About ACE

The American Council on Education’s (ACE) Learner Success Lab (LSL) is an inclusive​ learning community that integrates evidence-based practices for persistence and completion, life design and career exploration, and workforce skills development to assist participating institutions in developing a comprehensive strategy for learner success.

Processes and outcomes for the Elon “Mentoring for Learner Success” Lab

  • External site visit by ACE Lab Advisor Lyssa Paluay with 67 campus constituents (January 19 – 21, 2021)
    • External site visit report
    • Thematic analysis
  • Formation of four working groups: Curriculum; Co-Curriculum; Partnerships (student employment, alumni, and community partners); and Research.
  • Working group SWOC analyses
  • Data collection including:
    • Working groups’ interviews, focus groups and surveys with campus and community constituents
    • Research group
      • Interviews with 118 faculty, staff, and students
      • Surveys with 460 members of the 2024 and 2021 classes and alumni
  • Creation of a “Definition Package,” tested and revised iteratively with community members, including:
    • Definition of mentoring relationships in the Elon context
    • Overview of the research
    • Composite cases and constellation maps
    • Relationship-rich map, explanation and models
  • Development of preliminary recommendations by each working group
  • Steering Committee critical review of and feedback on recommendations
  • Campus Conversation (November 5, 2021)
  • Steering Committee facilitators’ feedback on Campus Conversation
  • Development of integrated set of recommendations using an ecological systems approach
  • Draft of final report for external peer review site visit
  • Peer review virtual site visit by Brad Johnson, Professor at the U.S. Naval Academy and John Hopkins University; Dawn Whitehead, Vice President, Office of Global Citizenship for Campus, Community and Careers, AAC&U; and Lyssa Paluay, ACE Lab Advisor and Dean at MassArt (January 31, 2022)
  • Submission of final report to ACE and Elon (February 2022)
  • Communication of findings through social media, website, presentations and publications (Spring 2022)