We would like to further develop the Get Finished (GF) Scholarship Program by focusing on three current areas of the incentivized program for students who are working towards the “finish line.” Recipients of this scholarship first enrolled at least 6 years ago at UTSC, and the hope is, GF can essentially provide an understanding of any correlations or influences from this opportunity for students on 6-year graduation rates. The scholarship has been offered every term (3 terms each academic year) since 2019. The three main areas of focus for this project are as follows: a thorough literature review and environmental scan of universities in Ontario, expanded to Canada if needed, of programs similar to the GF Program. This literature review/environmental scan will serve as the foundation of the two other areas; 2) data analysis, which includes using the existing data to determine the trends of the applicants, characteristics of recipients and those who do not receive it, and understanding what story we can tell about the graduation rates and trends of the recipients, while situating the data in the literature; 3) determine if a mentorship/coaching relationship, in collaboration with student services departments on campus, can be integrated into the GF program to support applicants so they can be ‘successful’ in the course (and overall) they chose to designate for this scholarship. This process will include upgrading the current communication strategy in place for the GF program.
Outcomes
The hope is to work with the research assistant to delve into the 3 overlapping categories to develop conference proposals to showcase this opportunity at student success conferences in North America. We believe the review of literature/environmental scan, the data analytics trends and the possible integration of mentorship into this program may provide a model program to share and encourage other institutions to adapt, all the while being a lucrative opportunity for students. Most importantly, the hope is this knowledge will serve as a way to improve and expand GF at UTSC.