Southwestern College Program Staff Reclaim Hours Each Week with Time2Track
The Challenge
Trading Up for an Online Experience Management Without Compromise
Southwestern College’s Master’s Program in Art Therapy/Counseling recognized that their spreadsheet system for documenting and managing students’ experience hours was archaic, slow, risky, and in dire need of upgrading.
In 2021 the program moved to an electronic system. Anticipating across-the-board improvements, instead they found themselves trading problems as students tracked their hours using online forms.
“It still took time on the back end for one of our IT people to translate all that information into a Word document that could then be sent to the supervisor to sign,” Student Services and Field Training Coordinator Michelle Lynn, M.A., LMHC, shared.
Continued inefficiencies in managing hours tracking with online forms included:
- Heavy back-and-forth emails
- Glitchy Wufoo forms that impeded reviewer completion
- Documentation requiring multiple staffers’ input
Lynn’s students were getting accustomed to an online tracking platform that was often difficult to use. Occasionally a student would finish documenting their experiences only for Lynn to discover that they had logged it all incorrectly. Making matters worse, student logging errors were then hard to fix—and time-consuming even when they could be corrected.
“It was steep learning curve for our students in tracking their hours with the online forms,” she said. “We still needed a solution that made better sense and moved us all forward.”
With everybody in the program ready for a truly simple and effective online experience management solution, Lynn continued looking for a platform that would deliver on that promise. They knew their search was over when they found Time2Track.
“When we adopted Time2Track in 2021, suddenly the platform was taking care of all our issues—and doing so within its own system. And I loved being able to do other things with it, too, like site agreements. I can keep it all contained within one software program and refer back to it,”” Lynn reflected.
Total Ease of Use for Students
Lynn has quickly seen a big difference with ease of use for her students. They are delighted by how forgiving and flexible the Time2Track system is. She can catch the inevitable errors sooner on the front end, or at least a few weeks into students’ practicum, and they’re now easy to fix.
“Time2Track gives me the visibility to check and make sure students are actually logging their hours, which is priceless!”
Results
With Time2Track, Southwestern College found:
Elimination of previous IT staffing requirements for student support thanks to a simple and intuitive app that students can readily master
Superior online experience management tools that minimize staff’s administrative time requirements
A service-driven and user-focused solution from a company that seeks client feedback
Accessibility in a cloud-based solution that can support both online and in-place learners’ needs
“When we adopted Time2Track in 2021, suddenly the platform was taking care of all our issues—and doing so within its own system.”
Michelle Lynn, M.A., LMHC
Student Services and Field Training Coordinator
Southwestern College
The Solution
Dramatic Time Savings for All
Moving from flawed online forms to the thoughtfully designed Time2Track platform has paid enormous dividends, according to Lynn said. It has resulted in a complete elimination of IT management requirements around hours tracking, because the students can now manage it for themselves. “That’s a huge amount of time right there,” Lynn explained.
“Now I spend a fraction of the time setting things up on the back end for students. I train them on how to use it, which includes sharing some simple how-to’s that I created. It’s a pretty easy software program to use, so it’s simple for most students to learn it, which also really saves me a lot of time.”
Time2Track has also given Lynn back considerable time for herself. “Time2Track is saving me probably at least two and as many as four hours per week that I can now spend doing other more meaningful stuff,” she calculated.
By putting the responsibility on the students to effectively track their own running hours total, Lynn has been able to move from logistical overseer and gatekeeper to more of a coach who’s focused on student productivity and ultimate quality of program management that drives outcomes.
Total Ease of Use for Students
Lynn has quickly seen a big difference with ease of use for her students. They are delighted by how forgiving and flexible the Time2Track system is. She can catch the inevitable errors sooner on the front end, or at least a few weeks into students’ practicum, and they’re now easy to fix.
“Time2Track gives me the visibility to check and make sure students are actually logging their hours, which is priceless!”
A Growing Community for Greater Support
As part of the soup-to-nuts process improvements that Lynn is seeing for all program stakeholders using the Time2Track system, she’s excited about the benefits of having more users and the option for extended use beyond college.
Even after they graduate, her former students can continue to use Time2Track’s software by design, a benefit that Lynn shares with them early on in their studies. “It really does make it so much easier for them at their job to continue to send hours to their supervisor for approval,” she advised.
Lynn also appreciates the simplicity and efficiency of having all program stakeholders using Time2Track. “I’m encountering more and more supervisors who are already familiar with Time2Track because other colleges are using the program. It’s great to take this kind of an informed and unified approach to managing student hours.”
Not Just a Transformational Platform
Lynn’s passion for her work, and attention to all the details, is not lost on her Time2Track support staff. They recognize her as a vital resource in helping to shape the future of the platform in smart and meaningful ways. She sees the team’s reliance on her feedback as refreshing…and fundamental to client-first product development.
“Time2Track is definitely a service-driven platform,” Lynn said. “My support team at Time2Track reaches out to me for my input on the ideation phase of future updates to the software. I love giving that feedback and really appreciate the Time2Track mindset.”
The University’s Outcome
Better Tools for an Empowering, Globally Connected Program
As a program graduate-turned-leader who has watched her school grow and evolve over the years, Lynn is delighted to expand enrollment via its online study option. Southwestern students “from away” can still experience robust experiential learning that integrates practicum and internship sites where they live, supported by the “anytime, anywhere” Time2Track app.
Because the program’s experience management capabilities are centralized in the cloud, Lynn believes that offering a high-quality distance learning option became an easy and natural fit.
“With many of our students now studying online, a Southwestern graduate degree can become a reality from most anywhere. This kind of accessibility helps us achieve dramatic increases in reach and diversity.”
Beyond the college’s 92% post-graduation placement rate, Lynn shared, “We get a lot of compliments from internship sites about how prepared our students are for seeing clients the first time, even relative to other colleges where they’ve worked.”
It’s clear that Southwestern’s approach uniquely prepares its students. Lynn understands the importance of keeping them laser-focused on that work of learning and preparation for their careers.
“Time2Track provides tremendous overall value which includes the empowerment of my students,” Lynn shared. “It gives them the resources to be self-sufficient and to take greater ownership of their own learning.”
About Southwestern College
Southwestern College is a small, private graduate school in Santa Fe, New Mexico with accredited Counseling and Art Therapy/Counseling Master’s programs offered in both an online/distance format and on the ground. It has been training consciousness-centered therapists and leaders in the mental health field since 1979.
Founded in 1976 as Quimby College, the vision leading to today’s Southwestern began in 1945 when a group of forward-thinking individuals created the Quimby Memorial Library to house a collection of spiritual and metaphysical books which included Phineas Parkhurst Quimby, the Father of New Thought.
Today, the mission of Southwestern College is “Transforming Consciousness Through Education.” Set in a beautiful location that is considered by many to be the spiritual center of the United States, Southwestern’s holistic approach emphasizes developing students’ own inner strengths as a necessary precursor to helping others.
Time2Track Customization
Every program discipline has unique experience management characteristics and needs. That’s why our Client Success works closely with every new client to customize their Time2Track app.
With customization, stakeholders capture and manage the experience information that matters. Stakeholder confidence and compliance soars. And clients enjoy an even easier path to measurable success.