Resources for Facilitating Student Success
Whether you are a faculty member, instructor, or teaching assistant, you have the potential to make a difference for students in their success both in and out of the classroom. The resources on this page can help you both challenge and support students through their journey at NIU.
A Rebel for Student Success
Being a "rebel" with a cause suggests that as faculty, you are willing to take risks, challenge yourselves and your students, think differently and, at times, unconventionally, understanding that in doing so, you level the playing field for the students in your classrooms. Read more »
The following services provide support to NIU students. As a faculty member, instructor, teaching assistant, or other staff member, you can refer students to these services or contact them directly for guidance.
Dean of Students
The Dean of Students office provides support and advocacy services for students who are struggling with issues that may be impacting their academic and personal success. Support services for homelessness, food insecurity, emergency funding needs and counseling support are available.
Advising
The university provides developmental advising for students in all six colleges and the Academic Advising Center. Advising is mandatory for all first-year students and students are encouraged to meet with their academic advisor early in the semester to address any scheduling needs, holds or other academic related issues.
ACCESS
The ACCESS center provides tutoring support and supplemental instruction for all NIU students. Supplemental instruction can be requested for any course. Faculty who are interested in this support services should contact the ACCESS office prior to the start of the next semester.
University Writing Center
The University Writing Center provides support for students on papers and other writing intensive assignments. They also provide support for faculty and teaching assistants.
Disability Resource Center
The Disability Resource Center provides reasonable accommodations for students with documented disabilities. All faculty are asked to provide a statement about accommodations in their syllabi and resources related to securing accommodations can be found on this site as well.
Counseling and Consultation Services
Counseling and Consultation Services provides mental health support for all NIU students. Support services include individual and group counseling as well as mental health crisis services and consultation.
Academic Diversity, Equity and Inclusion
Academic Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (ADEI) provides leadership in ensuring an equity-minded community that challenges and eliminates exclusionary systems and practices. ADEI is home to four cultural resource centers including the Center for Black Studies, the Latino Resource Center, the Asian American Resource Center and the Gender and Sexuality Resource Center. ADEI also oversees the bias reporting process and social justice education and training.
Technology to Support Student Success
NIU has a growing set of tools to help you support your students' success.
Navigate
NIU Navigate is an advising and retention platform that is used to help facilitate student success. All Academic Advisors on-campus are required to use this platform for notes and enrollment appointments. College and university administrators use navigate to analyze student success outcomes and track student progress. Some academic departments are using this system for progress reports in classes with high equity gaps. As you will see from the timeline, Navigate will also be used to allow faculty to submit early alerts if you are concerned about students in your classroom. Please note the full timeline for this roll-out. Training will also be available.
Blackboard Activity Stream
The Activity Stream in Ultra will provide you with alerts for any students who are falling behind based on how their activity in your Blackboard course compares with the other students. These alerts help you to identify students who may need encouragement to participate actively in your course.
Blackboard Retention Center
The Retention Center provides an easy-to-use data visualization and a set of pre-configured rules for identifying at-risk students in courses using the Original Course View (similar analytics are planned but not currently available for Ultra Course View). The Retention Center analyzes student activity within the course, missed due dates, grades, and access to the course.
The Student Success Toolkit provides you with simple slides or snapshots that we encourage you to post in your classroom as students come into class. These slides include critical messages that encourage and support student success and retention. You are also more than welcome to share these with your classes via Blackboard or email.
Attendance Matters! (Week 1)
Use this resource to help students understand the importance of attending class.
Registration and Enrollment
These resources help to remind students of registration and enrollment deadlines, helping to ensure they are registered early for the next semester.
- Slides
- Commercial
- Registration Dates
Academic Support (Week 5)
Mental Health Support (Week 7)
Don't Forget to Register (Week 10)
Scholarship Deadlines Soon (Early January)
The following resources include articles or other research literature that may be useful to provide context about the role that faculty play in facilitating student success.