Flight Path

Flight Plan is the name of Tennessee Tech’s former strategic plan (2013-2018) that outlined the university vision and goals for improvement as well as growth.

The Flight Path early intervention program is an initiative from the former strategic plan designed to target chronic absenteeism. Residence Halls Assistants will make personal contact with absent students in a positive and encouraging manner to emphasize the lasting negative impact of poor attendance and ensure that students are aware of the multitude of resources the university has to help them. More information about Flight Path is available at tntech.edu/flightpath.

Flight Path is NOT an academic policy. It is a student services initiative designed to help first-year students cultivate habits that are closely associated with academic success in college and make certain that students are aware of the services available to support them.

Instructors should submit Last Date of Attendance in Eagle Online for any student with a status of "Registered" or "Web Registered" for their course, regardless of classification. Last Date of Attendance (LDA) is a requirement by the Records, Registration, and Graduation Office (see their Faculty - Important Reminders section) and documents when a student has stopped attending class(es).

No – the information reported through Flight Path is expressly designed to improve student support services such as academic advising, academic coaching and other student services. Through the use of the Flight Path initiative, we can work to prevent students from potentially losing aid due to poor academic performance.

Many instructors may use TechExpress (the campus portal) for recording attendance for their class. This information is then communicated to TechConnect.

There are two methods instructors may use to record class attendance using TechExpress:

• Roll Call Attendance
• QR Code-Based Attendance

Information about both of these methods is available within the Self-Service Portal knowledgebase by clicking on this following link - https://services.tntech.edu/TDClient/1878/Portal/KB/ArticleDet?ID=133681.

If you have issues with the QR code, you may receive an error stating "It looks like we are unable to access your Express Device ID." (screenshot below)

If you receive this error message, you will need to do as it states. You will need to either...

1. Exit your incognito window or inPrivate browsing and rescan the QR code
2. Click "Let's get it registered" so that you can register your device with TechExpress and then rescan the QR code.

If you still having issues with this process..., please reach out to the IT Help Desk for more assistance via email at helpdesk@tntech.edu or via phone at (931) 372-3975.

Flight Path is designed to identify students with chronic absenteeism. These are students whom routinely miss class which causes a greater likelihood of receiving a lower grade or failing the course. This has an even further impact when the course is a pre-requisite that skills and concepts taught will be needed for subsequent course work.

If students are ill, they should stay in, seek any health care needed, then contact their instructor(s) to determine what information and content was missed that day.

If students must miss class for other personal reasons, communicating to their instructor is just as important.

Additionally, students working on or off campus should always provide their employer their class schedule to ensure that their work schedule is not conflicting with their class commitment and essentially the reason they are routinely missing class.

The Residential Life staff members that participate in Flight Path will not have access to any confidential academic information. The focus of the conversation is to remind students of the importance of attendance and to make students aware of available academic and social resources. However, academic advisors and faculty members are available to meet with students to discuss specific academic information, if needed.

The attendance information collected as part of Flight Path is subjected to the same federal guidelines that govern the use of all postsecondary student records: the Family Education Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA). For more information on FERPA, please read Tennessee Tech's FERPA statement as well as an explanation of privacy rights.

Please direct any questions or concerns about Flight Path to Allen Mullis (amullis@tntech.edu), Executive Director for Student Success.