VP of student success, retention at TAMU San Antonio

Student success leaders in higher education must be able to look at all the different initiatives related to student success across the institution and provide support or identify issues that need addressing, says Duane Williams, who joined Texas A&M University–San Antonio—a Hispanic-serving institution—a little over a year ago after nearly a decade of student success–related positions at other institutions. “It’s more or less giving everyone skin in the game,” he says.

Williams first came to the United States as an international student from Jamaica to attend community college, which required acclimating to a new culture, a new environment and a new climate (rain in New Jersey, unlike rain in the islands, can be freezing, and dressing for the weather requires wardrobe options beyond shorts). While his academic interests shifted throughout his undergraduate years, Williams learned he enjoyed being around people and helping others. That’s when higher ed emerged for him as a viable career path.

Read on for insights into Williams’s viewpoint on student success factors, data-based actions to improve outcomes, his biggest worries for students and what makes him feel hopeful about higher education.

Inside Higher Ed: Can you tell me about the various areas you oversee? And how does your department serve as a connector between other divisions and offices?

Williams: I’m in the provost’s office. Reporting to the provost allows me a lot of inroads in terms of asks or initiatives. I can kind of utilize that to my advantage. I oversee three primary areas: undergraduate academic advising, our academic support (which involves tutoring, supplemental instruction and our testing center) as well as our Office of First-Year Experience. I have three direct reports for that, and I also oversee a grant received last year.

I meet with the provost monthly, with the deans and chairs, so I have direct access from the academic side. Any kind of support that they need, I have the support services that feeds into that. In terms of connecting the dots across divisions, I oversee a retention steering committee, which is comprised of not only faculty representatives from each of our colleges but our student affairs as well as our enrollment services division. The other two divisions have staff members that are represented there. We have student representatives that serve on this committee. That is one space where I can weave things together to make those connections.

Inside Higher Ed: Did the structure of student success at your institution change prior to your arrival, or did your position change it in some way?

Williams: The committee that I just mentioned, the retention steering committee, was born out of another initiative. It was a student success and equity initiative, and that was prior to my role. My role was suggested from that committee. What I do is support the different initiatives that all support student success.

And that’s key in this work. While there is a centralized individual, or possibly a few folks that have that title in there or that name in their title, I think it’s [important] for me, or anyone in this type of role, to then look at all of the different initiatives and be able to provide the support or identify issues that are prohibitive to student success. That’s how I view the role, and it’s more or less giving everyone skin in the game. So it’s not just the role that I play, but it’s faculty and pedagogical approaches in the classroom. It is really looking at how our students engage outside of the classroom, looking at how students may have academic struggles, whether it’s content-based or skill-based, and being able to provide those supports. It’s the sum of all parts that is student success in a nutshell.

Folks recognize that they’re responsible for their chunk of students that they serve, and [can] look at that as how do I engage, how do I keep or retain the students that I oversee—whether that’s a department, whether that’s a faculty entity, whether that’s an organization. How do you engage your group? And when we start to divide and conquer, then I think we see gains. We have a population of a little bit over 8,000, so it’s impossible for a group of two or three or four individuals to do all the work necessary. But that group can highlight and understand the intricacies of the challenges or the nuances of students persisting and being retained, and then start to put in place mechanisms to support the areas that support those students.

Inside Higher Ed: What role does data, and sharing data, play in all of that?

Williams: Oh, it’s huge. It’s what gives me the license to go in and say, “Hey, something is not right with this particular group of students.” We can look at pain points and try to understand, you know, is it more systemic in terms of the structure versus the aptitude of students?

Case in point: We have access to data that shows us what is called a toxic course combo. This is something that we have through one of our tools, and we are looking for courses affected by students enrolling in another course. When you have a course being taken independent of course B, you have a particular DFW rate. However, if students enroll in course A and course B, that DFW rate goes up by 15 percent. That’s something not necessarily easily seen or unknown, but through our tools, we’re able to pull that out.

Well, what do we do with that type of data? Understanding the why behind these outcomes is just as important as implementing a process. Framing the issue is probably even more important than the issue itself. If there’s an issue but we never really frame or give it context, we may develop practices and processes that are deleterious or send us on a journey that we don’t need to go on, thereby wasting time, effort, resources. Having the data is one thing, but interpreting the data is a whole other part of this. That helps me have sometimes difficult conversations. It helps me unearth some of the challenges, whether known or unknown, and it then it helps me to begin the process of putting in place different strategic solutions to improve the outcomes.

I work closely with the director of institutional research and analytics, so I rely on that individual and his team to provide certain metrics. It is important to understand, you know, we’ve retained a certain percentage of students, and we can see that numerically, but what support or what services contributed to the students returning? This fall, we’re doing a qualitative analysis—doing some focus groups of our first-year students to understand their perspective.

Another type of analysis was looking at students who are part-time versus full-time. We conduct surveys just to get a pulse on why students may be attending part-time versus full-time, because the data had showed that as students increase in their rank, going from freshman to sophomore to junior to senior, that they increasingly go from full-time to part-time. The question is, is it something inherent in our structure that is causing that, or is it external? Meaning students have to work, and so it’s a natural course of progression. So we had to ask students, and it was a big a mix of both. The quantitative pieces can show broadly what’s going on, but the qualitative pieces allow us to drill in and go deep.

I’m a qualitative researcher by trade, so that that comes naturally, but interestingly, I’ve evolved to really appreciate both, and hence me working closely with our IR person … We bounce ideas back and forth. A lot of the data that he’s given me, and I’ve obtained from him, I’ve actually turned it into almost like action research.

For instance, we looked at persistence rates based on semester course load or semester credit hour. Students were taking an average of, like, 12 credits a semester. And that equated to a longer time to degree. Why are they not taking more credits? And a lot of that was nuanced in how they were taught about what is full-time versus part-time. A lot of it was just more us causing harm, if you will, or giving certain information in a way that did not paint a broader picture of what students could or couldn’t do … With some outside research, we saw that even if you increase by one course, the persistence rates go up.

We changed our approach. I had my advising team really work on increasing the amount of students that were enrolled in 15 semester credit hours or more. And we went from fall ’22 having 20 percent of our incoming class with 15 credits or more, to 46.8 percent of this class being 15 semester credit hours or more. Just moving that needle up, without really doing anything or regarding content, we’re already shifting potentially how students are moving through our process. That group now will have the confidence that, “OK, I could do 15 semester credit hours with the right support.” So that’s one example of how we’ve used the data and turn[ed] it into an actionable item.

Inside Higher Ed: We spend a lot of time thinking about the definition of student success, and how students and administrators may define it, and perhaps their institutional leadership might define it slightly differently. One example is graduating on time versus graduating at all. In one of our Student Voice student surveys, we saw that graduating at all, at any point, was really the goal; the on-time piece was more of what administrators would want for students. How do you personally define student success, and is that definition used across your institution?

Williams: It’s a subjective topic, in terms of the community that A&M San Antonio serves … We’ll have a huge impact in terms of social and economic mobility. We are a young institution, and we’re located in an area that is pretty new in terms of growth. So the community impact has already been felt and will continue to be felt. Ultimately, it’s really about impacting the community of the students who attend here. Our goal: Yes, we want them to graduate. Time wise: We want them to do it sooner than later, because there is a cost to this … We want them to fulfill their goals. We want them to be able to go back into their community, their local community, and make a positive impact, and thereby change the trajectory for not only their generation, but generations to come.

And so for me, student success is about recognizing one’s passion and fulfilling lifelong dreams and becoming lifelong learners. We can look at the metrics and measure how well we’re achieving those, and we’re striving towards that. But I also think we can get bogged down—there can be a great net cast over our eyes when we focus too much on those metrics. Well, maybe our student population needs to be here for a longer time than we would want, because that’s the pace that they can afford to go … We have to meet students at their level, and our student population, more than where I’ve been in the past, certainly requires a unique approach.

The administration and the staff and faculty at A&M–San Antonio all recognize who we serve. A lot of our staff members are from the community, but we also have external folks, and I think it’s a matter of onboarding and creating that culture of care and compassion that will help everyone understand what is student success for the institution, what is student success for the student and how do you see yourself playing a part in that?

Inside Higher Ed: So you’re saying it’s kind of OK if the definitions of student success don’t align precisely.

Williams: Yes, I think depending on your role, you will have different opinions on that. Ultimately, the folks who are boots on the ground with students want to see students develop—as individuals, as community members. They want to see them begin to chase their dreams. And so there is that piece of student success, where the student is evolving and taking care of themselves, taking care of their families. And then there’s the other side, where we’re seeing students being successful in class, being retained, being engaged, and being able to move into their future careers at a at a progressive rate, which then impacts their time to degree. Both things go hand in hand, but we have to give understanding that not everyone is going to go at a specific pace, and we have to be malleable and account for those things.

We also have transient students who may start here, and their goal is to move on to another space, not because they don’t have an affinity here, but this is the launching pad to their own individual success. If we can be a part of that journey, even if it be for a semester or two, we have to be able to support students, because their journey won’t stop here in San Antonio. This is just, I think, the catalyst for them to recognize that there’s so much more out there, and we are a part of that story.

Inside Higher Ed: In terms of your background, not being from the U.S., what was it like to begin college here and how did you wind up on the higher ed career path?

Williams: I came to the United States as an as an international student from Jamaica, and so I understand that whole international student process—[although] this was pre-9/11, so it looked very different. I understand that challenge of acclimating to a new culture, a new environment, new weather. I had some culture shocks. You know, I didn’t realize that you could have even freezing rain, and I was in New Jersey, but I was just used to rain being warm, not cold, and I was wearing shorts and I was freezing. And that’s how I met some of my closest friends, because they were laughing at me, like, why are you dressed like this?

I started at a community college because of convenience of location and affordability, not because I was passionate about the specific major, as a business information systems major … And then when I transferred into the four-year institution, I did management science. And what I took from that was, I was good at working in sort of the business industry, in terms of being in an organization and understanding people. The consistent theme was I enjoyed being around people. I enjoyed helping others.

I didn’t know what I wanted to do, even when I completed my bachelor’s, hence me going right into my master’s degree. I did public administration at that time, and I had begun understanding higher ed, and I recognized that this could be a viable career path.

And I had mentors. They guided me and saw things in me I didn’t know or see. After completing my master’s and starting my higher ed journey, I worked for 12 years in a community college and in [a] four-year public. I worked in many roles, mainly on the student affairs side, but I was doing a lot of the academic affairs. I had mentors telling me, you gotta go get your doctorate, because you want to progress in this field. My Ph.D. [is] focused on first-gen Black professionals. So a complete shift from what I did in my undergraduate years. But it really was me finding what I was passionate about and curious about and had experienced.

That’s kind of the journey I’ve taken. It’s not linear, but it’s been fun and I wouldn’t change it.

Inside Higher Ed: What role does improving process, and making things more efficient, play in your work?

Williams: As I look at higher ed, I look at it as a public good, to serve the community, to have a positive impact in society. I also look at it from now a business perspective, in terms of making it efficient … When I meet with my team, and I talk about different initiatives to impact students, I look at, how are we being effective and efficient? How are we utilizing the resources in the best possible way? And I like to brainstorm and use my group as think tanks. It’s really about challenging the status quo. It’s really about pushing boundaries. It’s really about being flexible, the same things we want students to do. I start to bring that into this space.

As institutions that are supposed to be the innovative spaces, we sometimes don’t use innovation in our work. I like to think that I’m forward-thinking and an innovator in my approach. [When] I’m meeting with folks, myself and the provost will, within like two or three minutes, one of us is up writing or charting out things. We can come up with a bunch of problems that we have, but how we become a solution-focused entity, I think, is a question on the table, because I’ll go around and hear the same issues over and over and over.

How can we adapt elements from the outside world in terms of non–higher ed industries that would make us more efficient, that would help us move students through our system in a much more effective way? I’ve leaned into the business of higher education and what that means. The more efficient we are as a business, the better the outcomes for students, in terms of their time to degree, the cost of a degree and the experience that they have while here. As a young institution, 15 years old, we have the ability to not make similar mistakes as other institutions may have made, and in a quicker manner, rightsize or right-shape, right-fit some of the things that may not necessarily serve us well. That’s kind of how I have looked at it, and I utilize my team in that think tank type of manner.

Inside Higher Ed: What do you do to help students have trust in you and believe that you can help them, and not to be suspicious of you as an administrator?

Williams: My biggest quality, I think, is building relationships. And the way I build relationships is by being authentic. I like to tell stories. I like to give them really the pure me, who I am as an individual, share parts of my story that help them connect and see themselves in me. And though I may have that title, that long title, that some of them may or may not understand, I go where they are.

I visit the first-year seminar course, which the majority [of students] are enrolled in, to say hi for five minutes and make a connection. I think that has allowed students to say, “OK, I know this guy. I’ve seen him a couple places. He’s come to my class, and if there’s an issue, he said I could reach out to him.”

I try to make sure I’m visible to all students at least a couple times in their first semester, so they have a face. … While I do what I can do, the idea is that everyone is replicating that same methodology in their own way to make a connection with one or two students, and the more we can do that, then when someone slips by me, there’s someone else to catch that individual.

Inside Higher Ed: When you think about students at your institution succeeding and fulfilling their dreams in the future, who and what do you worry about the most?

Williams: I think folks who are not informed and don’t have the right information, and by that I mean on financial affordability, is a huge, huge issue. Because of the culture, a lot of our population, their families, are loan averse. So in terms of financing, folks may shy away from taking out loans if it’s required. And so that causes one challenge in terms of, how do you afford this, this investment.

And then on the other end, in terms of academic preparedness, we have students who are coming from underserved communities. In Texas, there’s something called Texas Success Initiative assessment, TSI for short. In order to matriculate into college, students have to take the TSI placement test. And if you are not … TSI ready, you are limited in the types of courses that you can take within your first year. What that does is, it puts up an additional roadblock. It also, in terms of momentum, can be a deflator for students. And so when I think about that first year of the college experience, we have a lot of students that are, by definition of where they’re coming from, at risk of not being retained, not because they can’t they don’t have the aptitude or the desire to be here, but because we have policies that are prohibitive in some ways, for them being successful.

How do we develop support mechanisms for students who need more help in that first year? We’ve seen that beyond the first year, students are retained at a higher rate, but that first year is where they’re figuring things out, and if we don’t have early connections, if we don’t motivate, if we don’t remove the extra barriers, then chances are we lose a large amount of those students. And if they leave, chances are we don’t get them back. So that is something that plays on my mind, financial affordability, but also, how do we support students, our most vulnerable population, to be successful and figure out that this is an investment in themselves and their community and their family.

Inside Higher Ed: What gives you hope with higher ed right now?

Williams: Higher education has always been a place that is a catalyst for change and preparing our future generations. Higher education is an evolving space. It is a microcosm of society. If you look at the different periods, from the Industrial Revolution to the information era to the AI era, if you will, higher education has played a part in moving the needle forward. Higher education will always have naysayers. I will say that not everyone needs to be in this space, but it’s certainly designed to help society move forward.

I just believe, looking historically, that it has always overcome the different challenges. I think we’re doing that at this point. And if you look at the students, myself included, who have benefited and whose kids will know or are currently being beneficiaries of my investment, that has generational impact.

When you think on a macro level, hiring will always and continue to face challenges, but also find ways to overcome those challenges, and that gives me hope and allows me to continue doing the work. At the individual level, even if it’s one student that I helped, you know, it changed their mindset. One person may be impacting a host of other individuals. And I think for that reason, it’s worth it.

There’s a term I heard when I was at community college, and it’s inescapable engagement. When we are designing programs, services, the ethos of inescapable engagement is that we are creating a culture that recognizes our current students—at least here, where I am—need to be guided in a way that maybe former generations did not need that type of support. We have to teach and guide these young individuals and to create an inescapable experience where students are shepherded. [That] is an approach I’m taking and not leaving things up to happenstance or chance.

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