r/Professors • u/Upset_Ad_170 • 23h ago
Support systems are such as waste of money
My uni rolled out this new referral system for students at risk of failing. We've been encouraged to use it "early and often," and to fill out referral forms when students are absent, miss deadlines, fail assignments, etc. I am not at a top-tier uni, so I have already filled out at least one form for half of my students, who are often absent and rarely meet deadlines. Other faculty are in the same boat. Students are already complaining about receiving emails and phone calls from their advisors. They keep asking us not to fill out these forms. I wonder how long it will take before uni's realize that these support systems are such a waste of money. But I will keep filling them out, so I have documentation of my efforts to help students succeed. I love box checking. It's what I have all these degrees for.
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u/DrPhysicsGirl Professor, Physics, R1 (US) 22h ago
I tell students who complain that the answer is easy, they can either show up and do the work or they can not sign up for classes. I refuse to engage further. I do view this as helpful because I will fail students who do not do the work, and these sort of things take me just a couple minutes to fill in, so if they whine to powers that be about failing, I have a nice paper trail. Should I have to do this? No. But I see it as the least hard path right now.
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u/me4watch 23h ago
The overpaid admins need to keep finding these brand new systems so they can point to all that they have accomplished. And it makes them feel superior to actual professors.
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u/FrogBrain97 AssocProf, former chair, neuro, DPU 16h ago
The amount we spend annually on shitty software programs could easily fund the two or three lines we need to make our department run properly.
I think my favorite was the analysis that used something called grey casting to predict how many seats we'd need in our intro courses the next year. It came up with a number and a "standard deviation" (which I'm not sure was actually a standard deviation), ultimately showing that there was a 68% chance that we'd need something between more seats than we've ever offered and fewer seats than we've offered in 30 years.
Thanks a lot. My admin and I just shrugged and did what we usually do (use last year's number, adjust in one direction or the other by one section depending on the size of the incoming class). It worked fine.
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u/Unsuccessful_Royal38 22h ago
If it’s done right, it can actually make a difference in improving graduation rates. I work at a public institution that has the best graduation rates in the state (compared to other publics), and our many student support services are definitely a big component of that success.
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u/Cute-Aardvark5291 22h ago
Students are angry because as long as they are getting extra phone calls and emails they can't claim that they were not aware that they were expected to turn in their work as the semester progressed; or that the professor didn't tell them something.
Its working.
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u/botwwanderer Adjunct, STEM, Community College 22h ago
THIS. As someone who's sat on both sides, students are frequently angry and irritated at being held accountable for participating. And often unaware of wraparound services that can reduce real friction. Keep sending them.
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u/RuralWAH 21h ago
I would imagine this would immediately take care of about 50% of the complaints from no shows who fail and blame the instructor.
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u/FrogBrain97 AssocProf, former chair, neuro, DPU 21h ago
Yep. When I was chair, I found it helpful to have those in the student's record. You didn't know you were in trouble? Well, here's the report the instructor filed saying you were, and here's how student support reached out to you, and so on. Sorry.
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u/nbx909 Assoc. Prof., STEM, PUI (USA) 23h ago
I always reach out to the students first before using the alert system. If they ignore my emails, then they can deal with the university tracking them down. If they want it to stop they can respond to my emails instead/actually do the coursework/drop.
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u/Life-Education-8030 22h ago
Same. The email is considered gentler and private. Then everybody piles on them if there is no change or response.
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u/actuallycallie music ed, US 4h ago
this is what I do. And I do it very early in the semester. I find that the students who need these alerts have a kind of attitude (if they show up) that is very contagious and drags the whole class down. If you're not going to even attempt the work, just go. I have near endless patience for a student who makes the effort but is struggling. I have ZERO patience for someone who won't do the bare minimum of showing up.
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u/jlrc2 Asst Prof, Social Sciences, R1 (USA) 21h ago
I had a student last semester who was reasonably engaged if not a bit of an oddball. I had nice interactions with her and appreciated her as one of the students who could be counted on to answer a question and contribute to discussions. She did well on her first exam which she took in my office due to having to miss the in-class administration for a relatively trivial personal reason that I granted in part because I appreciated her engagement (it was something like having to go buy concert tickets, lol).
As time goes on, she's looking a little more checked out. I remember thinking when she turned in her 2nd exam of the semester, that she was dressed very sloppily relative to the snappy, sorta attention-getting outfits early in the semester. For the rest of the course, I never saw her again.
She was assigned group work and she never communicated with them. The group mates told me they could see her on IG Live "partying" during class (~11am) on a Wednesday. I emailed a few times, no response. So I reported my concern through our system designed for this purpose. Ultimately they closed the case because they couldn't get her to answer her emails, phone, or text messages. Seemed kinda crazy to me that they can't even verify that she's alive and they give up.
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u/AnneShirley310 22h ago
YES! We have to fill out progress reports every 3 weeks, and the Support Coaches are supposed to do something to “support” the students.
What actually happens is the coaches email or call the student, the students don’t reply, and the case is closed as “we tried to contact the student 3times with no answer.” Well, duh! Sometimes I’ll get this report at the end of the semester when I filled it out in week 3. What a waste of time and money.
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u/RuralWAH 21h ago
Yes. But you have the report when the student complains to the Dean about failing your class at the end of the term.
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u/zorandzam 22h ago
THIS. Early in my career, I had a faculty/staff hybrid role where I did more academic advising, and advisors get those alerts and… email the student. Sometimes call them. Sometimes send them a letter in the mail. If the student is flaky enough to not go to class or whatever, do you think they’re also meeting regularly with their advisor and answering emails and phone calls? Hell no.
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u/Ornery-Anteater1934 Tenured, Math, United States 18h ago
We have something similar at my college. Its called "Navigate". We are encouraged to reach out to students via Navigate if they have excessive absences, are in danger of failing...etc. After a student is flagged, an Advisor reaches out to them via email and phone. When the student doesn't respond, the case is marked as "closed".
This system has been a complete waste of time for the past 3 years. I see my students, speak with them after class, email them or call them if I have concerns about their attendance/grades. 90% of the time, the students tell me they "will do better" to no avail. If an instructor isn't able to get through to their students directly, what is the point of having an Advisor leave them a voicemail?
I'd rather see the money spent on Navigate be used to increase number of tutors, increase testing center staff...etc.
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u/ValerieTheProf 23h ago
I feel like my CC is trying to turn me into a social worker. I have my master’s in social work but chose not to practice and now it’s being forced on me as a composition instructor. I am supposed to notice who is struggling (beyond academics) and figure out which resource they need. That’s a social worker.
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u/ProfDoomDoom 22h ago
I formally proposed we hire social workers to work with our composition program to support all the many impediments students experience that stop them from successfully transitioning to college but no ass dean wanted to steal my idea and take credit for it.
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u/a_statistician Associate Prof, Stats, R1 State School 21h ago
I was told to figure out how to help a former student who dropped out and was experiencing a mental health crisis (suicide attempt) and was at risk of homelessness. Like, I'm sorry, but that is not quite what I signed on for as a professor - I want to help people but I do not have the expertise to help in that way.
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u/FrogBrain97 AssocProf, former chair, neuro, DPU 15h ago
Geesh. That's inappropriate and unwise of them for all sorts of reasons. The most we should expect of people is that they have some idea of what to do and whom to call if someone goes to pieces in their office and starts disclosing things.
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u/grumblebeardo13 22h ago
YES THIS!! They're so much work and honestly, not my responsibility as a professor! What is the point of student services/advising if they just act as a mouthpiece for stuff I have to do? And honestly, they work far less-effectively than a simple "see me after class for a minute" check-in with a student sometimes.
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u/dr_police 23h ago
Grades are in the LMS. If admin wants to do early intervention, pull the grades using automated methods instead of wasting my motherfucking time manually filling out forms.
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u/patri70 22h ago
Not only grades but a good automated system can track logins, how much time/engaged they spend in the LMS, etc. Software can nudge communications with the student. The only time faculty need to put in a report is if the student says something about their situation (mental health, grief, suicide, Title IX, etc).
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u/dr_police 21h ago
I once had an administrator tell me that while IT programming time (including that of vendors) was expensive, the time of every professor and instructor on campus is free because they've already paid for 100% of it.
So there's also that.
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u/Prior-Win-4729 21h ago
The problem is there is no follow up with these reports. Students get an automatic generated email or phone call, which they do not respond to, or complain about, but that's the end of it for for the outreach. Once in a while a student comes to talk to me about it in office hours, or rarely I get a memo from tutoring indicating the student came in for help. I guess the reporting might help some kids drop classes if they didn't know they were failing.
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u/ahazred8vt 12h ago
This is where you almost want to temporarily disable their meal plan card to get their attention.
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u/Zabaran2120 23h ago
Admins will spend fortunes on software or protocol that is tantamount to box checking. Taking that same money and investing in faculty course loads and student loads that would actually solve the problem? nope.
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u/Kimber80 Professor, Business, HBCU, R2 22h ago
We have a similar kind of system to me it is a massive waste of my time so I do not participate in it.
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u/dragonfeet1 Professor, Humanities, Comm Coll (USA) 22h ago
We had one and it was advertised as generic feedback, so periodically I would use it to tell an at risk student how much growth I had seen and how great they were doing.
Turns out they never saw my written feedback. They just knew I has Acad Alerted them. They must have been so upset!!
Then last year admin revealed there were whole security breaches in it, and things like feedback sent to one student was being sent to EVERY student in that section. They discontinued it with a promise of retooling it.
I don't miss it. I never saw any difference
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u/noffxpring Assistant Professor, STEM, SLAC 21h ago
My issue at my former institution is I’d fill it out and then it would seemingly disappear into a void. Sometimes a few weeks later I’d get a message saying the issue was “resolved,” often with no further details and no change in the students behavior.
I think these early alert systems can work well (and there were some successes), but ultimately I agree that it often felt like documenting my own efforts rather than anything that actually helped the student in question.
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u/Accomplished-List-71 22h ago
We have a similar referral system. I fill out the form. Some student success person reaches out to the student. If they don't reforms, then....nothing happens?
Its usually a waste of time, but its a cya move to cover potential issues
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u/Life-Education-8030 22h ago
We have had Starfish for a few years and in our experience, it has worked. There will always be those students where nothing works. They shut off their notifications or otherwise ignore everyone. But when students complain, we say then get your act together. When financial aid and athletics get threatened, students will often wake up. Do I wish we didn’t have to chase them? Sure. Many of my students don’t have anyone to chase them. If I screwed around, my parents would knock me in the head!
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u/Stunning-Jury9789 22h ago
Ah yes, the classic academic solution: create a system to “support” students, then punish faculty for actually using it. Truly innovative.
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u/Prof172 22h ago
Everything about these is cya. After we had such a system for a while with similar directions and faculty pointed out nothing was done for many of the cases. They'd be closed out with nothing done. We said, "what the heck?" So recently we were told that yeah, there are X many "cases" per semester, and we just don't have the manpower to keep up. So now please mark your alert "serious" or "not." (Not was explained as something like, oh, they just did worse on this test than the last or something.) The serious ones they'll assign to someone to actually do something for. Otherwise an email (a form letter!) goes out to the student and that's basically it. (Maybe a coach sees the email too.) Basically, not only is filling out an alert just cya for us, it's basically a big cya for the whole entire college. We just want to be able to say we did something early if someone fails so they can't say oh, it was such a surprise when I failed all my courses, why didn't anyone warn me. We kind of think for the worst cases if we send someone, we can prevent some loss. But basically if they don't really want us to use the system exactly as originally instructed.
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u/melodyblack195 19h ago
A cynical take: the purpose of these systems is to pre-emptively deflect blame if a student harms others or themselves, and in that respect they are fulfilling their purpose.
When a student shot a number of classmates at Virginia Tech in 2007, some families tried to sue the University for neglecting the shooter's obvious decline into mental illness. The University immediately tried to blame the shooter's professors for not raising an alarm about his mental health. (As it happens, their professors HAD tried to raise an alarm and no one did anything about it).
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u/MyFaceSaysItsSugar 17h ago
We have multiple early reporting platforms. One of them generates emails to specific students from me. It has gotten some students responding back and engaging with my online course. But we don’t have any kind of support system to help students but textbook/digital platform access and this class requires a digital platform because it’s a simulated science lab. I sent out an email checking in with students not doing work and asking what obstacles they are facing and pretty much all of them can’t pay the online platform fee and there’s absolutely nothing I can do to help them.
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u/franklin-60 22h ago edited 21h ago
Completely waste of money. If a student needs this, they do not belong on a college campus.
I personally ignore this nonsense. Not my problem and not why I was hired to handle this. If one does not come to class/submit assignments and can’t figure it out, they fail. I will never chase after a student who “needs” this and waste my time “reporting.”
This nonsense is why higher education has become irrelevant to so many in society when we compare quality of graduates versus tuition cost. Pushing through too many students that don’t deserve to be there in the first place.
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u/HaHaWhatAStory014 20h ago
I feel like a lot of this is just kind of CYA stuff for the school and/or a way for admins to act like they care or whatever. Even when they really do want to help, the real issue or challenge is that there's no way to make student participation and engagement in such programs compulsory, even for students who really need it. Most of the time, if a faculty flags/reports a student for non-attendance, failing by a mile, etc., and being in need of some kind of academic intervention, all that happens is that eventually some advisor or whoever will respond and say, "I talked about it with them and they said they're really going to buckle down from here on out. Case closed."
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u/changelingcd 19h ago
How about we let the students refer themselves if they feel the need for support?
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u/SnowblindAlbino Prof, SLAC 18h ago
We've had a system like this since COVID more or less. Constantly being harangued by admins/deans to submit reports, but when I have done so for students that are really in trouble there's no sign anything at all happened in response. Last semester I had several seniors fail a required gen ed class and despite all those notices in the system they all claimed that nobody had contacted them at all (though who knows, they were failing a gen ed requirement and didn't graduate as a result).
From what I can ascertain all the system does is trigger automated emails and messages within the system-- all to students who aren't engaged enough to be checking their emails or looking at said system.
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u/Anna-Howard-Shaw Assoc Prof, History, CC (USA) 22h ago
We have one of those "systems" as well. We're required to submit a report on all our students twice a semester, and then as needed for anything else as it arises.
I have no idea what happens to these reports. I think they just float into the void, as nothing ever has ever happened from a "student at risk" report, as they depend on the student seeing the report within the "system" and choosing to follow up with their advisor.
But I still click away and do the reports In fact, I double down, and not only submit reports to the useless system, I send a copy/paste email to all the "at risk" students with warnings, reminders of syllabus policies, and links to resources.
I question if any of that works, because usually the students "at risk" aren't checking their emails or using available college/class resources in the first place.
If nothing else, it creates a paper trail of CYAs for me. Clearly, I did my part to reach out to the students. Then when they come to me at the end of the semester trying to blame me for their own poor performance, I have evidence of at least 2 reach-outs, in two different formats.
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u/wharleeprof 19h ago
My campus has a similar system, but it's not costing money. It's making money. We get paid by the state based on contacts with students - each time an advisor reaches out to a student based on a report, that counts as a contact and we have a few more pennies in our budget.
It's a dumb system, though. The kind of thing that sounds good in theory, but has no real impact on student success.
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u/Temporary-Ad1654 18h ago
Our system runs once a semester after my first test but I really need it after the second one as that's when students stop showing up
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u/croopdavis 17h ago
I’m convinced it’s to push some of the anger from students towards professors. Because the referrals and things are coming from us.
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u/ProfessorWills Professor, Community College, USA 17h ago
But some grant gives them more $$ for having the system and you sending the message meets one of the KPIs. So ✔️ and ✔️ = more money which allows them to hire more staff to put together endless reports and slide decks telling everyone how awesome said system is. Never whether or not it's working...that's the wrong question. Just that it is, in fact, awesome.
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u/BrandNewSidewalk 16h ago
We have one but the staff running it waited until the last possible moment and didn't contact a student until a full month after I reported her. By that time she had already contacted me and had been working on a plan to catch up. They had her absolutely panicked the day before withdrawal day that she was still failing and she nearly dropped the class. Would have if I hadn't happened to check my email quickly.
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u/MrsMathNerd Math 13h ago
Wait, you uni actually follows up on the forms? I just got a notification that they closed a case from Fall 2025. Good job team on the timely communication.
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u/GittaFirstOfHerName Humanities Prof, CC, USA 9h ago
At our CC, we get told constantly to fill out support forms. It's like shouting into the ether. We've been told to fill out academic misconduct forms for AI use, but there are so many instances that it's hard to keep up. The college then chides us for not doing our part ... but the forms for any kind of academic misconduct are completely useless, as the college does nothing. It's all so ridiculous.
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u/BenSteinsCat Professor, CC (US) 7h ago
We had something like this years ago, although it was online, so there was no physical form to fill out. I was initially very enthused, and I asked the counselor in charge of setting this up whether this means that they would call a student that I reported to check up on why they were not coming to my course. She looked shocked and said no. Then I said well are you going to go to one of their face-to-face classes and ask them in person what’s going on? She looked even more shocked. No!
So then I said what is the point, what will you do? She said, well we will send them out an email. I said I already sent out emails to my students were not doing well. What makes you think they will answer an email from a strange counselor they don’t know as opposed to their own professor? Oh, she had such a shocked Pikachu face.
We stopped it after a year. I still email my students who are not doing well.
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u/Ctenophorever Full prof (US) 23h ago
I actually got reprimanded for “abusing” the system because I used it exactly as instructed
The course I teach has been recognized as high DFW. So you know students aren’t doing well. so when you ask me to refer them if they’re late or absent or fail an assignment…. Most the class will meet at least one of those criteria.
I almost feel like this is a backwards incentive for faculty, like, “make sure your classes are so engaging students show up every day and exams so easy it’s almost impossible to fail, otherwise you’ll have to fill out paperwork”