Gamified retention with Ball State Achievements

Business problem

Ball State needed to improve persistence and four-year completion for Pell Grant students, not only in the classroom, but in the “college experience” activities that correlate with success: student orgs, career programs, recreation, and campus resources students already had but under-used.

Role

Gunnar was on the Emerging Technologies and Digital Corps build team named in national press, co-developing the native mobile clients and cloud-backed achievement platform with student developers under Jonathan Huer’s organization, in partnership with Student Affairs (Kay Bales, project lead). He contributed full-stack leadership on a product that let campus units author achievements without shipping new app releases, while Digital Corps students executed across disciplines.

Stack & approach

Native iOS and Android apps distributed through the public stores; a cloud administrative backend where units such as University College, Recreation Services, Career Center, and Student Life created and deployed achievements; in-app “Bennies” currency redeemable for bookstore and campus rewards. Funded in phases through Next Generation Learning Challenges and Educause (beta fall 2013; native rebuild over six months; multi-year program from fall 2014). Built in-house with Digital Corps, not outsourced.

Tradeoffs

Gamification had to nudge behavior without reducing college to points-chasing. The team emphasized campus-provided rewards and engagement with existing services rather than cash prizes alone, and treated the program as a multi-year experiment, measuring credit hours, GPA, and engagement alongside qualitative student affairs goals. Retiring the app years later does not erase what it proved about in-house mobile delivery at a public university.

Outcome

• Roughly 400 Pell recipients engaged in the first full year.
• Early reporting cited higher credit loads and GPAs among active users versus non-users.
• Campus Technology Innovator Award (2015, student systems and services).
• National press coverage, including a featured team profile naming the Emerging Technologies builders.
• Product later left the app stores, but remains a reference example of student-affairs-driven, technically ambitious mobile work.