KEY TARGET AREAS &
SPECIFIC ACTION STRATEGIES
FOR PROMOTING STUDENT PERSISTENCE
Drawing on a base of higher education research, scholarship, and practice, the following five general areas are offered as potential zones of influence or arenas for retention intervention:
#1. Institutional Research: Student Assessment & Program Evaluation
#2. First-Year Experience: Proactive Programs & Practices
#3. Academic Affairs: Curriculum, Instruction, & Academic-Support Services
#4. Student Affairs: Co-Curriculum, Student Life, & Student-Support Services
#5. College Administration: Institutional Procedures, Policies, & Priorities
In the following sections of this manuscript, each of these general target areas is accompanied by an itemized set of specific retention-promoting practices.
TARGET AREA #1.
INSTITUTIONAL RESEARCH:
STUDENT ASSESSMENT & PROGRAM EVALUATION
1.1 Conduct institutional (local) assessment of student retention and attrition patterns from entry-to-exit that includes the assessment of: (a) educational goals and intentions of students at college entry—to serve as basis for subsequent student tracking; (b) percentage of student attrition from term to term; and (c) percentage of student attrition that occurs during and between academic terms.
1.2 Administer student satisfaction/opinion surveys, and compare: (a) the responses of students from different subgroups/subpopulations (e.g., commuters vs. residents; native vs. international students), (b) students interested in different academic programs (e.g., science, humanities, undeclared majors), (c) returning vs. non-returning students, (d) student responses versus those of faculty, staff, and administrators.
1.3 Conduct qualitative research (e.g., student focus groups) to assess students’ needs and feelings about the quality of the college experience.
1.4 Adopt administrative procedures for assuring that withdrawing students who are eligible to return to the college are apprised of their option to do so, and that they leave fully informed about what procedures they are to follow to be re-enrolled or re-admitted.
1.5 Conduct “exit interviews” with students who intend to depart, or are in the process of departing.
1.6 Survey students (by mail, by phone, or on-line) who have already withdrawn to assess their reasons for departing and their retrospective perceptions of the college.
1.7 Survey or interview sophomores to assess their retrospective perceptions of how well the college’s first-year program facilitated their transition from high school to higher education, and what advice they would have for improving the quality of the first-year experience.
1.8 Conduct assessments that compare pre-intervention retention rates with post-intervention retention rates. (For example, compare the average retention rate of students during the two-year period just prior to implementation of a retention program with the average retention rate for the two-year period immediately following program implementation).
TARGET AREA #2.
THE FIRST-YEAR EXPERIENCE:
PROACTIVE PROGRAMS & PRACTICES
2.1 Provide a substantive orientation program for new students that orients them to people (not just buildings), and gives them the opportunity to interact meaningfully with peers, faculty, and support staff.
2.2 Expose new students to experienced and trained peer orientation-week leaders during the orientation process.
2.3 Include a component of new-student orientation that is designed for students’ parents and family members and discuss the role they can play in supporting first-year student adjustment and success.
2.4 Adopt a celebratory ritual at college entry—e.g., convocation ceremony—at which time new students are formally welcomed and “inducted” into the college community.
2.5 “Extend” new-student orientation into the critical first term by means of an extended-orientation course or new-student seminar.
2.6 Provide first-year students with the opportunity to co-register for the same block of courses during the same academic term so that they can develop “learning communities” (e.g., linking a new-student seminar with an English composition course).
2.7 Provide special high school-to-college transitional support for academically at-risk students before they encounter a full load of college courses (e.g., summer bridge or summer transition program).
2.8 Assess the basic skills of all incoming students at college entry to diagnose their academic preparedness and to place them in courses or programs that are commensurate with their entering levels of academic-skill development.
2.9 Disseminate current information on the characteristics and needs of first-year students to faculty, staff, and administration (e.g., via a first-year experience newsletter).
2.10 Increase the percentage of first-year courses taught by full-time faculty—as opposed to graduate teaching assistants, part-time or adjunct faculty.
(Note: This suggestion stems from research which indicates that, although the teaching effectiveness of part-time faculty is equivalent to full-time faculty, part-timers are less available to students outside the classroom—often because they are working part-time at other educational institutions or in other occupations.)
2.11 “Front load” experienced and effective instructors to teach first-year courses.
2.12 Increase the number of introductory, general-education courses taken by first-year students that have class sizes less than 25.
2.13 Maintain low class size for foundational, academic-skill development courses commonly taken by first-year students—e.g., elementary mathematics, writing (composition), and oral communication (public speaking).
2.14 “Front load” academic advisors who have the interest, competence, and commitment to effectively advise first-year students.
2.15 Adopt intentionally designed practices or procedures that ensure first-year students have contact with their academic advisors during the first six weeks of the first term (for example, by means of a class assignment in the new-student seminar or another first-term course which requires students to meet with their advisor and develop a tentative long-range, educational plan).
2.16 Utilize peer support programs in which more experienced student paraprofessionals are trained to facilitate new students’ social and emotional development during their critical first year of college life (e.g., peer mentors, peer counselors, peer residential advisors).
2.17 Establish first-year residential programs that are intentionally designed to create an educational, “living-learning” environment in which there is meaningful student development programming and where academic experiences are integrated with residential life. (For example, make any or all of the following academic services available in student residences: computer access, peer tutoring, academic advisement, faculty office hours, seminars, colloquia, classes, test-review sessions.)
2.18 Maximize on-campus residential opportunities for “at-risk” students, and strategically assign students to particular residences, residential floors, or residential advisors with the deliberate intent of enhancing their retention, academic achievement, and personal development during their first year of college.
2.19 Intentionally assign roommates to campus residences in a strategic attempt to maximize social integration and friendship formation.
2.20 Develop an early-warning system for first-year students who are displaying excessive class absenteeism, in which they are routinely referred to their academic advisor or an academic support service.
2.21 Develop a “red-flag” procedure or system for identifying and connecting with first-year students who show signs that they are intending to leave the college (e.g., failure to pre-register for next term’s classes; failure to reapply for financial aid; failure to renew residential life agreement).
2.22 Acknowledge first-year student achievement by means of an end-of-the-year congratulatory letter or ceremony for students who persisted to completion of the first year in good academic standing, with special recognition for those students who achieved academic excellence or made significant contributions to student life outside the classroom.
2.23 Remember that transfer students are also first-year students who are new to the college; their transition and retention may be facilitated by the following practices:
□ offering a transfer-student orientation program or transfer-student convocation to welcome new transfer students and integrate them with native students;
□ allowing junior transfers the opportunity to live on campus in student residences with juniors and seniors—versus limiting their options to freshman dorms or off-campus housing;
□ providing transfer students with the opportunity to apply for campus housing and to register for classes at the same time as native students—as opposed to automatically placing them last on the list;
□ designating a particular member or group within the college community (e.g., staff member, faculty member, or cross-functional committee) to be in charge of coordinating orientation and transitional support programs for first-year transfer
students—as opposed to letting this responsibility “fall through the cracks” of an administrative structure that is not explicitly designed to meet the needs of new students who enter the college after their freshman year.
TARGET AREA #3.
ACADEMIC AFFAIRS:
CURRICULUM, INSTRUCTION, & ACADEMIC-SUPPORT SERVICES
FACULTY ORIENTATION & DEVELOPMENT:
3.1 Conduct a new-faculty orientation program that includes discussion of the faculty’s role in promoting student retention.
3.2 Conduct an ongoing faculty development program designed to enhance instructional quality and promote teaching-for-retention strategies, such as: (a) developing rapport with students (e.g., learning students’ names and personal interests); (b) actively involving students with the subject matter, with the instructor, and with other students; (c) engaging students in collaborative learning inside and outside the classroom; (d) providing students with feedback on their academic performance that is prompt, proactive, and personalized (e.g., early written feedback on individual tests and assignments); and (e) promoting contact with students outside the classroom (e.g., faculty-student conferences).
FACULTY ROLES, REWARDS, & RECOGNITION:
3.3 Increase the weight given to student-centered, retention-promoting faculty activities when making decisions about faculty retention, promotion, and tenure.
3.4 Publicly recognize and reward faculty for excellence in student-centered, retention-promoting activities.
3.5 Encourage and reward faculty for research and scholarship relating to student learning, student development, and student retention.
3.6 Adopt and enforce a stated policy about the minimum number of weekly office hours that faculty should be available to students, so as to ensure that students have opportunities to interact with faculty outside the classroom.
3.7 Explicitly encourage, recognize, and reward faculty for involvement with students outside the classroom.
3.8 Intentionally design academic programs, structures, or procedures that explicitly foster student-faculty interaction outside the classroom (e.g., faculty-student mentoring programs, faculty-student research teams, faculty-student teaching teams, faculty-sponsored student clubs and organizations).
3.9 Assess and weigh student-centeredness and sensitivity to student-retention issues during the process of recruiting and selecting faculty to the college. (For example, include students and student development professionals on faculty-hiring committees and, as part of the hiring process, ask faculty candidates to provide a teaching demonstration, or engage in a simulated interaction with students.
ACADEMIC ADVISEMENT:
3.10 Require students to confer with, and obtain a signature from an academic advisor before they can register for, add, or drop courses.
3.11 Educate academic advisors about the need to avoid the conception that advising is synonymous with course scheduling, and provide them with a substantive advisor orientation, training, and development program that prepares them to provide comprehensive developmental academic advising—i.e., personalized advising that relates students’ present academic experiences to their future life plans, and connects students with key campus-support professionals who can most effectively address their present needs and facilitate realization of their future plans.
3.12 Establish an advisor:student ratio (e.g., 1:20) that is conducive to developmental academic advising.
3.13 Provide special academic advising support for undecided students—e.g., pair them with advisors who are specially trained to work with students who are uncertain about their academic major and future career plans.
3.14 Periodically conduct group advising sessions, whereby students with similar academic or career interests (e.g., sociology majors) are advised together in order to promote peer support and collaboration with respect to academic and career planning.
3.15 Select and train peer academic advisors to support faculty advisors and facilitate the course-selection and registration process.
3.16 Develop a system for recruiting and selecting advisors to identify faculty advisors who have the interest and commitment needed to provide developmental academic advising (e.g., adopt advising experience/effectiveness as one criterion in the recruitment and selection of new faculty).
3.17 Develop an evaluation system that provides advisors with individual feedback on the quality of their academic advising.
3.18 Develop a system for recognizing and rewarding high-quality academic advising—e.g., have advising “count” in decisions about faculty retention, promotion or tenure, and in decisions about “merit pay” or salary increases.
LEARNING-RESOURCE CENTER SERVICES:
3.19 Make learning-support services highly visible to students (e.g., pictures and campus phone numbers of support professionals advertised in campus flyers, posters, newsletters, or the college newspaper).
3.20 Take institution-initiated action to deliver support services intrusively to students through such practices as: (a) bringing support services to students on their “turf” (e.g., providing workshops in student residences or the student union), (b) integrating support services into the classroom (e.g., student-service professionals as guest speakers in class; peer tutors invited to class), and (c) requiring, or providing students with strong incentives to take advantage of support services (e.g., as a course assignment or as a condition for registration or graduation).
3.21 Implement an efficient and effective communication-and-referral system whereby classroom instructors routinely refer students in need of academic assistance to support service professionals and classroom instructors who, in turn, receive feedback about whether referred students actually act on the referral—and, if so, what type of support they received.
3.22 Establish an early-warning or early-alert system through which first-term students receive feedback about their academic progress (grades) at midterm, or earlier, so corrective action can be taken before final course grades are determined.
3.23 Maximize availability of, and accessibility to, peer tutoring—i.e., academic assistance provided by experienced and trained students.
3.24 Have supplemental instruction (SI) available for “high-risk courses” (classes with historically high attrition rates or low grades) and/or “gateway courses” (classes that either enable or block student entry to college majors), whereby students who have done well in such courses, re-attend the class and help novice learners during additional (supplemental) class sessions that are regularly scheduled outside of class time.
3.25 Devise special-support strategies for students on academic probation (e.g., peer tutoring or mentoring).
3.26 Develop academic mentoring programs whereby student protégés are mentored by more experienced undergraduate students, graduate students, faculty, staff, alumni, or community volunteers (e.g., career professionals or retirees).
3.27 Have academic support professionals provide instructional faculty with diagnostic feedback (e.g., via academic-support service newsletters, presentations or workshops for faculty) about the types of academic assistance that students typically need or seek, and common errors in students’ approaches to learning that are witnessed in academic support settings.
3.28 Provide course-integrated library instruction, whereby students learn information search, retrieval, and evaluation skills within the context of specific course content or course assignments (e.g., research paper or group project).
TARGET AREA #4.
STUDENT AFFAIRS:
CO-CURRICULUM, STUDENT LIFE, & STUDENT-SUPPORT SERVICES
4.1 Offer numerous and varied co-curricular opportunities on campus that are intentionally designed to promote student involvement, especially in the following areas: (a) student participation in college governance, (b) campus employment—e.g., work-study, (c) internships—on and off campus, (d) volunteerism (service learning), and (e) student clubs or organizations—including opportunities for students to initiate and create new ones of their own choosing.
4.2 Promote co-curricular opportunities visibly and “intrusively” on campus, and aggressively recruit students to participate—e.g., “activities periods” designated and reserved at times when no classes are scheduled; personal invitations from peer leaders, academic advisors, faculty, or student development staff; individual mailings or phone contacts.
4.3 Provide students with incentives or recognition for co-curricular involvement, such as (a) free food, prizes, or privileges for participants—e.g., priority parking or priority registration, (b) participation required as course assignments or designated as extra-credit opportunities, (c) awards events or ceremonies recognizing student contributions to the co-curriculum, and/or (d) student involvement experiences documented on an official co-curricular or student development “transcript”?
4.4 Forge meaningful integration between the curriculum and co-curriculum through coordinated planning and delivery, so that students see the “connections” between their in-class and out-of-class experiences.
4.5 Integrate experiential learning into the curriculum, enabling students to gain meaningful real-world experience, such as: (a) service-learning (volunteer) experiences that may also serve to test student interest in different careers, and (b) internship opportunities or cooperative education experiences that are linked to the students’ intended or declared academic major.
4.6 Seek to create multiple and meaningful work-study (on-campus employment) opportunities for economically disadvantaged students that are designed to (a) help them afford college, (b) promote their retention by connecting them to the institution, and (c) enable them to gain real-life work experience.
4.7 Create multiple leadership opportunities for students on campus (e.g., peer counseling, peer tutoring, peer academic advising, peer orientation-week leaders).
4.8 Formally recognize or reward students’ leadership contributions to the college.
4.9 Design and schedule co-curricular experiences with sensitivity to the needs and commitments of commuter students. For example: (a) schedule activities at times that are conducive to commuter participation—e.g., early morning or early evening, (b) employ communication strategies to keep commuters “in the loop”—e.g., commuter message boards, newsletters, hot lines, or web pages, (c) designate a campus place or space for commuters to socialize and network—e.g., commuter lounge, and (d) design special activities that are targeted specifically for commuters—e.g., commuter appreciation days.
TARGET AREA #5.
COLLEGE ADMINISTRATION:
PROCEDURES, POLICIES, & PRIORITIES
5.1 Encourage high-level administrators to demonstrate visible support for retention initiatives by their presence at retention programming events, by comments they make during formal addresses, and in their written statements or documents (e.g., college memos, position statements, strategic plans).
5.2 Encourage administrators to seek and provide necessary resources (human, fiscal, and physical) to support a viable, comprehensive retention program.
5.3 Have retention programs “built into” the institutional budget and administrative structure of the college (e.g., organizational blueprint or flowchart), thus enhancing their prospects for long-term survival. 5.4 Request administrators to provide incentives for faculty and staff to promote their involvement in retention programs and initiatives (e.g., stipends, mini-grants, release time, travel and professional development funding, administrative or student assistance).
5.5 Solicit administrative support for the professional development of faculty and staff in areas relating to student retention and student success.
5.6 Encourage administrators to recognize or reward faculty and staff contributions to first-year students (e.g., meritorious performance awards; letters of commendation; credit toward retention, promotion, or advancement).
5.7 Seek administrative encouragement of, and support for, college rituals that are designed to build campus community and increase institutional identification among students.
5.8 Incorporate a retention committee into the college’s table of organization to ensure that the issue of student retention becomes “institutionalized” and receives sustained attention, and be sure that the composition of this committee has diverse representation—which reflects the full range of institutional services that can impact student retention (e.g., academic affairs, student affairs, first-year experience, institutional research, academic advising, and financial aid).
RECOMMENDED REFERENCES & RESOURCES ON STUDENT RETENTION
Beal, P., & Noel, L. (1980). What works in student retention. The American College Testing Program and The National Center for Higher Education Management Systems. (Eric Reproduction Service No. 197 635)
Braxton, J. M. (2000). Reworking the departure puzzle: New theory and research on college student retention. Nashville: University of Vanderbilt Press.
Braxton, J. M. (Ed.)(2001-2002). Using theory and research to improve college student retention. Journal of College Student Retention: Research, Theory & Practice, 3(1), 1- 118.
Lenning, O. T., Beal, P. E., & Sauer, K. (1980). Retention and attrition: Evidence for action and research. Boulder, CO: National Center for Higher Education Management Systems.
Lenning, O. T., Sauer, K., & Beal, P. E. (1980). Student retention strategies. AAHE- ERIC/Higher Education Research Report No. 8. Washington, D.C.: American Association for Higher Education.
National Institute of Independent Colleges and Universities (1990). Undergraduate completion and persistence at four-year colleges and universities. Washington, DC: Author.
Noel, L., Levitz, R., & Kaufmann, J. (1982). Organizing the campus for retention. Iowa City, Iowa: American College Testing Program & The National Center for Academic Advancement of Educational Practices.
Terrell, M. C., & Wright, D. J. (Eds.) (1988). From survival to success: Promoting minority student retention. NASPA Monograph No. 9. Washington, DC: National Association of Student Personnel Administrators.
Resources:
Journal of College Student Retention: Research, Theory & Practice. Amityville, NY: Baywood Publishing. (http://baywood.com)
Recruitment & Retention in Higher Education (Newsletter). Madison, WI: Magna Publications. (www.magnapubs.com)
Website:
© 1999 thomas.kesterson@kctcs.net
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