Students at Georgia State University’s Perimeter College are receiving added attention, thanks to the hiring of 30 new academic advisers.

Nicole Mack said her health sciences academic adviser, Catie Holt, has given her the support she needs to finish her associate degree in May. The Newton Campus student was happy about the extra attention.

“I’ve received notices from her about my academic progress,” Mack said. “She made sure I was on track to graduate in May.”

Mack has applied to the associate nursing program based on the Clarkston Campus.

Hiring new advisers helps in the college’s implementation of Georgia State’s student success initiatives, said Dr. Tim Renick, Georgia State’s vice provost and vice president for enrollment management and student success.

“The hiring of 30 additional academic advisers at Perimeter College goes hand in hand with new student-support technologies we have put in place,” Renick said.

Perimeter College students are now part of the university-wide Graduation and Progressive Success system–otherwise known as the GPS advising system—which uses targeted analytics to send an alert to advisers when students first go off track academically, he said.

“The advisers are trained to receive alerts on a daily basis and then to reach out personally to students to help, typically within 48 hours of a problem being identified,” Renick said.

Renick noted that in 2015 there were more than 51,000 one-on-one meetings between students and advisers initiated by alerts from the system.

“Through this approach, our graduation rates have improved by 6 percentage points, and we have cut the time it takes Georgia State students to earn their degrees on average by more than half a semester, saving them millions of dollars in tuition and fees,” he said.

“With the support of these new academic advisers who have recently been hired and the opening of new support facilities, such as a new academic advising and support center on the Clarkston campus, we are poised to help Perimeter College students achieve even greater levels of success,” Renick said.