Dr. Anne Van Der Karr is the Executive Director for Student Retention at Rutgers University - Newark. She is a higher education administrator skilled at using evidence to create and improve programs, assessing student learning and institutional effectiveness, and establishing rapport with students, faculty and staff members. Anne is an educator in and out of the classroom.
How does your position intersect with and/or support student success?
I work to support academic success initiatives across the RU-N campus, focusing on academic advising in the undergraduate schools and related success programs (Honors Living-Learning Community, Honors, Academic Foundations) as well as closely related units in Student Affairs and Enrollment Services & Experiences. Student success is a part of all our jobs; my role is to enhance collaboration across those efforts and communicate about them to students. I oversee administration of the Navigate/RU-N4Success platform and student mobile app, and maintain the Path2Success webpages which focus on recommended steps for academic and career success. In 2024, the Navigate app was used by over 7,000 students, and the webpages were viewed over 99K times by almost 11,000 viewers.
A recent initiative is the launch of the Academic Planner which students can use to see major and minor requirements, then lay out a plan for completing them in upcoming semesters/terms. It can be used in conjunction with RU-N’s degree audit tool, Degree Navigator, to plan and monitor progress towards a student’s degree. The Academic Planner was introduced to all new School of Public Affairs and Administration, School of Criminal Justice, and Rutgers Business School students this fall (2024); when surveyed about its use, 87% of RBS respondents said that they would recommend it to another new student at RU-N. School of Arts and Sciences–Newark is preparing program templates in the Academic Planner to make it available to their students in 2025.
I also have been involved with expanding RU-N’s partnership with Braven to offer the Braven Career Accelerator, a 3-credit, highly interactive course that connects students with a leadership coach and prepares students for internships and jobs (course #65:907:301). Starting in the Spring 2024 semester incoming transfer students and all sophomores are being registered for the course in advance of the general registration period. Students who complete the course are much more likely to land a strong job within 6 months of graduation compared to students from all U.S. colleges and universities (68% vs. 50%)!
What is one innovation or unique idea related to teaching or professional development that you’d like to share?
My innovation or unique idea is old-school and has nothing to do with AI! It is about making connections with students and building relationships with colleagues - one conversation at a time, one message at a time - and maintaining those efforts over time. Research on college students emphasizes the importance of relationships among peers for student persistence and graduation, as well as relationships with faculty and staff: “Positive relationships with peers, faculty, and staff are of benefit to students academically, socio-emotionally, and professionally. Traditionally marginalized students can benefit the most from supportive relationships with others providing campuses that center relationship-based learning with a mechanism for fostering more equitable student experiences” (NSSE, 2023).
We need to find out what motivates our students (and our colleagues), encourage them, and encourage them repeatedly. Remind them that the process of learning is a marathon, not a sprint. My work-study student and I send a weekly motivational quote to students on Monday mornings via the Navigate app, and we have gotten positive feedback about it. Each of us has a physical space (office door or window, bulletin board) or an electronic space (email signature, auto-reply message) that we can use to spread positive messages. We need them now more than ever!
How have you participated in, or engaged with, the P3 Collaboratory’s professional development initiatives?
I have participated in a number of P3 professional development opportunities. One of note was a book club based on Bandwidth Recovery: Helping Students Reclaim Cognitive Resources Lost to Poverty, Racism, and Social Marginalization (2017) by Cia Verschelden (https://bandwidthrecovery.org/). I liked that it brought together a mixed group of professionals from across the campus and prompted us to reflect on our students and our practice.
Also from or about Anne Van Der Karr (formerly Anne Goodsell Love):
Listen to Anne in discuss retention strategies at RU-N on the Ascend podcast (Nov 2024)
Integrating collaborative learning inside and outside of the classroom (Love, A.G., Dietrich, A., Fitzgerald, J., and Gordon, D., 2014)
Hobbies include fresh-water boating and fishing, knitting, and reading (mysteries, historical fiction)
Reader Bonus! Anne’s favorite books about student learning and engagement
Nudge: Improving decisions about health, wealth, and happiness (2009, Thaler, R.H. and Sunstein, C.R.)
Relationship-Rich Education (2020, Felten, P. and Lambert, L.M.)
Student Success in College: Creating Conditions that Matter (2005, Kuh, G.D, Kinzie, J., Schuh, J.H., Whitt, E.J., and Assoc)
A Final Note from Anne: I love to hear about how professors are communicating with students, getting students interested in the subject matter, and getting the students to work together effectively. If you want to share or discuss student success strategies, feel free to email me at anne.vdk@rutgers.edu.