background a little, not only that you ended up here, but just

who you are, where you're from, whatever you want to share it would be great to get to

know you better.

Sure.

Thank you and thank you for the opportunity to be with you all today.

I am a native Floridian born and raised.

Is that possible?

It hardly is right now.

We're looking at one.

Born and raised in Tampa, I'm actually fourth generation Floridian.

Wow.

Wow.

Great grandparents came from Cuba and settled in what was then called E-Bore City.

Oh yeah.

In 1889.

They were cigar makers.

Really fascinating.

Is there still a factory for there?

There's Dosel's cigar?

No, there is a Dosel cigarette factory in Miami, but they're not related to it.

They're not related.

Only one cigar factory is still in operation in Tampa.

Most of the cigar factories are now doing other things, but they're beautiful buildings.

Anyway, my family grew up there in that community.

When I was born though, my family had already moved out of the area and went into a sort

of middle class, predominantly not Latino community, but they were from.

I was the first in my family's history to grow up speaking English first, not Spanish.

My parents spoke English and Spanish fluently.

I had to learn Spanish formally in school.

Oh wow.

But it still prompted me to pursue my interest in Latin American history.

I wanted to know more about my own family history and that got me into studying Latin

America at Tulane University in New Orleans.

Oh.

And it was then, or was then, and it still is one of the best places to study Latin

American in the country.

Amazing.

I was at LSU as a campus minister in the 80s, 90s.

And I was at Tulane in the 80s.

The Greenway.

The Greenway, whatever that is.

So Mardi Gras.

Yes.

That area is the place to be for Mardi Gras parades.

Oh yeah.

There are a few times.

Even though there are other parades like it in Mobile and Baton Rouge.

Yeah.

But you know what is the place?

But I would know.

I never attended one of those.

Are you serious?

No.

Okay.

Because yeah, I mean it is kind of like a when in New Orleans leave it in New Orleans

because what goes on in those things is kind of wild and crazy.

Yeah.

Yes it is.

But the food and all.

Oh my gosh.

I appreciate that as well as the degrees I earned there because I still love to cook

jambalaya and shrimp at dufe that kind of stuff has just stayed with me.

So Maggie is inviting us over for that.

Potential.

I hope so.

If this podcast goes wrong.

Yeah.

Depends how mean you are to me.

Oh.

Okay.

So Latin American studies.

And then so what was your overall I guess kind of goal from that?

You were studying your passion and your history.

I was studying my passion because my dad told me follow your passion.

You know at one point I was seriously considering law school and I'm so glad he helped to persuade

me otherwise because I was always a lover of history.

And so he said just go for it.

And it meant though that I had to pursue that traditional academic path.

And I feel blessed and fortunate in that I graduated from Tulane in 1987 and immediately

landed a job at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.

Wow.

And a tenure earning position.

Wow.

Congratulations.

It was awesome.

Thank you.

And I was lucky and that was the only job offer I had.

And I jumped at it and I went there thinking I was going to stay there forever.

It was a great university, a great town.

Except for the north being so freaking cold.

I don't know how you handled that.

Well as a native flirting I didn't handle it well at all.

So after one winner I think I was ready to move.

Yeah.

It took me nine years to move.

When I did it was because I had an opportunity to go back home.

The University of South Florida had a job opening for Latin American historian.

One of the best historians of Cuba in the world was moving on.

So I said well that's where I ought to go.

So I went for it and I feel blessed again that I got it and I went home.

And that was wonderful.

I wanted to be with my family.

I put that over everything else.

At the time I remember people telling me, including my old mentor at Tulane, that I

was moving from the pros to the minor league.

UMass Amherst was supposed to be so much better as a history department.

And it was like 45 faculty in the department.

USF had the time had only about 20.

Okay.

But I wanted to be with family.

I found then too when I got to USF I wanted to help the University and I wanted to help

the community as well because it was my hometown.

And I never felt that way when I was at Amherst.

I love being there and it's beautiful but I didn't have that same kind of commitment

to the community that I had.

So that led me eventually I think to the dark side.

Which is.

And went into administration.

Okay.

After teaching, it's about 12 years at USF I decided I wanted to pursue something else.

I had taught for a while and I wanted a new challenge.

And that's when I got into administration.

And I haven't gone back.

Cool.

Cool.

So you were at USF in administration then?

Yes.

I was vice president of student success.

Oh.

For 12 years.

Awesome.

And after that I occupied the same position virtually at the University of Central Florida.

Okay.

In 2022 I left to become senior vice president there.

And took on the challenge of helping them move towards preeminence which we had done

at USF and I had the same sort of charge.

Help us lead the path, the journey to preeminence.

That place is huge.

Oh, it's 70,000 students.

Yeah.

So you move that kind of a ship.

That's like not even a cruise ship.

I don't even know it's bigger than a cruise ship.

I don't know either.

Yeah.

It's like a supertanger.

Yes.

Yeah.

Trying to turn in a canal.

Yeah.

Oh my goodness.

And it is hard to change culture and change practices.

But I'm proud of the work I did there at UCF as well as USF.

Because I like to think I helped to put them on the path towards preeminence.

Their last metric was the four-year graduation rate.

They were struggling on that one.

As we are.

Yeah.

Their graduation rate was at 54% when I arrived.

And they just posted a record 64% for your graduation rate.

Wow.

So they grew in three years, 10 points.

That's great.

That's amazing.

I have a question for you just because your experience is now in my lens so unique.

You have such tenure and experience at two of some of our largest universities in the

state of Florida.

And now you're here.

University of number three.

What is, I guess, the, I don't want to say biggest challenge, but I guess what is your

biggest lesson learned?

Working with all these different institutions, going through difficult periods of growth and

time, depending on the timeframe that you're at.

What is the most important lesson that you've learned?

It's an intangible, which is that institutional culture matters more than anything else.

And that's harder to put your finger on.

It's that subjective feeling one gets.

Is there really a commitment to student success among everybody on a campus?

We all like to say, of course we are committed to student success, but are you really?

And so getting people to feel passionate about it and fully committed to it, that's something

else.

And you can't really tell that until one actually gets to work on a campus and get the feeling

for it.

And I say that because over the course of my 15 years leading student success initiatives,

we too often think that, oh, if we implement this program or buy this technology like

magic, the graduation rates will go up.

They won't.

You have to actually care about our students.

Because otherwise, nothing is going to change.

And it happened when years ago at USF we started to go into predictive analytics.

It was all the rage about 13 years ago.

And we thought it was going to solve all of our problems.

And we deployed this predictive analytics platform, which was really robust.

But it took us a couple of years to actually figure out how to use it.

We thought it was going to solve all our problems.

It didn't.

Because people ultimately solved the problems.

The predictive analytics tools gave us insights into students.

But it didn't actually tell us how to benefit the students.

And what do we actually say to the students when we go to them?

How do we intervene?

I don't even like the term.

But how do we show you care?

And that you really do care about them and not just some statistic.

Right.

And so because we work in a state that really values metrics, people get the sense that

we care about moving the needle on those percentages.

And of course we have to focus on those metrics because that's how we're evaluated.

That's tied to our recurrent funding.

So we can't ignore that.

But really the lesson is care about your students first because we should be doing

this regardless of the metrics.

Even if they weren't there, I'd still be saying we should do these things.

Right.

And when you do, the metrics do go up.

Yes.

Yeah.

You got it.

That's it.

Yeah.

Thank you.

When we talk about student success, one of our questions is how do you define that?

What does it look like to you beyond like grades and retention rates and graduation

rates?

Well, it certainly goes beyond the metrics and those are just useful.

signs that tell us we might be doing some things right but there are other signs I wish we could

evaluate as well which is when a student earns a college degree it usually means that they're off

to live a life that it will be happier and healthier and more enriching than it is without that degree

and there are statistics that show that life expectancy increases and so forth and just happiness

increases because we lead richer lives we have a greater appreciation of the world around us

and so I want to prepare our students to enter the workforce or the marketplace or their postgraduate

careers fully prepared for richer healthier happier lives to do that we got to do a whole

lot of things it's not just getting them through here on time that's just a start we would be

doing them a disservice if they leave us without preparation for that longer happier healthier life

so we have a lot to do and you know I think liberal arts education has always meant doing

these kinds of things oh yeah right it's the core of what we do and in many ways we just have to

keep doing it and so we don't want our students just to earn that degree in four years sure I

want them to because they graduate with less debt yeah got it wonderful that's the best way

to manage debt get out of here in four years with your degree I want them to do much more are they

really ready to go out in the world do they have the skills experiences to lead these lives that

we want are they going to be great civic-minded citizens I want them to do all these things absolutely

yeah those are big questions and some of those are hard to measure and you mentioned something

about just trying to figure out the cultural climate or the pulse of a place I'm curious is

where do you see us at here at FGCU on that as an outsider coming in man you've got a perspective

I don't have anymore I think we're in great shape I've had ever since I first arrived here for the

job interviews back in February I just felt very positive vibes from everybody

it started with the president yeah and she quickly and easily convinced me that she was seriously

and deeply and passionately committed to students except took five minutes like wow well I could

work for you you know it was that easy and yeah and having that at the top that sincere deep

commitment yeah is where it starts and at the time when I stepped down for my role at UCF in

January I thought I was heading back to faculty I had been in administration 15 years I was tired

yeah you're ready for something else oh yeah yeah I need some time and but I use my time off to

rest and reflect and recover get back in shape physically emotionally mentally everything

and coming here with these positive vibes is flowing everywhere helped to rejuvenate me oh good so I

started on July 21 very optimistic and hopeful about what we could do even though I know the

challenges ahead of us are overwhelming at times yeah well it's good work that we're doing I love

it that's what I do it's what I love doing yeah and perhaps more than I love teaching and researching

many years ago so I decided I'd rather go back to a job where I could make an impact like this

and so I decided to join because I think we have it here I think we've got the culture and I felt

it from faculty and staff around campus cool I mean that's why I chose FGCU I'm also an alum but

stepping on to campus I was like this is it the vibes the location the people I mean our campus

is beautiful yes but the people make the place yeah I think it's the people it's not we're not

old enough to have huge traditions or anything but in some ways that's good I said this place

feels a little like wet cement yet that you can still make an impression it's not so solid and

hardened so that you can't really see change ever happening see that means we can also make

our traditions still correct that's fun yeah it's exciting it is and I want to dig into that what

what would it be to create a signature tradition or traditions you know and so I'm still getting

to know the campus I maybe we already have some of those but I want to go out and see and

determine what more could we do right to make this a destination university for students faculty

and staff but I think the size is also what makes us so unique in that what cement comment

that you made that's also what I tell students if they're ever afraid to get involved or take a

chance like the campus is not that big and they neither like in the grand scheme of things you have

that ability to make that impact and see those changes in real time we're not moving a ship with

90,000 people like the students that are here on campus like they have that ability to make

that impact it doesn't matter who they are we're young and nimble enough like you can make an

impact yes yeah come back and see it through I think our geography is a great asset the layout

of this campus is fantastic so I've taken notes this seems to have been designed with a great

plan in mind already the academic core right I look at that as a wow this is exactly what I

wanted to do at my previous institutions to have a central location where all the student support

services are located right they're right across the library lawn right right and including the

library so we've got it already yeah and there are other universities around the country like the

University of Arizona created what's called a student success district that's a huge campus

but we already have it yeah they had to build it and brand it well we already have it right

fantastic yeah Roy McTarnigan kind of set that all in motion so I was able to talk to him quite

a bit when I came down here and he's the one who kind of basically laid it all out he picked the

colors he picked the mascot he picked the way the place would look that's great yeah so this whole

academic corridor or with the loop around it that was his idea because of the different campuses he

had been at and what he wanted to see here so it's a great design

I do have a question about your career trajectory so you had originally started as

right out of the gate a faculty member went to administration when you made that switch to

administration where you more focused in academic affairs or did you come more to the student

affairs side of things I know right now you are also vice provost thank you in addition to your

very long title but I guess how did you kind of end up on the student affairs student success side

of things well it's I've always been in what I'd say is the student success arena not the student

affairs and so my first full-time administrative job was as the the director of what is now called

the florida college access network and it's still in existence we have a chapter here operating in

southwest florida and my job there was to form networks of people organizations that promoted

college readiness access and success broadly understood and I spent three and a half years

doing that and it was sort of my preparation for my student success roles because I still think

in those three terms in order to be successful we need to think of all those things readiness

access success you got to pull them all together in a comprehensive plan and we're doing that here

by the way and so over the years though I have learned a lot about student affairs as a profession

and I like to think I've earned some respect some some street cred because that that old division

that still exists between academic affairs type and student affairs type I hope it is disappearing

and I want it to disappear yeah we all say share similar missions we all play critical roles

and I want everyone to understand the role they play within it because we all do 100 percent

yeah cool well as you know this podcast it's called the adjunct files for a reason

that here at FGCU and this is true across the nation right now I think actually it's the new

faculty majority across the nation especially when you consider community colleges and others

in higher education that over 50 percent of those who are in higher education as faculty in whatever

form are not in tenured full-time positions but now are in visiting faculty lines or

adjuncts like we have a lot here we might be the majority even here we're not the majority

and we don't teach the majority we teach about 20 percent of the courses though and so there is

this sense that I think the university now is waking up to the reality of the size of our adjunct

pool and how important we are for student success for academic success and need to be included in

the community that's not much of a question so far is that Maggie you are setting the scene we are

unique compared to usf and ucf it's not the same type of part-time faculty positions here compared

to there but what roles or how do you see adjunct faculty participating in student success here

and what can be done better sure so FGCU is of course a regional comprehensive public university

and I want us to embrace that and be the best at it yes we're not usf or you see now and so

don't try to be why yeah that's not our real mission or role right we have a different mission

so let's let's lean into it and one reason I love the challenge that the president gave to me is

that well I want to be the best I want to be the national model for student success for a regional

comprehensive I love it I'm in let's do it within five years awesome right yeah yeah and

and toward that end there so I want everyone to embrace that mission

and everybody has a responsibility for student success that's one of the things I've learned I

could have led with that when you asked me everyone plays a role from groundskeepers librarians faculty

all of them and adjunct faculty play a critical role here and in some cases because we're regional

comprehensive their role might be more important than it is elsewhere yeah like at you know these

prestigious are one universities yeah well yeah you I was at uf before I came down here and not as

an instructor or anything but in the community working with students and yeah they don't have these

their TAs their grad students they're all of that they're part of the system already

exactly adjuncts here are often just part of our greater community that come on to the campus

just to teach a course and then they're more nomadic that way so and that's that's not necessarily

a bad thing and as you're describing it and I'm also thinking well these sound to me like people

who really want to teach there's a passion behind it oh yeah which I think is critical to

student success yeah and so at some of these other universities where that are r1 university

or like at us up there now a you all right where research is an important part of the mission

and so that means those professors are often divided in their time between their research

teaching and service right and some of them like to think of themselves more as the researchers

the teachers oh absolutely I think to be effective in the classroom one has to know a little bit

about research and do a little research you got a you can't ignore the profession you can't ignore

the field absolutely right you need to be aware of what's going on in the field but for some

publishing the book is the most important thing right right and that doesn't necessarily make them

the best teachers in the classroom right and I I feel honored that I rose to the rank of full

professor at USF great and I always valued teaching I like to even think that I was a good teacher

but they don't always go together like a full professor doesn't make a great teacher no sometimes

yeah or it might be in different classes like in that upper level research seminar you might want

that full professor who's done who's published a whole lot and so forth but entry level courses

gen ed courses they may not have the passion to teach those students they might think well it's

below me I'm an expert in this field that's what I want to teach not this intro biology right and so

I like the thing that adjunct faculty here can bring more passion and care to the classroom than

some of our others and and I think they also bring in their professional experience their

connection to the actual workforce even potential internships or mentorships there's a wealth of

knowledge I've found and a wealth of experience in a number of our adjuncts we've been amazed at

some our community here's just so diverse and I think to something just the more adjunct faculty

that I talk to hearing about their other lives in the real world outside of the campus bubble

a question I have is how can we leverage that experience and their expertise like in those roles

being active practitioners in the field how can we enhance the like experiential learning for

our students through adjunct faculty in order to better prepare our students because I love

listening to lectures very knowledgeable professors but sometimes it can be frustrating to learn

something that's in the textbook and then get out into the real world and they're like we haven't

done that in three years and you're like oh okay I'm learning now well first I think we have to

value those other experiences knowledge isn't acquired simply in the archives or the labs

you know you gain real world experiences and students want to hear that too maybe more

than some of these other things you know as research faculty you know I ended up

writing a dissertation on industrial development in Guatemala a very niche topic right now

how many students that would really want to learn about that you know a handful if I were teaching

in Guatemala a lot would want to learn about that right but here 15 minutes that's all it takes

but if I were to start speaking about student success initiatives and programs and how to use

technology or predictive analytics or AI okay that sort of real world experience that might

have greater relevance and application in other fields we can leverage and will leverage these

experiences by pulling together in what I call a coordinated care management approach to student

success that's the model we're trying to build here it's a very long phrase it is sometimes

you just call it care management can you can you explain it a little more yes so care management

is basically an adaptation of health care models that are already in existence case management

sometimes called okay where if you go to a certain provider um your general practitioner

that doctor will put into the system all the notes about you your case if you are referred out

those files go with you yeah and so you referred let's say to an x-ray technician

they'll see exactly what's going on so they're networked in a culture of care and they share

notes and information about all of the patients so that they could treat the patients better

right now what we've done at USF and UCF is adapt that to student success so we're trying to learn

everything we can know about each and every student we have in our classes and all of us interact

with students in different ways but we don't often put that into a platform that can be shared

with others right so we are creating a platform that will do just that and can produce for us

the much vaunted dreamed of 360 degree view of a student I basically want to know everything

we can know about every student not what just what they're doing in the classroom but are they

involved in a student organization are they going to our volleyball games

are they eating on campus living on campus everything I want to know we need to know

right that's where we start I'm so excited and that includes faculty that includes adjunct

faculty and all faculty because we can all participate in a care network like this

and absolutely with faculty too I think they can also be one of our indicators especially with

our wings up early alert system because we know that a lot of times students academic performance

if it's bad it's probably it could be the class where things are struggling but it could also be

a lot of other factors as well so noticing like grade changes absences all the new technology

we've integrated into campus it's pretty robust yes so you've seen wings up yes oh yes it's awesome

and I love being able to pull up my class and seeing all the tags for everybody everybody's major

I actually know what they look like now right their eagle ID picture pulls up in it except for

a zoo except for a zoo but so far I've only had three of those okay I just have one but it's just

for me it's a breath of fresh air I was a student here and then I went right into staff and then

adjuncting and all that so even just seeing the growth that we've had in the past couple

years has been great but I'm so excited for this coordinated care I am too because the platform

we're developing is better than any platform I've ever used amazing we have a capability here that

we have not I have not had and two other major research universities that produce very dramatic

gains so I'm very confident as we do this and build it out we want to make sure we keep it

simple for the faculty so I like our early alert system where you can do it in batches you can just

quickly refer students to others people who are trained to help out students and what you're

suggesting is a reality that is a poor performance in a particular class could be the cause of several

different things going on in the life of a student it could be homesick they could be going through

some financial issues right a loved one might have passed away or is ill and is dealing with some

serious issues and if those things are happening at the same time there's several offices that

can provide support and care for that student but they don't often talk to each other right so we

get a got them all to talk it said oh I had a conversation about the students finances yes then

tutoring yeah I had a conversation about this yes then resident director piece the puzzle together

put it all together and share what you're learning about each student some of this is

sounds so great to me and some of it I'm just kind of wondering about confidentiality and student

privacy is a concern and how that all fits in if you could explain how where that line is because

as a professor I don't know if I should know everything about my student and especially in

we've got you know counseling services here we've got certain student care things there are things

that if a student wants to share it with me you know I'll keep it confidential but I don't know

that I should be able to access that yes even though it might quote help in some ways it's still

like that's that's kind of I don't know that's that's that's a big question I have sure so in setting

up a platform like this we basically have to be mindful of FERPA and HIPAA yeah all right and HIPAA

FERPA is about academic records and confidentiality and we have to respect that most of the people

in our platforms will have a need to know and so FERPA is okay with FERPA right because advisors

I think yeah yeah okay got it on HIPAA if a student goes to our counseling services that's HIPAA

protected we have to be very careful about that and so those people may not be able to

contribute in the same way right some other staff could even I think adaptive services right they

they give us what the accommodations are but they don't tell us what the issue is behind it and I

think rightly so yeah and so we we need to set up the system in such a way that some things will

not be visible yeah to all right yeah but people with a need to know and can see it should see it

and I just think I've done a lot of research on regional comprehensive universities and just

with the student population that we have in the makeup I'm just imagining the long-term impact

of this system once everything is fully up and running the impact on the students the community

the experience here for faculty and staff I'm I'm very excited for this because we have unique

students here in which I feel like a lot of people forget and a unique opportunity to operate at

scale like no other university zero to a hundred we can we can do it yeah and that's what gives me

great confidence right I had trouble scaling this up at a university with 70 000 students fair point

yeah we got 16 000 right okay we can do it and fewer faculty and staff to deal with

right because to make this work there there has to be training and guidance and governance you

got to be careful about all these things but it's it's doable it's feasible it's within reach and

the platform is nearly fully developed already and just excites me to know in to think we've got

this already yeah and the teams in place to do it so we're ready to launch yeah we're there

I feel like of the parents that set up their kids Christmas toys the night before like they

used and then you just so you're like I can't wait for my kids to see this in the morning I can't

wake them up yet but it's coming I'm so excited and see I I think to that students as well as their

loved ones think that the university is already doing things like this but we're not right right

they think because we are often so siloed right information in the student organization unit for

example doesn't necessarily get shared with an advisor and I'm saying I want our advisors to know

if they are in a student organization what are they doing on campus are they active are they engaged

that's that's another signal I want to get but in our political climate and with kind of a sense

at times that certain groups or organizations are out of favor with the higher-ups from state to

federal etc and a student wants to explore an organization I could go with we've had I've seen

on campus a democratic socialist student organization personally if I wanted to explore that I would

not want anyone to know I'm in that organization because of my fear of how that might be used or

understood by higher-ups or if I was in a pro-life or a pro-planned parenthood organization right now

there are some some of these organizations on campus where I I'm just concerned that

hmm I'm not sure how that data is going to be used if there's a way students can still

participate freely because I think that's their right to be in these organizations

without necessarily having everybody now oh you decided to go to and there are some even

farther along that are like trauma organizations 12-step organizations that might form that I you

know maybe I'm just being a little paranoid about all of this I don't know but that's just

I just have a lot of questions about that I want to see the best student care I want to see the

best student support but I also want them to know that this is what's going on so that they are aware

so that informed and informed and say yeah I'm glad you all are doing this I don't I don't know what

to make those are real concerns students need to know what we're doing we need to recognize

their right to privacy and yeah and so the the governance of all this is going to be really

important yeah we have to know what we can and cannot do I think it starts though with another

fundamental which is that we start on the belief that all of our students can make it oh yeah

moreover we love all of them absolutely regardless of anything so we love all of them right regardless

if a student is pursuing that organization you mentioned fantastic my job is to support you

in new journey if they're taking another approach and pursuing a different political path it doesn't

matter to me right we still love that student and want to help him or her do their best if we do that

we're going to provide higher quality care to our students and so the the care management

approach I'm talking about is designed to help whoever needs extra help anytime

and our students will need that extra help every once in a while yeah and we need to be ready to

step in yeah and just having those clear guidelines as to what this is what we have access to this is

why we are using your information yeah and when it's used benevolently that's wonderful but I

there's always the possibility that somebody is not going to use all that information benevolently

at a large university or beyond it and I don't want it used against any student does that and I'm

sure you want to protect them completely from that type of stuff too I do and it's all the

more reason to show more care and concern for our students we live in a volatile world yeah it's

crazy out there yeah but here in the nest and I love using that terminology yeah we care for all

of our students and we expect them to soar when they leave the nest and we know they're all going

through a difficult time we all are yeah so let's let's care for each other and our students

I don't know what the percentage is maybe you do of how many students are working part-time or

full-time along with trying to take a full academic load and I think that probably impacts

student success almost more than anything else when they're trying to balance 20 or 30 hours or more

of work a week plus five classes in a semester is this unique to FGCU or is this a across the board

at the other universities you've been on it seems to be unfortunately fairly common

that it's partly because of demographics of the state the statistic is still at 50 percent

of our high school students are on free or reduced lunch wow that's the demographic those are the

students we're dealing with yeah and that's the reality we got to confront and so it's no surprise

I don't know the exact numbers about full and part-time and how many hours they work yet but 35 percent

of our students are recipients of a Pell Grant which is based entirely on need and tells me a lot

already because right they're likely struggling to pull in extra money by working more and so

that means they can't go full-time the way we want to but I think we can help them understand

how to manage their finances how to arrange work and so you know the general rule is take 15

credit hours of semester and you're graduating four right but that's based on the old-fashioned

you go to school for two semesters fall and spring yeah you're gonna have to do the summer or

something else in order to deal with working but there is that option there is and so I hope we make

and offer an ever more robust summer schedule to give more of these students more opportunities

because yeah what if they can only take 12 a semester well you could still make it in four years

just do 12 12 and six or even we're even talking about winter term online or may master online

to give more opportunities like that idea for that yeah see so there's you got to use the

entire academic year the entire year academic year is only nine months but yeah the entire year

the entire 12 month calendar just three months of missed opportunity yeah yeah yeah great opportunities

too and I just think of how fun that would be to have the campus open and alive year round

because I love summer because it's slow but then at the end of the first week I'm like

okay I need everybody to come back now yeah yeah we're all the students of course you

met I started July 21 right I was wondering where everybody was and that was summer be

that was when there were a lot of students on campus right so I was thrilled when you know classes

started in the fall it does feel very vacant in the summer here it does hey do you have questions

for us we both do adjuncting in different ways even though we're both full-time staff here

how can I help you adjuncts what can I do good question I appreciate your commitment to student

success yeah how do we partner how do we join forces to serve our students better that is a good

question what I'm trying to figure out how we can get a better sense of departmental needs for

adjunct faculty I'm working on this with department some so that we have last last minute hires for

the semester because I think that really puts the adjunct instructor in a bad position to do well

if they are just getting hired at the last minute we've heard anecdotal stories of adjuncts

finally in two weeks in getting canvas access to a course let alone setting anything up so how

in the world are they supposed to be successful and then have their students successful when those

things happen so I don't know if it's more predictive um registration and understanding so that

a few years ago we had 600 extra freshmen show up I don't know what went wrong do you remember

that or right I don't know what to call it and all of a sudden I get asked in the middle of

July will you teach another section of world religions sure you know it was a desperate search

for instructors towards the end of July into August and classes were starting in just a couple of weeks

that's one area that if we can all get on the same page and get some of those things solved

if you can encourage more of our inclusion in department so that we are not

most of us don't get invited to the fall department meeting they see it on LinkedIn or to even have

I'm trying to set up I've offered again to department chairs to do a online once a semester

meeting with your adjuncts to just ask questions of what do you need and how are you doing

how can we help and to solve any problems so a couple of things are in the works to address

these very real concerns one is we need a strategic enrollment plan you can't be handsome multi-year

because it scares me to hear we just had 600 more students show up you didn't plan for that

am I correct on that it might have been the fall 21 class projections have typically been off

yeah it was crazy that year yeah so we're working on that we we have a plan in the in the works

and we're trying to what I would call right size the university and we don't need these

great fluctuations in the headcount we need more predictability so that we can plan for courses

accordingly right you can't do this at the last minute we've got 600 more students that oh my

god now you're gonna hire all the english comp yeah exactly right what are you gonna do

overload other people again right and then that I wonder about overloads on faculty and how

effectively can they teach six courses in a semester yeah and and the other thing related to it we

need to do a better job of predicting student course demand like we need to be able to forecast

now what we need in the summer and to do that forecasting based on what a student needs

based on their nature based on where they're at in their major right necessarily what faculty

went to teach yes we need to marry both said okay this is what we need this is what our students

need and we've got a bunch who are waiting out there they need this course even it's an upper level

course to graduate that's taught once a year by one that's only one once a year whoops

these are barriers that many institutions put in the path of a student yeah and they don't realize

they're doing it right and so these are these are simple fixes right if you know that course is

required as a senior and you only offered in the fall yeah you're setting students back yeah so

why don't you offer it again in the spring just in case or make sure everyone has enough opportunity

to get in that course what we're doing now I think is going to fix a lot of these things I hope it will

it's not all of it too because I'd still say to get to that point back to my original point

people actually have to care right and so do we care that we're only offering it once a year and

we put this barrier in somebody's path we should if we really are committed to student success

that's why care comes first a lot of the fine details will get worked out if people care all right

this has been a great conversation dr dole soul I really appreciate your sincerity your

your transparency your level of I think clear headed thinking and just your commitment to this

university and your excitement about where we're at all of those things have been just phenomenal

Maggie you're in sseum yes this is my fearless leader yeah so what are your thoughts this has

been fantastic and I'm just so appreciative to have you here and I think you see fgcu for

what it is and also what it could be within the confines of being a regional comprehensive

university and that makes me very excited and just all your experiences as faculty working

with all these different moving pieces of student success I will have a great night's sleep tonight

this conversation has been lovely awesome I appreciate you all I feel your commitment

to student success I appreciate it it's sincere and that's what we need that's the foundation on

which we're gonna build our movement all right well thank you so much dr dole soul and Maggie as

always this has been great catch this podcast and pass it on to somebody and we'll see you next

time on another episode bye y'all thank you

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