Pathify Customer Story
In The Eye of the Storm
Category 5 hurricane. 161 fatalities. Third costliest weather disaster on record. Thousands of students desperately seeking guidance.
St. Petersburg College (SPC) faced this scenario in September 2022 as Hurricane Ian relentlessly tore across Florida. Amidst the chaos the entire community asked questions, sought guidance and pulled together to survive the truly terrifying state of emergency. Fortunately just weeks before the storm, SPC launched the Pathify Engagement Hub, which proved a critical focal point of support throughout the crisis.
In particular leveraging Pathify’s Communities module, SPC administrators ensured vital, up to date information flowed seamlessly to those in need. With round the clock access to Pathify available on any device, SPC maintained a digital forum where the community came together, armed with the knowledge and guidance needed to weather the storm.
About St. Petersburg College
A staple for both college-aged and adult learners in Florida, St. Petersburg College offers more than 200 degree, certificate and transfer programs. Its career-focused curriculum helps students meet the needs of today’s employers while earning the highest entry wages among state community college graduates.
The average age of students enrolled at the institution is 27 years old with 44% of its 35,000 students classified as adult learners. SPC believes in engaging the full potential of the individual and deeply values providing students with a sense of belonging.
From Facebook to Pathify
SPC initially used Facebook Workplace to bring its 11 learning sites under one platform. Then in 2020, Facebook changed its pricing.
Maintaining Facebook Workplace meant a $500,000 up-front investment — literally breaking the budget and forcing SPC to evaluate other options. Shortly after this the pandemic reared it’s ugly head, forcing Chris Harvey, Executive Director of Academic Technology to rush his team to find a replacement. His team was in the process of implementing Zoom for the entire student body, but recognized it wasn’t enough.
“Our marketing and student affairs started doing social listening to get feedback from our students and they really missed Workplace,” Harvey said.
In January, 2021, Dr. Jeff Borden (at the time of writing Vice Provost of Learning Experience at National University) presented at the D2L Summit, speaking about the importance of community building, including the criticality of fostering a digital community. Harvey and his team subsequently looked at options to achieve the vision Borden outlined, and over the course of the next year ultimately selected Pathify after an extremely detailed and meticulous evaluation process. Pathify proved the only solution offering a Facebook-like community that could operate as a walled garden owned and maintained by SPC, while also providing the ability to build custom widgets that surface personalized information based on a user’s role.
SPC Associate Vice President for Institutional Effectiveness and Academic Services Dr. Sabrina Crawford recognized the immediate need of giving students a personalized experience and had recommended Pathify’s Engagement Hub to deliver what she felt students needed.
Both Harvey and Crawford believed this fell in line with SPC President Dr. Tonjua Williams’s vision for the college’s online services.
“She wanted everything integrated and we’ve never been that way,” Harvey said. “Everything has always been separate. We’d have a page with a bunch of links, but they’re not interconnected.”
Given SPC’s selection of Pathify in June of 2022, it required a well-coordinated effort to get the Engagement Hub implemented in time for Fall semester. Thanks to the quick work and tight collaboration between SPC and the Pathify teams, the pilot program launched in six weeks, with full implementation of what is now called “TitanHub” complete four weeks later.
Thanks to the quick work and tight collaboration between SPC and the Pathify teams, the pilot program launched in six weeks, with full implementation of what is now called “TitanHub” complete four weeks later.
Communicating Through a Hurricane
Pathify helping students navigate a hurricane was the last thing Harvey imagined during his team’s implementation, yet it proved exactly what he needed to keep students up-to-date throughout the storm.
Given the completion of SPC’s implementation of TitanHub just days before the hurricane, some questioned whether students felt secure using it during a state of emergency. As a result, in the early stages of Hurricane Ian, faculty from Student Services tried using email for vital communication — resulting in even more inbound questions.
SPC ultimately decided Pathify was the best available tool to post information and updates while responding to student inquiries promptly and effectively.
The institution enrolled its students in a temporary group dedicated to hurricane communications. Although faculty didn’t post in the group initially, administrators quickly saw student inquiries rolling in. Once SPC staff saw students adopting the Engagement Hub, they sprung into action and provided quick responses, putting many students’ minds at ease.
“The Communities functionality was a great tool for hurricane communications,” Harvey said. “It was an easy way to have a single student post a comment and get a response that would help a large group of people.”
TitanHub received 19,000 unique visits during the month of September, with most of those visits concentrated around the hurricane. Of those visits, the TitanHub Updates page had the highest traffic with 2,415 visits.
“Quite a few of them were just appreciative to have a place to ask questions,” Harvey said. “We had a few people thank us for getting back to them.”
Harvey further elaborated how most students typically looked at other questions posted and took action based on answers they saw in the group. Thanks to Pathify’s mobile/web parity, students found information easily — regardless of where they were. Even for students who passively used the group, it helped put their minds at ease throughout the hurricane.
“People were nervous, so just having a way to communicate with your students to say ‘No you don’t have to worry about your homework. Just be safe.’ was extremely helpful,” Harvey said.
“People were nervous, so just having a way to communicate with your students to say ‘no you don’t have to worry about your homework. Just be safe’ was extremely helpful.”
CHRISTOPHER HARVEY
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, ACADEMIC TECHNOLOGY
Creating a Single Gateway
Due to SPC’s success communicating with its students during Hurricane Ian, the institution continues seeing steady growth in its use of the Engagement Hub. In December 2022, TitanHub finished the month with over 95% user adoption.
With Harvey and his team recognizing Pathify’s effectiveness in an emergency, the institution rolled out TitanHub to its remaining campuses. Many staff members initially skeptical of the Engagement Hub’s implementation now fully support it for their students.
Harvey sees the Engagement Hub as a single gateway for the college’s entire student body and can’t imagine an investment in any future technology incompatible with Pathify.
“My voice is going to be involved in the process going forward and my recommendation would be that any future purchase we have should tie into Pathify,” Harvey said. “Otherwise, it’s not going to get as much traffic because it won’t be right in front of students.”
SPC students now use TitanHub to access everything from courses to career services and academic advising. Its widespread adoption gives the institution confidence in expanding use cases through Pathify’s Recipe Library and new strategic partnerships, including with Modern Campus.
“The more functionality we add to the Engagement Hub while saving time and adding convenience, the happier people will be,” Harvey said.
CHRISTOPHER HARVEY
The more functionality we add to the Engagement Hub while saving time and adding convenience, the happier people will be.
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, ACADEMIC TECHNOLOGY
