About: Robert Morris University (RMU) is a private doctoral university with 4,385 undergraduate students, a 61% six-year graduation rate, and an 80% retention rate. They strive to embody their motto, “Big enough to matter, small enough to care.”
Challenge: RMU’s students and advisors lacked the tools to coordinate and communicate a plan to stay on track. Advisors needed insight into students’ involvement and engagement on campus, and students needed a clear checklist to follow.
Solution: RMU partnered with EAB in April 2017 with the goal of achieving 50% first-year adoption on EAB’s student-facing mobile app. First, they created a first-year seminar syllabus that requires students to complete in-app assignments, driving both downloads and ongoing utilization. Second, they used in-app Quick Polls to help keep students on track and provide advisors and administrators with powerful insights about student interests, needs, and concerns.
Impact: RMU dramatically exceeded their adoption goal, with 94% of first-year students downloading the app. This contributed to a 2 percentage-point increase in first-year retention compared to 2016.
