The UNA Council of Deans has enacted the Active Suspension Program to provide an alternative to traditional suspension.

The program was created two years ago after seeing a pattern of one too many cases of student mismanagement and gives students the chance to develop critical habits and skills in a structured environment, said Active Suspension Program Coordinator Robert Koch.

“If students are suspended and sent home, what are they learning?” Koch said. “The goal of this program is to promote persistence to graduation. 

This is the first the larger picture we are working on in Advising Services to develop more programs to help students.”

The program is open to students who are currently going through Suspension 1, active suspension. 

The program also allows students to take an active role within his or her suspension to work harder, learn new skills and habits and immediately renew dedication to academic success, according to UNA’s website.

Students will receive a letter stating his or her suspension and application to the Active Suspension Program in May or August. Suspension is issued to students who have not maintained a minimum grade point average of 1.60 for 0-31 hours, 1.85 for 32-63 hours, 1.95 for 64-95 hours and 2.00 for 96-128 hours, according to the University Success Center’s website. 

Students under the Active Suspension Program are limited to 13 hours, including a one-hour UNA 105 Strategies for College Success course taught partly by Associate Professor of History Jeffrey Bibbee.

“The program explores primarily the root causes of why students have difficulty succeeding at UNA from personal management issues to academic problems,” Bibbee said. “We try to help students develop their own solutions, and most importantly, to understand the delicate balance between home, work and school that it takes to be successful as a college student.

“The real success, though, is in seeing students change their bad habits for good ones that will help them not just at UNA, but for years to come.” 

The council overseeing the program is comprised of Deans Vagn Hansen, Donna Lefort, Gregory Carnes and Birdie Bailey, from the colleges of Arts and Sciences, Education, Business and Nursing and Allied Health, as well as Director of Institutional Research, Planning and Assessment Andrew Luna, Associate Vice President for Academic Support Thomas Calhoun, Director of Library Services Melvin Davis and Vice President for Academic Affairs & Provost John Thornell. 

Koch said of the 100 students who have enrolled in the program over the past two years, 44 have completed it. 

“The program has presented a 44 percent success rate, and we will be conducting a longitudinal study to determine the program’s full success rate,” Koch said.

Calhoun said it is the goal and vision of this program to make sure every student at UNA reaches his or her goals to be successful and earn their degree.

“This is not the type of program we want to grow,” he said. “In this case, growth and improvement would mean fewer students enrolled in the program.”