To motivate students to increase their involvement with the University, Chemistry professor Simon Bott created Cougar Success Initiative (CSI).
CSI is an ongoing strategy designed to link more students to UH, and Bott hopes CSI will improve student morale.
‘CSI reaches out to students to make them feel connected; that somebody in the campus loves them,’ Bott said.
CSI consists of four programs: Buddy System, Personal Access Liaison, Profs with Pride and one that includes cards of some of the University’s leaders.
Buddy System is designed for incoming freshmen and transfer students. The program allows students to ask questions about the University to members of Student Alumni Connection. The ‘buddies’ will receive questions relating to scholarships, orientations, school activities and classes through text messages, e-mail and Facebook.
Personal Access Liaison (PAL) is also designed for incoming freshmen who have completed orientation.
Bott said plans include assigning a professor or staff member to every freshman. Honors College students, who already have a mentor, would be excluded, but students involved in PAL would receive assistance on academic concerns.
PAL will address students who have issues with their schedules, classes or any other legitimate problems. The students will receive five e-mails from their designated faculty member: before classes begin, after week one, six weeks into the semester, when registration begins and before final exams.
Before Bott can execute his plans with PAL, he needs another 600 professors to sign up and participate.
‘This is going to make the students aware that there is a faculty member or staff member who cares about them, and is in attendance if there are any issues,’ Bott said. ‘Most of the issues that they are going to come up with, we (faculty) have dealt with most of our life, and we can sort it out.’
Profs with Pride or PWP, consists of about 120 professors whose goal is to inform students of the University’s grand achievements. PWP’s mission is to give freshmen and transfer students a sense of Cougar pride shortly after entering the campus.
PWP will also inform students of incoming activities, so students will be involved in and aware of the University’s accomplished faculty, which includes Nobel and Pulitzer Prize winners, astronauts, politicians, athletes and famous actors.
The fourth program functions similar to card collecting. Students receive one or more cards of UH leaders for every school-related event they attend. Once they have collected the entire set, they are eligible for a $1,000 scholarship.
Students can collect the cards at many UH events, including athletics, concerts, plays and workshops.
Parts of the program, such as the Buddy System, have already been established in Bott’s classes.
‘A lot of it is reaching to the students and getting (them to) brag about the place,’ Bott said.
For more information on PWP, visit https://blogs.uh.edu/pwp
