Thought Leadership
Thought Leadership
September 4, 2026
Dr. Ronda Westry, Assistant Vice President of Student Affairs at Alabama State University, shared her perspectives on leveraging student success initiatives to drive Gen Z enrollment during an exclusive panel webinar with Kaplan. Key takeaways include engaging prospective families early through proactive pre-college programs, embedding workforce readiness into the college experience, and demonstrating tangible return on investment long before move-in day. The following excerpts are taken from the interview.
Dr. Ronda Westry: I have the privilege of serving as the Assistant Vice President of Student Affairs at Alabama State University (ASU), which is one of the nation's oldest Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs). We are located in Montgomery, Alabama and are home to about 4,900 students. Serving a diverse student body, we offer over 60 undergraduate and graduate programs, and we are proudly led by our visionary 15th president Dr. Quinton T. Ross, Jr.
Dr. Ronda Westry: At Alabama State University, our student center is within the division of student affairs and enrollment management. Over the years, we have worked together with our partners and academic affairs team to intentionally shift from a reactive model of student support to a more proactive model that is also enrollment driven.
Our institution made the first shift right after COVID. In 2021, we were awarded a grant from our Alabama Commission on State Higher Education agency to expand our traditional Summer Bridge Program to a Summer Bridge Plus initiative. Our Summer Bridge Plus initiative, where “Plus” stands for “Promoting, Learning, and Upgrading Skills,” was our answer to meet the needs of the students during those times, because we all know from the research that there was a lot of loss of learning during COVID. This program was our first step of not only trying to ensure our students’ success, but also being more proactive before they got here on campus.
Then in 2023, a second shift happened for us. Again, partnering with colleagues in academic affairs we launched an initiative called Success Before the Nest (since we are the ASU hornets). The program is a six-month virtual pre-enrollment workshop series for incoming students and their families. We wanted to shift from a strictly student-focused model to a more family-centered approach prior to students getting onto our campus.
Those are just two of several initiatives that we are working on. They help us reframe student success initiatives that are now part of ASU’s value proposition, where we are not just meeting the challenges students face after arriving, we are trying to speak to those challenges before they arrive.
By positioning student success as a differentiator, we are not only responding to challenges, we are also signaling to prospective families that ASU offers structured, personalized pathways from day one to graduation and beyond.
“We are not just meeting the challenges students face after arriving, we are trying to speak to those challenges before they arrive.” — Dr. Ronda Westry
Dr. Ronda Westry: I was a first-generation college student myself and my dissertation was on this very topic on how student services can be a mediating factor for success, for retention, and completion.
One example of how ASU is moving that needle in terms of addressing workforce readiness is through our new initiative called Hornet Pathways, funded by the Thurgood Marshall College Fund (TMCF). “Pathway” stands for “Progress, Achievement, Tenacity, Holistic growth, Workforce readiness, Academic readiness, and Year-round support.” It is designed to guide our first- and second-year students, but it is an integrated initiative of support that starts right after students are admitted to ASU. Within the program, we have the Hornet Focus, which is another acronym that stands for “First-year, Opportunity to Cultivate Undergraduate Success.” This helped us to expand the capacity of the Success Before the Nest initiative. We do offer an incentive to get families to engage and commit to six months of attending this workshop. We give them a $100 refund on that mandatory new student orientation.
Before, we did not have enough funds to reach more students, but with the TMCF grant we were able to take it from 125 families to 300 families. Within the series, we talk about career readiness. In their first-year course, they take a career assessment.
We have to be intentional when showing families the return on investment of attending or earning a college degree. For Gen Z, this is what they want to know.
Our second year program is called Hornet Flight, which stands for “Focused Learning, Internships, Grow networks, and Holistic Transition.” This initiative will help us to engage 200 second-year students in a residential career learning community, providing them with professional development opportunities.
Both of these example initiatives are pitched to our prospective students. And both of these initiatives answer those questions that our parents and our students have, which are: will my student be supported? Will they finish on time? And will they finish with a strong job or placement in a competitive graduate or professional school? That is how ASU is doing it to help us stay ahead of the game in terms of making sure that we are providing our prospective parents with that ROI.
“We have to be intentional when showing families the return on investment of attending or earning a college degree. For Gen Z, this is what they want to know.” — Dr. Ronda Westry
For context, Kaplan’s All Access License® is an umbrella program where institutions have the opportunity to offer students industry-leading test preparation for graduate admissions exams, licensure, credentials, as well as skills development courses all for one flat fee. With zero out of pocket costs to students, this solution removes cost barriers and unlocks new opportunities as they take high stakes exams such as for the MCAT®, LSAT®, or GMAT™ or career readiness programs such as Critical Thinking or Confident New Hire, among others.
Dr. Ronda Westry: I became familiar with Kaplan’s All Access License from a colleague and this is the reason why having learning community sessions is so valuable because we are learning from each other. If you are not collaborating with your colleagues on campus, you can miss out on some very important opportunities. When I was writing for a grant last year, I knew that it was going to be about career readiness and professional development for our students. So, I reached out to our colleague who is our AVP over student engagement and over the office of career development. Long story short, we got the grant.
At the time, ASU had just partnered with Kaplan’s All Access License and my colleague invited me to a meeting to learn more. She said this is something that we are going to get and thought that I would like it for my program too, understanding that I have all of these things that I want the students to do in terms of career readiness, financial literacy, with a very holistic approach towards career development.
When I saw all that was offered in the All Access License program, I thought, “this is the answer to my prayers!” Because even though we do have various platforms out there that will help us with that career development piece, Kaplan’s All Access License is the only platform, I believe, that will help students with all of the different test prep that are out there too, such as for the LSAT. Once I saw what it had to offer, it didn’t take me long to move forward with incorporating some activities on that platform into our Hornet Flight initiative.
“When I saw all that was offered in the All Access License program, I thought, ‘this is the answer to my prayers!’” — Dr. Ronda Westry
Dr. Ronda Westry: In five years from now, I’d like to see the gap close between K–12, higher education, and our workforce professionals.
In so many different conversations, we have all asked, “how do we support students?” Keeping them in school is number one but it’s also about how do we ensure that higher education remains relevant? How do we ensure that there is a strong ROI?
Universities all over the state as well as two-year colleges have all talked about that. We all looked around and said there are no workforce professionals here from industry. We do all of this good work in higher education, and we have to make sure we are closing the gap with K–12 partnerships, credentials, dual enrollment, etc.
Through the efforts we make in higher education along with all the wonderful resources that we have now, we have well-prepared students. And we need industry professionals to work with us to give them a job. Providing them with that access, including the tools in Kaplan’s All Access License, really does level the playing field, especially for our first-generation students who do not have access to these things. They are very intelligent, but we all know it is so important that we provide them with opportunities to be able to highlight and showcase that intelligence.
The views and opinions expressed are those of the individual and not necessarily those of Kaplan or their institution. Student experiences may vary.
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