Opening New Doors to Accelerating Success (ONDAS) Program

Opening New Doors to Accelerating Success (ONDAS) is a program designed to examine and address the needs of UCSB’s increasingly diverse student population. One sign of this increasing diversity is UCSB’s recognition as a Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI), a designation granted in 2015 based on the number of Chican@/Latin@ students who have chosen to make UCSB their academic home.

ONDAS was funded by a Department of Education Title V HSI grant. The goals of the ONDAS program are to:

  • increase completion rates for under-represented students;
  • eliminate high probation rates and increasing GPAs in specific majors ;
  • retain more students in their first year at UCSB;
  • provide tutoring and mentoring for first-year students in targeted courses;
  • train faculty in cutting-edge learning and teaching theories, methods, practices; techniques; and
  • analyze and evaluate student data to inform approaches to high risk students.

To accomplish these objectives, the ONDAS program will operate through three overlapping areas:

Component 1: ONDAS Success Center.

The ONDAS Student Center is a physical location for student learning and community, particularly for first-year students. The OSC is directed by Dr. Malaphone Phommasa and supported by a staff, including a Student Activities Coordinator, Program Assistant, Graduate Student Mentors, and Undergraduate Peer Mentors.

Component 2: Faculty Development.

Associate Dean and Professor Linda Adler-Kassner will organize and lead seminars and workshops for faculty professional development related to learning, teaching, and diversity.

Component 3: The use of learning analytics.

Learning analytics will be employed as part of the program to help identify students who will benefit from ONDAS programming. The effectiveness of ONDAS programs will also be evaluated through a variety of methods.