PROPEL: Empowered to flourish
Re-designing student success through integrated data, human connection, and personalized support.
Flourishing is foundational to academic success
At ASU, we know that flourishing is foundational to academic success. Project PROPEL (Positive Relationships, Optimized Potential, and Enhanced Learning) celebrates the humanity of our students and builds a structure at scale that holistically caters to their success.
Imagine transforming
the student approach
By integrating academic support and creating personalized
engagement, the most sophisticated student data ecosystem
is able to create systemic care.
Real-time insights
Faculty who receive real-time insights and are equipped with data to curate individualized learning.
Adaptive support
Automated AI systems to generate tailored course material help based on a student’s needs.
Human connection
Student coaches have access to flourishing-informed training, videos, and resources that adapt to what students require at that moment.
Why it matters
Where traditional support models in higher education ask, “What’s wrong?” PROPEL seeks to shift the paradigm. It asks, “What’s possible?” That difference changes everything. We’re building on strengths, and it fundamentally redefines what success means.
Today’s students face different challenges than students faced even five years ago, and many aren’t singular. Whether they are first-generation students needing guidance, managing a mental health crisis while trying to keep up academically, working full-time while balancing multiple obligations, or a combination of these. Traditional support models were designed around a singular path, focusing on singular problems. Remedial education, financial aid, and counseling, for example, have often functioned as separate systems that students must navigate on their own or enter by default, with little coordination across their support.
PROPEL is different
It’s a new data-informed model that is responsive to the complexity of students’ needs, meeting them where they are. Designed with intentionality to allow students to flourish.
When engagement dips, PROPEL routes students to the right support: peer coaching, academic scaffolding, or intensive one-on-one help. Support becomes specific and grounded in what students are doing well.
Responsive personalization
How PROPEL adapts as students evolve
PROPEL integrates four pillars:
The flourishing model, life design principles, analytics integrator, and tiered care into a unified ecosystem where data informs care, care honors agency, and agency is strengthened by insight.
As students evolve, support scales alongside that evolution.
The flourishing model
PROPEL builds predictive analytics that track engagement patterns and wellbeing signals, that goes beyond the GPA and provide an opportunity to intercede before student disengagement occurs. It flags students at risk and routes them to the right support, whether that's peer connection, academic scaffolding, or intensive coaching.
Grounded in the flourishing framework, we recognize student support is multidimensional: examining positive emotion, positive relationships, purpose, and engagement alongside academic achievements. Strengthening flourishing dimensions could create momentum across academic success. By incorporating these measurements we can proactively match students to services and resources that are individually tailored to their unique strengths and aspirations.
Life by Design: Intentionally shaping the student journey
Life by Design asks students, “what matters most to you?” That becomes the starting point for students to explore what is possible, allows them to test ideas, and refine their direction. Drawing from design thinking and positive psychology, Life Design is an iterative approach that builds agency, adaptability, resilience, and self-awareness. Students are empowered to design a future that aligns with their interests and values.
Analytics integrator: Transforming data into personalized insights
Building on previous institutional investments in student support, Analytics Integrator 2.0 is a machine learning model and decision-support backbone that transforms student data into actionable, real-time insight. By identifying patterns associated with academic risk before students reach a point of crisis, it enables a proactive approach to support rather than a reactive one.
It provides faculty and success coaches visibility into students’ needs, strengths, and opportunities for engagement, while also helping determine the level of support each student may need. Enriched by flourishing data, this visibility makes it possible to match students to personalized interventions and resources before challenges become barriers.
Support that adapts to you: Tiered care and personalization
Tiered care and personalization are the foundation to how PROPEL matches students with the support they need. Drawing from insights from Analytics Integrator 2.0, PROPEL creates a coherent ecosystem of student engagement. Rather than relying on a singular model of support, PROPEL uses classroom instruction, peer coaching, academic support, and mentorship to create a dynamic partnership that honors a student’s agency. As students’ needs change, the system evolves, providing timely support through in-class support, tutoring, coaching, or connections to campus resources.
This tiered model is designed to connect classroom practice, co-curricular support, and institutional analytics into a coherent support ecosystem. By removing fragmented interventions, PROPEL creates a more human-centered student support system.
Tier three
Universal support
A foundational tier that removes barriers to support and provides immediate help when needed. This includes embedded microlearning videos and academic skill resources to be integrated directly into the course experience.
Tier two
Targeted support
For students needing a deeper connection, peer coaching, AI-supported tutoring, and group-based learning communities are intentionally matched with the student to build skills alongside a sense of belonging.
Tier one
Intensive support
For the student who needs a more dedicated touch to navigate complex challenges, a flourishing coach partners with them to create a plan that includes one-on-one support to help overcome barriers and be fully seen and supported.
The journey
This is how we plan to build it.
Year one
Infrastructure
Established the foundation that powered PROPEL’s promise. With the development of Analytics Integrator 2.0 alongside micro-learning videos and the launch of tier three piloted with 500 LEAD students.
Demonstrated that integrated, data-informed support can drive measurable improvement in engagement, retention and the flourish model.
Year two
Expansion
Tiers 1 and 2 launch alongside the focus on personalized care. Self-directed content, AI-driven chatbots, and digital learning communities go live.
Flourishing coaches are introduced as well as team teaching and collaborative learning structures activated across campus.
Year three
Full implementation
Project PROPEL will become a replicable, scalable intervention model ready for broad institutional adoption.
Year three will focus on deployment, refinement and future scalability while expanding all three tiers.
Who we are
Meet the team
Project PROPEL brings together educators and researchers with decades of combined experience in quantitative and qualitative research aligned with student success. Each member of this research team is deeply committed to our core mission: reimagining how universities support the whole student.
Principal investigator
Sukhwant Jhaj
Vice Provost for Academic Innovation and Student Achievement,
Office of the University Provost & Dean, University College
Project leads
Raquel Fong
Director of Explore and Interim Director of Success by Design,
UC University College Dean Office
Stephanie El Khoury
Student Services Researcher,
University College, Dean's office
Steering committee
Esteban Aucejo
Dean's Council Distinguished Scholar and Professor, Department of Economics
Diana Sesate
Senior Director, Institutional Research and Evaluation
Phil Arcuria
Senior Director, Actionable Analytics
Aaron Krasnow
Associate Vice President and Director, Health and Counseling Services
Sarah Martin
Instructor, Explore
Laura Shaw
Associate Teaching Professor, Explore
Teddy Moya
Instructor, Success by Design
To our donors, thank you
PROPEL was made possible thanks to the generous support of a donor committed to advancing equitable student support and the betterment of the student experience.
PROPEL helps students to develop clarity of who they are, with agency to shape their futures, and with a support system to ensure they flourish.
Get in touch
Curious about PROPEL?
Want to know how this integrated approach might work at your institution? Let’s connect and discover what’s possible together!