Early Alert Initiative

The Early Alert initiative at Columbus Technical College is a campus-wide collaborative effort. This retention initiative aims to identify at-risk students as quickly as possible and promptly direct them to the support services that can help them succeed. This process is supported by Starfish Retention Solutions, and accessible through our existing learning management system, Angel.

Certain students might have academic performance or attendance issues, while others may be showing signs of emotional distress. Starfish gives us an efficient way to communicate those concerns to the people who can help, while respecting FERPA and our institution's policies on the privacy of student information.

In situations where a faculty member has a concern about a student, Academic Affairs strongly encourages them to raise a flag through Starfish. We have set up the Starfish system to automatically notify the right individuals who should respond to the concern. Upon receipt of a flag, the proper counselor, tutor or advisor will take action to address the situation with the student. In many cases, support personnel will ask the student to schedule an appointment with them through Starfish.

Increased communication between instructors and support staff is a proven strategy for increasing student success and retention. The partnership and participation of all campus faculty and staff will ensure that each student enrolled at Columbus Technical College has the best possible chance to succeed.