The situation
Cal State East Bay is a public university of about 10,000 students in Hayward, California. Nearly 65% of undergraduates are first-generation. The Student Center for Academic Achievement ran on fragmented systems, and coordinators built schedules in spreadsheets, confirmed by email, then entered availability by hand.
What Nimbus did
Peer leaders now enter their own schedules for a coordinator to check and approve. Each online session has its own link, so the front desk no longer monitors Zoom. Surveys sent through Nimbus capture feedback where students book.
The result
Participation grew with roughly half the peer leaders. Using Nimbus data exports, the center and institutional research found that first-year students who met with a peer academic coach had 5% higher fall-to-fall retention. Because the impact was provable, the center is rebuilding its tutoring staff to about 20.
“It was very clunky before, so it’s been a thousand percent better than it used to be.”
“I know that this program would not have survived without being able to show the impact.”