Katie Bishop: Every person at Augsburg is carrying something. Our students are carrying heavy burdens, some of them, many of them. And they have to share some of those burdens in order to be here in this space. That requires a lot of empathy and that costs something. There is a cost associated with that for people when a burden is shared, and we have to carry that.

Paul Pribbenow: Augsburg University educates students to be informed citizens, thoughtful stewards, critical thinkers, and responsible leaders. I'm Paul Pribbenow, the President of Augsburg University. It's my great privilege to present The Augsburg Podcast. One way you can get to know some of the faculty and staff I'm honored to work with every day.

Catherine Day: I'm Catherine Reid Day, host of The Augsburg Podcast. Today I'm speaking with Katie Bishop, chief student success officer for Augsburg. Welcome, Katie.

Katie Bishop: Thank you very much.

Catherine Day: I'd love to start with how you found your way to where you are, because it wasn't a direct path. And it's probably useful to start off by simply saying it wasn't even a job that existed, as recently as three years ago. In fact, I'm wondering, how many other people in the United States have that position that you're aware of, in private colleges?

Katie Bishop: The role at Augsburg is relatively new, a little less then three years old. Across the nation, it's becoming increasingly common to see a role like that. It isn't always titled exactly like that. But there is an increasing, an urgent focus on student success, particularly related to making sure that students graduate from college, unpacking issues around retention, and on student progress to degree.

Three years ago, when the role started to be talked about, it was not very common at all. As I travel and research, the role is becoming actually quite common.

Catherine Day: That's such an important idea, because of a number of pressures. Anything beyond four years to completion, the costs grow higher and higher if they don't complete. They still might have the burden of their debt or responsibilities. But no, nothing to show for it and so forth. But are those some of the reasons behind?

Katie Bishop: Yeah, absolutely. I think the higher education model in the United States is really designed, was designed, particularly in the '50s and '60s, around this assumption that students attending higher ed would be middle class or upper middle class. And primarily, white students.

They would be aged 18, they would take four years, they would come in with social capital, and assumptions already built in around what it means to be in college, what it means to get a job after college, how you navigate the college system.

There were assumptions built into the model around family socioeconomic status, and affordability, and how you paid for college. Increasingly, as the United States has grown to understand, rightly so, that higher ed needs to serve all of our population, and all academically ready students.

The entire higher ed system has seen growth in diversity of students, whether that's diversity around race and ethnicity, diversity in socioeconomic status, diversity in first-generation students,