Office of Academic Insight welcomes new members to Insight Lab

The Office of Academic Insight, or OAI, continues to advance its efforts to support student achievement with the expansion of the Insight Lab. Earlier this month, Rachel Whitman Rotch and Charlie Wilder joined the lab as senior analysts to provide analytical support to units wishing to better understand how to use data to support student success.

Launched in fall 2021, the lab facilitates student achievement research studies and supports data-driven programming. Home to the university’s Quality Enhancement Plan, or QEP, AUBURNACHIEVE, Rotch and Wilder are leading the implementation of Auburn’s five-year strategy to improve student career outcomes as part of its 2023 reaffirmation process by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges.

Working with an Advisory Council, Rotch and Wilder will engage with faculty and units to apply educational research to improve student achievement. In addition, they will collaborate with campus partners to plan and design data-informed interventions and publicize programmatic successes that integrate best practices.

“Rotch and Wilder are able to effectively combine their academic backgrounds, training, and experiences to leverage student engagement and graduate outcome data to inform student achievement initiatives. In addition to being exceptional analysts, they are both highly capable of building strong connections with our campus partners and a variety of stakeholders,” said Katie Boyd, director of the Office of Academic Insight and AUBURNACHIEVE. “We are excited to welcome them to the OAI team.”

A 2021 graduate of Auburn’s doctoral program in industrial and organizational psychology, Rotch first joined the Provost’s Office last summer to support the unit’s strategic plan reporting process. Her academic training emphasized applied research to improve the well-being and performance of people and organizations by implementing quantitative and qualitative research and data analysis. 

Wilder joined Auburn in 2019 to oversee the university’s Co-op Program and subsequently the Samuel Ginn College of Engineering’s Internship Program. Prior to Auburn, Wilder was a career center liaison to the Bagley College of Engineering at Mississippi State University. While there, he developed a statistical model to predict the influence of co-op and internship experience and GPA on post-graduation employment and wrote a doctoral dissertation on mentoring and organizational commitment for co-op students.