Approval of Previous Minutes —

September 19 Committee Minutes approved by acclamation. 

New Business —

Josh and Derek: One KU Initiative

• Josh will be meeting with the Chancellor later today.
• Derek emailed and had a conversation with Stuart Day. Stuart is extremely willing to work to remove any barriers. Some items are out of his control. It appears that student fees are now the same in Lawrence and at Edwards. Ryan will identify some specific pain points including the separate campus issue related to Edwards and we will follow up with Stuart.

Jana and Ben Easters: course offering challenges

Evanna and Josh: Welcome to college class 

Anna Abernathy: School advisor videos

• Ryan reported that everything is changing so quickly that they become outdated almost immediately. So the expense of creating the video is not worth it due to the speedy evolution of video content. Having a representative from a department come in person is the most effective. They used to do an advising night.
• How do we better connect the Athletic academic advisors to campus advisors?
• Megan posed the topic of why certain departments don’t have more student athletes in their areas. Certain majors are super flexible where the course obstacles mentioned below would not be an issue at all. We need to think about encouraging student athletes to explore other majors so that the course obstacles aren’t as much of an issue. There is an understandable gap with athletic advisors’ knowledge of the wide range of majors across campus. This impacts what student athletes major in. Even having a master list of majors could open minds to other possibilities. The “Welcome to College” class could really help with opening the major possibilities.
• Josh asked if during Hawk Week there could be a majors fair. At the non-student athlete level, Molly mentioned it is most effective to go to the department instead of relying on the general advisor for information. 

Matt Tidwell and Evanna: student athlete advisory committee report reviews (below)

Ryan: other initiatives

• Jana reported there is a case competition next week to come up with ideas to encourage student attendance at non-football, non-basketball games.
• Ryan compliments the committee on addressing all of these issues and topics.
• College athletics is rapidly changing. There may be some items that arise in the coming months that this committee could assist with. There is so much being discussed and there is no way everyone understands all that is going on. Roster limits are going to require cutting some student athletes. Football and track will be hit the hardest. A hard cap on roster numbers.

Evanna met with Dr. Kim Warren and Dr. Milinda Fowles to propose a centralized resource hub called the "Jayhawk Hub" where information about student resources, extracurriculars, Jayhawk GPS, advising meetings, etc. can be posted. 

This would not be a course per say, but a Canvas Tile that all students and faculty at the University of Kansas would have access to. There is currently a resource like this made for transfer students that we would have as a framework for the much larger course. 

The goal is also to put information about the student senate election into the Canvas tile as well. I have included a picture of my Canvas for reference. The "Jayhawk Hub" would appear on the dashboard of students and would be accessible to everyone. Students can add important events to their calendar as well. 

Evanna will be meeting again with Dr. Warren and Dr. Fowles on December 1st to follow up regarding the project.

• How do we make sure the learning objectives for athletes during the onboarding first weeks of class align and aren’t already being duplicated with Hawk Week activities?
• “Jayhawkidemics” no longer exists. So if student athletes arrive mid-year or are not here in the summer, there are really varying levels of onboarding. 
• Molly believes there would definitely be value in having a centralized hub and/or class for students to be able to access.
• Megan believes the onboarding/orientation issue applies to all freshmen and new students, not just athletes. A 1st year/transfer seminar is in the works, but it is at least a couple years out. 

• There is a new development with an AI solution to serve as a first line hub for information related to mental health. Meeting the students where they’re at. 60% of students answered their phone to be alerted that they have a tuition bill due, but they’re not checking emails. 

  Austin mentioned having an upper classman serving as a mentor. 

   

Student athlete advisory committee report reviews  (Matt Tidwell and Evanna):

 Dr. Tidwell mainly took care of this, but also the information about extracurricular involvements could be included in this Canvas tile as well. We are in the preliminary draft phases of the "Jayhawk Hub", but we hope to eventually expand it. 

o    Ryan mentioned there is an opportunity with KU Leads to make the surveying more direct and intentional with respect to “exit survey” type questions. Action step is to craft the questions that would address these issues. It’s really difficult to get all of the athletes in one place.
o    In the last two years, Ben mentioned the survey really focuses on student-athlete experience. A lot of teams are making the survey required. Over 300 out of the 550 student athletes are now completing the survey.
 

Megan asked about international student athletes as it relates to employment status for student athletes. There are significant challenges in this space and nothing is resolved yet. 

Athlete course obstacles (possible solutions):

• Ben worked with the athletic advisors to create a list of class concerns.
• ACCT 200: Advisors should recommend enrollment in the fall at 11:00 AM for athletes with spring semester conflicts
• ACCT 201: offered online in the summer
• BSAN 310 spring: have athletes leave practice to make the 11:00 AM class
• SCM 310 spring: Zoroya switch to 2:30 and move Management 310 to 9:30 slot
• SCM 402: 8:00 AM Tom Patton class and he will allow athletes to leave at 9:00 AM both semesters
• MGMT 310 fall: switch class times with Brian Salman's to 11:00 AM and allow athletes to leave practice early
• BUS 110: athletes must take in the fall and we will accommodate if class is full
• BUS 120: add an online option summer, 2025?
• BIOL 152: 2 classes currently offered in person on Tuesday and Thursday. Jana meeting with current faculty to discuss. 
  • Enrollment:
  • Spring 23- 12
  • Fall 23- 3
  • Spring 24- 9
  • Fall 24- 5
• FIN 305: e-mail sent to Claire Rosenfield to see if they will be offering this summer, 2025. They are discussing
• HSES 269: Two sessions offered online during the summer
  • Significant progress has been made.
  • There are nuances related to the low enrollment in certain semesters for specific classes.
  • The Business School has been informed that there may be a move to eliminate M/W 75-minute classes. These would be replaced by M/W/F 50-minute classes. We may be having the same conversation next year. This is being driven by efficient space usage and the fact that switching would allow students to potentially have more flexibility in taking core classes. Goal (IF this happens) is to implement Fall 2025.

Jana has been an incredible advocate and resource to find solutions

Spring meeting dates - 2/7 and 4/25 in 1170

Meeting adjourned at 12:49pm