Why your student portal is not an engagement strategy
Why a student portal is not an engagement strategy for first-years, and what a system that reaches students looks like instead.
Most institutions have a student portal, and most assume it is doing the work of engagement. It is not. A portal is a destination: it waits, patiently and silently, for a student to decide to visit. First-year students, overwhelmed and unsure what they are even looking for, mostly do not.
Engagement is the opposite posture. It comes to the student, on a regular cadence, with something specifically relevant to them. The unit of engagement is not the page that exists but the moment the institution shows up usefully in a student's week.
This is why adding more to the portal rarely moves engagement. A better destination will not fix it. The fix is a system that reaches out each week, personally and quietly, so a first-year does not have to know what to look for in order to be supported.