Leave of Absence Success Plans

A Starfish LOA Success Plan outlines steps (called To-Do’s) to help maximize your time away from RIT and position you for success upon your return. Advisors can build Starfish LOA Success Plans in partnership with you as you are planning to take a Leave of Absence from RIT. As you complete items within your plan, you can request your advisor to complete and close the items from your plan.

When an LOA success Plan has been created, it will be sent to your RIT email address. It will also be available to you anytime in your Starfish account.

Access your LOA Success Plan in Starfish

  1. Access Starfish
  2. Click the navigation menu in the upper left corner of the screen.
  3. Once the side menu opens, click on Plans.
  4. There is a blue region covering about 1/4 of the menu. In this region, there is a circle meant to hold the student’s profile picture. Under that is the “Student Name” and there is an “x” icon to the left of the circle with an orange box around it. Next to the “Student Name” is a “v” icon that is used to expand the rest of the menu. Below the blue region, is the expanded menu which has buttons to various pages: “Dashboard”, “My Success Network”, “Upcoming”, “Messages”, “Plans”, “Courses”, and “Request Help”. There is an red box around “Plans”. Blow these, there are two hyperlinks – “Privacy Policy” and “Terms of Use”.
  5. On this screen, you will see all success plans created for you.
  6. By clicking on the View Details button on the right side of the screen, you can view your success plan and have the option to print it.

A grey screen outlining the LOA success Plans and the titles of the to-dos. There is a blue link labeled "View Details" with a red box around it.

This is one of the view of an LOA Success plan. It starts with a paragraph overview of the plan. Below that is the plan itslef with all the to-do items in the created success plan. In the right corner there is a button labeled "Print" with a red box around it

Request an Item to be Closed

Specific items in an LOA Success Plan are To-Dos a student should complete to return to RIT. Once you have completed one of the To-Do items, you can request it to be closed, letting the advisor know you have completed that task.

  1. Access Starfish
  2. From the Starfish My Success Network page, click the navigation menu Blue square with three horizontal white lines. in the upper left corner of the screen. 
  3. Once the side menu opens click on Dashboard.
  4. Your To-Do items from the plan will be displayed in the Notifications section.
  5. Student Dashboard screenshot. The left side is a week view of the students calendar. The right side is a view of all alerts/notifications
  6. If you have completed one of the To-Do items in your success plan and would like it to be closed, select the Mark as Complete link.
  7. Student Dashboard screenshot. The left side is a week view of the students calendar. The right side is a view of all alerts/notifications. There is a link labeled "MARK AS COMPLETE" with a green box around it
  8. Select a reason for marking it complete
  9. Please note that some To-Do items will require a comment when closing to provide your advisor with additional details
  10. This screen is title "Mark as Complete" with a description of the to-do item that a student is trying to complete. Below the description are option tro select, "I complete this item!", "I don't need to do this item." , or "I have another reason" below the options is a comment box and below that is the option to either cancel or "Request Review"
  11. Click Request Review
  12. Once you have requested your To-Do items to be close, your advisor will review your request and complete it or follow-up with you for more information. A To-Do item is not cleared from your plan until your advisor approves the request