🎙️🎓Today I had the pleasure of reuniting with one of my tribes, the UMGC First Year Experience Faculty, for Day 2 of the FYE Faculty Symposium.
A part of the day’s focus was the student experience, including the front door digital experience. After a rich opening conversation about how our PACE courses shape how we teach across disciplines, I had the opportunity to deliver a Lightning Talk titled Before They Even Log In: The Hidden Usability Crisis Facing First Year Students.
The talk was followed by a UMGC staff presentation on how the institution continues to optimize the student experience through data, mystery shopping, usability testing, and more. A beautiful complement to the conversation I was trying to start.
As many of you know, I recently revisited my doctoral research and published a book and toolkit on this topic. Moments like this are exactly the kind of stage where the work can travel further than a shelf.
The throughline to my other domains is intentional. The connection to information systems management is clear in that it is fundamentally about how we design systems to shape outcomes. And, the connection to talent development matters just as much. Higher education is a talent pipeline. And if there are blockages at the front door, before a student ever reaches a classroom, we are losing people we never even knew we had.
My core message is simple, which is that every touchpoint should feel like one coherent system. From the first click to apply, to the first day of class, to workforce entry, it should all hold together.
🏪Keeping the convo open and going here at The Clarity Lounge: https://drtrecabourne.com/blog
💻Slides from my talk → https://canva.link/3n73jeyq6ugxhk5
author | educator | scholar-practitioner