If You Didn’t Finish, Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi Wants You Back
CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas – If you enrolled, but never graduated from Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi, don’t be surprised if you get an e-mail out of the blue asking if you might consider returning.
That’s because The Texas A&M University System wants you back and has partnered with ReUp Education to reach out and help you complete your degree.
“Sometimes life just gets in the way, we understand,” said James Hallmark, Texas A&M University System Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs. “But completing your college education will change your life. We want to do everything we can at the A&M System to make sure that happens.”
There are about 13,000 students in good academic standing who have stopped out of A&M System campuses over the last five years. The A&M System’s new partnership with ReUp is designed to help remove barriers for these students and support them in the re-enrollment process.
ReUp spent the summer working to contact former students from a list provided by the A&M System of individuals who completed some coursework but left before completing their degree. ReUp has already begun the process of engaging with the students to support their unique goals and to help pave a path forward. About 200 of those targeted already have signed back up for classes this fall.
Dr. Melissa Jarrell, Dean of University College at the Island University, is overseeing the University’s partnership with ReUp Education. Jarrell said ReUp success coaches contacted 2,000 former Islanders who left the university before graduating, and 20 students are back on campus this fall.
“We’re excited to partner with ReUp Education because they have the resources to help us get in contact with those students to see if there’s something we can do to get them to come back here and be successful,” Jarrell said.
Hannah Connolly, a 24-year-old junior at Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi from Coppell, Texas, recently re-enrolled to pursue her degree in psychology. She described getting an e-mail from a ReUp counselor.
“She kind of was like a fairy godmother, in a sense,” Connolly said. “She let me know, ‘Hey, I am here for you. Whether you have questions about signing up for classes or need to relearn how to do anything or just need someone to talk about the process, I am here for you.’ She has been really sweet just keeping in contact with me.”
Providing a pathway to success for students is core to the Texas A&M University System’s mission to serve the state of Texas, said Shonda Gibson, Associate Vice Chancellor of the Texas A&M University System. “Many students who leave school, leave simply because life happened,” Gibson said. “ReUp is uniquely focused on serving this student population and is helping us to support these students from re-entry to graduation.”
ReUp uses a unique blend of proprietary technology, data and personalized coaching to engage and help re-enroll stopout students. Once students are re-enrolled, ReUp continues to provide its blend of services to foster personal accountability, encouragement and support so that students have the tools to persist and complete what they started. This approach is particularly powerful because it provides a continuous support mechanism for every returning student, including first-generation and underrepresented populations, which are disproportionately more likely to not have access to an effective support system for navigating college.