Navigate user of the month: July 2020

Can you share how you got started using Navigate and your experience moving forward with the platform?
I started using Navigate when it was first available at Virginia Tech. At the time, I was in a student support position in the College of Science and I used the platform to make note of extensive/complex email conversations with students. I did this so that their advisors would be able to see my conversations in their future meetings with students.

In my advising positions, previous and current, I use Navigate extensively. I joke that I live in Navigate, but it is open from when I turn my computer on until I turn it off. I use Navigate for appointment scheduling, notes, and reports, campaigns to target student populations and manage yearly academic events, orientation, and to gather a multitude of data within the advanced search and reports function.

My consistent use of Navigate has allowed me the opportunity to be the Navigate liaison for my College. This is a position I am happy to serve in because the Navigate Platform makes my world so organized and I love it. I enjoy being at the forefront of upcoming updates and new features and passing the information along to my colleagues in the College of Science. 

Can you share a unique way in which you have used the platform to help students and/or faculty in your department?
I use the campaign feature in the platform the most often to help my students and my department. I use campaigns to target populations and manage academic events from multiple U grade advising, probation/suspension/warning advising, course request advising, to Orientation.  

I believe my most unique use of the campaign feature is yet to come. We’re planning to use the Navigate Platform to better engage with our Transfer Student FYE this Fall. Our plan is to use the campaign function to create a student-advisor interview assignment that will allow us to build rapport and make connections with our incoming Transfer Students. We hope that by using the Navigate Platform to create this connection that these students will feel more comfortable in the future asking for help and coming to visit us.

What would you tell other advisors who are thinking of using Navigate?
I would tell those advisors to start using Navigate as soon as possible. Navigate has made my life so much easier and more efficient because it is a central program for all of my advising needs.