Undergraduate students at The University of New Mexico will soon have a new tool to help them more efficiently communicate with the advisement community and keep them on track with their student success journey.

Student Hub — a collaboration between the Office of Academic Affairs, the Office of Advising Strategies, UNM Division of Enrollment Management, UNM Information Technologies and all UNM campuses — is set to debut in the next year.

Student Hub

Student Hub will be based on Salesforce Education Cloud, a constituent relationship management (CRM) platform for educational institutions. The CRM is in the process of being extensively tailored to meet UNM’s needs. Features will include improved scheduling and advisement communications in addition to progress dashboards, streamlined recruitment and admissions processes, and ultimately AI chatbot functions.

In the short term, Student Hub and the current platform, LoboAchieve, will co-exist through the transition. This will allow time for advisors, students and others to be fully trained on the platform before the full switch. UNM IT is working on an automated process to migrate appointments from LoboAchieve to Student Hub so there will be no interruption in scheduling.

“What you will see in the short term with Student Hub in its earliest iteration is very similar to the capabilities of LoboAchieve,” said Pamela Cheek, vice provost for student success. “This is the first phase in a longer-term process of creating a platform that will be a one-stop instead of five or six stops to address student service needs.”

She said that Student Hub will be simpler to use for both students and those who support them.

“Currently students have to learn how to navigate many different systems to make their way through UNM,” Cheek said. “Support staff and faculty also have to rely on multiple platforms. We need to reduce confusion for our students, staff and faculty.”

From application through graduation and beyond, Student Hub will make it possible for both students and advisors to track progress and goals. The initial rollout will focus on simplified advisement scheduling, but the goal in the next few years is a unified platform for all student services.

"Our long-term goal is for Student Hub to be a universal platform that will allow students to find information and connect with student success staff more easily and vice versa,” Cheek said. “Students will be able to see, on one screen, what steps they need to take next in their UNM journey. This is a multi-year project, but investing in it is worth it for the long-term benefit of enhancing access to a smooth pathway through UNM.”

Stephanie Hands, director of the Office of Advising Strategies, said that she is excited for what Student Hub could mean for advising.

“As the system evolves, Student Hub will provide more personalized information to better meet the needs of advisors so they can be more effective and efficient,” she said. “It will reduce confusion for our students and will eventually be a universal platform that will allow students to connect to student success staff more easily and vice versa.”

The work has involved several team members from the UNM IT Enterprise Applications group. Its director, Alesia Torres, said she is grateful that her team could be part of this implementation. 

“It is our goal to enable more effective and streamlined experiences for students, staff and faculty through technology and this system does exactly that,” she said. “It is great to work with the departments and campus on improving the student experience.”

More information on training dates for advisors and students will be forthcoming.