Humanizing graduation rates

A community college wanted to figure out how to adequately support the large percentage of students who quietly stop attending school, so in the future more students can successfully complete their degrees. The college was struggling to convey to faculty and staff the magnitude and importance of the problem, and asked me to create several data visualizations to communicate the raw data in a more intuitive and impactful way. The goal was to inspire faculty and staff to embrace new initiatives aimed at supporting students, which required meaningful faculty buy-in and effort to sustain.

First, in close collaboration with the director of institutional research, we identified the key data points to communicate and brainstormed several potential ways to visually portray the data. One core concept we wanted to convey was that these are not just numbers – there are real people and faces behind each data point – people whose lives could be changed by completing a college degree, and who we should miss when they disappear. So, one of the primary visualizations we designed was literally putting faces to the numbers. We took a photo of an actual classroom full of students from the college, and I photoshopped out one person at a time so we could animate out the disappearance of students from the room, based on what percentage of students drop out each semester. By the end of four years, the classroom is starkly empty with a dismal 5 students remaining.

Several iterations of the visualization based on feedback improved the visual impact of how students disappeared from the classroom, as well as how the relevant data was communicated. The final result was a short, simple video that was shared with faculty and staff and proved to be effective at communicating the intended information and provoking a strong emotional response.