Boise State University Utilizes Symplicity Advocate for Campus Safety and Wellbeing

A four-year institution located in Boise, Idaho, Boise State University (BSU) offers over 200 programs of study, including 14 doctoral programs with a student population of over 26,000. The institution has gone through significant changes, starting out as a junior college, then a commuter college, to the four-year institution it is today, seeing an uptick in on-campus enrollment in the last three years. To ensure campus safety, wellbeing, and provide a timely adjudication process for its students, BSU has been using Symplicity Advocate since 2008.  

A Collaborative Approach with Advocate 

“I’m in Advocate every day, I basically live in Advocate,” said Jillian Krulac, Student Conduct Process Coordinator at Boise State University. Initially, Krulac was new to her role at BSU and had to learn Advocate quickly before the start of the Fall 2021 semester. Yet, she onboarded efficiently on her own using the Symplicity support resources, internal team knowledge, and by relying on her client manager. Now, Krulac has recently become the office point person at her institution and for her team. Today, her department’s daily operations rely on Advocate for student outreach and case management, handling mental health situations, academic integrity, incidents of sexual assault, and general student conduct violations.

"Without having a tool like Advocate to connect us in [this] way, we would be leaning heavily on staff communication just verbally and through email where information would get lost. With Advocate we don’t miss things that are critical to supporting and understanding the student experience."

 

Jillian Krulac,
Student Conduct Process Coordinator, Boise State University

Not only is Krulac utilizing Advocate, but so are her BSU colleagues who handle CARE reports, Title IX records, and general student case management that is all housed in one Advocate system, enhancing BSU’s already existing cross-collaboration efforts. “I think a really great benefit of Advocate is how it intersects with what we already do, so we can take an intentional and partnered approach when handling student needs,” said Krulac. “We can better understand student’s needs, from academic disruption, suicide, mental health concerns, CARE, etc. Without having a tool like Advocate to connect us in that way, we would be leaning heavily on staff communication just verbally and through email where information would get lost. With Advocate we don’t miss things that are critical to supporting and understanding the student experience.” 

Knowledge Is Powerful (Data) 

Advocate at BSU is providing powerful data and reporting insight that helps Krulac and her colleagues improve operations and campus safety. “The power of having data and pulling data really informs how we approach challenges and implement positive work on campus in terms of prevention, building relationships and seeing where we need to strengthen support on campus based on population groups,” said Krulac. “That’s a huge part of the reports we pull, where we can better understand our student population and meeting their needs on campus and behavioral conduct, and in academic integrity.” In particular, Advocate’s dashboard reporting tool is essential in creating graphs and visualizations that help the office tell the conduct story through data to the broader campus community.

Using the reporting found in Advocate, BSU’s Office of the Dean of Students organized a Sexual Assault Awareness Week which focused on sexual assault prevention and its impact on campus. The data within Advocate identified where incidents occurred, finding that many such cases happened off-campus where students did not feel safe. Identifying this trend, the office organized a “Data Walk” which included several stops dedicated to the intersection of sexual assault data, trends, and the campus geography of BSU. The walk was attended by students, faculty, staff, and the community to create awareness around this issue and identify proactive measures which  could be implemented to keep the campus community safe.

Why Symplicity? 

Overall, Krulac's experience with Advocate has been invaluable in streamlining and enhancing student support and conduct services at BSU. The platform's data and reporting capabilities have helped her office identify trends and make data-informed decisions, which have led to more effective and efficient approaches in addressing student conduct and support issues. “I think that I'm really excited for the future roll outs of new tools and features, and I'm also really grateful to have a good relationship with our client manager who's willing to advocate for us and knows how to work our university system to get us where we need to be with our software,” said Krulac. 

"The power of having data and pulling data really informs how we approach challenges and implement positive work on campus in terms of prevention, building relationships and seeing where we need to strengthen support on campus based on population groups."

 

Jillian Krulac,
Student Conduct Process Coordinator, Boise State University