Retention at Radford University: Current Status and Recommendations for

Enhancement

Submitted by

Steve Lerch, Mike Dunn, and Michele Jenkins

Presented to

Dr. Sam Minner, Provost

And

The Academic Affairs Leadership Team

December 5, 2012

Table of Contents

Page

Introduction …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 3

Background ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. 4

Improving Retention Rates at Radford University ………………………………………………………………………….. 5

Proactive Initiatives: Establishing an Institutional Culture Fostering Student Success ………... 5

Condition 1: Expectations ……………………………………………………………………………………… 6

Condition 2: Advice ………………………………………………………………………………………………. 7

Condition 3: Support ……………………………………………………………………………………………. 11

Condition 4: Involvement …………………………………………………………………………………….. 16

Condition 5: Learning …………………………………………………………………………………………… 17

Additional Proactive Recommendations ………………………………………………………………. 19

Reactive Initiatives: Establishing Programs Supporting Academic Recovery ………………………. 20

Current Policies: Probation and Suspension …………………………………………………………. 20

Current Academic Recovery Programs …………………………………………………………………. 21

Current Readmission Policy ………………………………………………………………………………….. 22

Recommendations for New Academic Policies and Academic Recovery Programs .. 22

Suspension Policies ………………………………………………………………………………….. 22

Probation Policy ………………………………………………………………………………………. 22

Recovery Programs ………………………………………………………………………………….. 23

Readmission Procedures …………………………………………………………………………. 23

Final Thoughts ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. 24

References ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. 26

Appendices ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. 27

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Introduction

Each student who matriculates at an institution of higher education is at risk to persist and graduate. The best institutions have long recognized this reality. They also understand that facilitating student success must be part of their mission; it is unconscionable, if not unethical, to admit students and then not provide them with the guidance and the tools they will need to complete their degrees.

While the “rightness” of helping students find their way towards graduation remains unchanged, the increasing cost of higher education has brought even more attention to students who fail to complete their studies. A recent special report in Time (2012) noted that the proportion of college students who are leaving school with significant debt has increased dramatically during the past two decades:

Year Percentage with Debt Average Debt (2011 dollars)1993 46% $14,5002011 66% $26,000

The debt load can be overwhelming for students who leave college with a degree. However, it can be paralyzing for those who leave without earning the academic credential that will enable them to pay off what they owe.

In recognition of the importance of these issues, the Commonwealth of Virginia has linked institutional funding to student persistence and graduation. Accordingly, it is incumbent upon all institutions to examine their current environments to ensure that they are providing students with every opportunity to succeed.

This report examines the retention of students at Radford University, with special focus upon new students, who are at greatest risk. After providing some context by noting recent trends in retention at RU, it will make recommendations about future directions. Those recommendations will be organized into “proactive” and “reactive” categories. The former will outline ways by which the RU culture might be shaped or reshaped through programmatic and other initiatives designed to minimize students’ risk of non-completion. The latter will describe shaping policies and procedures designed to assist students who are struggling academically so that they might return to good standing and eventually earn their degrees.

The premise that undergirds this report is that RU students can be grouped into three broad categories when it comes to their risk of persisting and graduating:

Very low risk: these students are highly-motivated academically, have enjoyed academic success in high school or at other post-secondary institutions, and are personally and socially mature.1 Radford University was their first choice, selected because of the quality of the academic program of interest, a relationship to an RU alum, geographical location, or some combination of these and other factors. These students would be likely to persist and complete their degrees even if there were no retention programs. While the proportion of

1 Of course, some students who would appear to fall into this category are at risk for other reasons. While data provided by the Office of Institutional Research indicate that there is generally a positive correlation between entering academic credentials and retention rates, we have all heard anecdotes of “high achievers” who left RU because they felt they were not appropriately challenged academically, because of what they saw as an overemphasis among RU students on the social aspects of college life, etc.

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students in this group has been increasing, it probably remains the smallest of the three groups.

Very high risk: these students may be unmotivated academically and personally and socially immature. They may also have little attachment to RU: it was not their first choice, it is far away from home, they were admitted late in the admissions cycle, etc. Some enter the University planning to transfer, typically because RU does not offer the major they want. Sadly, even the best retention programs may not convince them to stay.

Everyone else: the vast majority of RU students fall into this third category, and it is towards them that our retention programs should be focused. These are students who need academic, personal, and social support, and who are generally willing to accept it. They may not have connections that tie them to the University, but they are open to making them. Positive living and learning experiences early in their academic careers will persuade them that RU is where they belong—or, more likely, they will not even consider whether the grass might be greener elsewhere.

Finally, we must recognize that students—especially first-year students—occasionally leave their institutions for reasons having nothing to do with their learning environments. Even as they are adjusting to college, students are grappling with relationships, family crises, and other issues that have the potential to interrupt their college careers. It is difficult for even the most compelling and comprehensive retention programs to anticipate and satisfactorily address these situations.

Background

During the fall 2012 semester, we2 have been working to identify key retention questions at Radford University, analyze pertinent data provided by the Office of Institutional Research,3 develop conclusions, and devise RU-specific recommendations. As part of our brainstorming sessions, we have carefully examined retention rates at RU. Where possible, we have placed retention at Radford in context by comparing our rates to others’.4 Among our most significant findings are the following:

1. Over the past 18 years, fall-to-fall retention rates for degree-seeking new freshmen have ranged between 68.1% in 1994 (the last year before UNIV 100 was offered; more on this below), and 79.08% in 2000, averaging 75.72% for the period. The average rate since 2000 is 76.7%. (See Appendix A.) In effect, about ¼ of all students who enter RU as new freshmen each fall are not enrolled the following fall. While this statistic is somewhat disheartening, it ranks RU favorably among MA/MS public institutions, which reported an average 67.3% fall-to-fall retention rate for new students in 2010 (ACT, 2010).

2 While Steve Lerch served as the editor of this report, the ideas included therein represent the thinking of Mike Dunn, Director of New Student Programs (NSP) and Michele Jenkins, Director of Student Success as well. Dr. Lerch accepts responsibility for any errors.3 We greatly appreciate the cooperation of Dr. Debra Templeton, Director, and her staff, Mr. Damian Allen, Mr. William Dixon, and Mr. Michael Slate. Without their prompt and courteous assistance in providing us with the institutional data we requested, this report would not have been possible.4 While our discussions have occasionally touched on matters unrelated to students’ academic success, academic issues have received almost our entire focus. A truly comprehensive look at retention at RU would involve each of the University’s divisions in an attempt to determine if quality issues beyond the classroom—on-campus living spaces, dining hall food, parking, customer service in administrative offices, availability of “things to do,” or any of the myriad other matters that affect student satisfaction—impact retention rates. Such an analysis is certainly recommended, but it is beyond the scope of this report.

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2. Transfer students are retained at higher rates; an average of 79.02% have been retained for a second year annually since 1994. (See Appendix A.) This is not surprising, since most transfers enter the University with at least sophomore status, and there is a correlation between class level and retention rates: the further along a student is, the more likely he/she is to be retained.

3. There is virtually no difference in fall-to-fall retention rates between first generation new freshmen and new transfers and their non-first generation counterparts. (See Appendix A.) This is an important finding; historically, between 25 and 30% of all new students at RU are first generation, and their retention rates would appear to indicate that they are not in need of special retention programs.

4. As is the national trend, women are retained at slightly higher rates than men. (See Appendix B.) While there are some differences among non-African American non-white ethnic groups (who have historically enrolled at RU in very small numbers), the difference in retention rates between white and non-white students overall is very small. (See Appendix B.)

5. High school grade point average is a much better predictor of retention than is SAT score. The new freshmen who entered RU as part of the five cohorts between 2007 and 2011 and were retained had average high school GPAs of 3.20 and SAT scores (combined math and verbal) of 1019; their non-retained counterparts had average high school GPAs of 3.07 and SAT scores of 1018. (See Appendix C.)

6. Radford University’s freshmen retention rates are slightly below the average for Virginia public institutions. (See Appendix D.) However, this finding must be placed into context for two important reasons: first, students’ entering academic credentials are the best predictor of retention rates, and highly selective Virginia publics would be expected to have higher retention rates than RU for that reason; and second—as will be discussed below—some institutions’ more lenient academic policies produce higher retention rates for first-year students. Moreover, while RU’s retention rates are surprisingly low as compared to some of our counterparts, our six-year graduation rates compare more favorably, as indicated in Appendix D.

Improving Retention Rates at Radford University

Programs designed to improve retention rates should include a combination of initiatives, some of which are designed to help students attain academic, personal and social success at the institution, and others that recognize that, despite our best efforts, some students will not be immediately successful, and will therefore need to be “rescued” if they are to persist and graduate. Proactive initiatives, while more costly in the short run, should clearly be given our primary attention: in the final analysis, it is clearly more desirable to facilitate student success than to try to pick them up after they have fallen.

Proactive Initiatives: Establishing an Institutional Culture Fostering Student Success

The most obvious way to improve retention rates is to enroll students with stronger academic backgrounds—especially, as noted above, better high school grade point averages. Radford University has made slow but steady progress in this area: in 2001, the average new freshman entered RU with a 3.03 high school GPA and a combined SAT score of 991; by fall 2012, the average freshman enrolled with a 3.15 GPA and a combined SAT score of 1006.5

However, it is extremely difficult to simultaneously increase enrollments (1877 new freshmen enrolled in 2001, and 2053 in 2012) and significantly increase the academic quality of entering students unless

5 Admissions data in this section were provided by the Radford University Office of Institutional Research.

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the quality of the applicant pool also increases. And despite the Herculean efforts of the Admissions staff to make Radford an institution of choice, we must continue to offer admission to students drawn from essentially the same pool of applicants: applicants for admission as new freshmen this fall had an average high school GPA of 3.14 and a combined SAT score of 991.

One strategy we might consider to improve the quality of entering students is to offer partial but renewable scholarships to our best applicants. While this may have a negligible effect upon the size or quality of the applicant pool, it should increase the yield of “top end” applicants, especially if they are not offered this type of aid by other institutions to which they apply.

This approach is one among many that we should consider as we move forward. As we have examined institutional policies and practices for the purposes of assembling this report, it has become evident that Radford University desperately needs to develop a strategic plan for enrollment and retention that strikes a balance between enrollment growth and student quality. Until such a plan is formulated, RU should make every effort to increase the quality of its entering students while understanding that we cannot count on this strategy to boost retention rates. Rather, we need to turn our attention to the environment in which new students live and learn when they matriculate at RU, including the programs in place to support their academic, personal, and social growth.

Retention and completion rates vary widely across institutions with similar student bodies and of similar size and character, and it has been repeatedly shown that an institution’s culture and expressed values are as important to success in this area as the extent to which it follows best practices (AASCU, 2005). Dr. Vincent Tinto, Distinguished University Professor of Sociology at Syracuse University, has written and spoken extensively about the issue of student retention. In 1993, he developed a “Model of Institutional Departure” (see http://etorpy.com/Tinto.htm) which states that, to persist, students need integration into formal (academic performance) and informal (faculty/staff interactions) academic systems and formal (extracurricular activities) and informal (peer-group interactions) social systems. More recently, in a speech delivered at the First Year Experience Curriculum Design Symposium in Australia in 2009, he commented that five conditions on college and university campuses stand out as supportive of retention: expectations, advice, support, involvement, and learning.

The sections that follow examine the extent to which Tinto’s conditions supportive of retention are present at Radford University. Each section concludes with recommendations which, if implemented, should more powerfully establish those conditions at our institution.

Condition 1: Expectations

Students are more likely to persist and graduate in settings that expect them to succeed. High expectations are a condition for student success, or as is sometimes noted, “no one rises to low expectations.” Students, especially those who have been historically excluded from higher education, are affected by the campus expectational climate and by their perceptions of the expectations faculty and staff hold for their individual performance. Unfortunately, too many institutions do not expect enough of their students, [and] demand too little as regards student learning (Tinto, 2009).

Some faculty interpret news that institutions plan to devote energy and resources to student retention as an implied suggestion that they “dumb down” their courses. Taken to its logical extreme, they fear

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they will be punished—through loss of merit pay, denial of promotion and tenure, and (in a worst case scenario) elimination of their programs—if they give too many failing grades.

As Tinto notes to the contrary, students are more likely to be retained if we expect a lot of them, not a little: “High expectations are a condition for student success; low expectations are a harbinger of failure.” (See http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2011/11/03/essay-focus-student-success-efforts-what-happens-classroom.) However, the expectations we have of our students must be tempered with a recognition of the academic abilities with which they enroll: we must teach the students we have, not the students we want—or, more accurately, we must challenge the students we have to become the graduates we want.

It is certainly a lamentable fact that many students enter higher education woefully unprepared. Grade inflation in high schools is so rampant as to render some “on paper” credentials as deceptive at best and dishonest at worst. More and more students are entering our institutions with dual enrollment credit from community colleges, but even the presence of those college credits on transcripts is sometimes not an indicator of academic ability or potential, since dual enrollment classes vary widely in rigor.

However, moaning about the poor preparation of our students will not change it; we must acknowledge our students’ shortcomings and move on. Indeed, we should embrace the fact that what RU has historically done best is meet our students at the level at which they enter—no matter whether that is with marginal credentials or sterling ones—and work with them so that they can meet their potential before they complete their studies.

Helping our students achieve success requires that the University more effectively communicate its expectations to our students. This includes, of course, faculty informing students what they expect of them in their individual classes, and, conversely, informing them what students can expect of their instructors. It also includes the University’s communication of more global expectations: do our students fully understand the skills, knowledge sets, and habits of mind that characterize an RU graduate? Do we adequately explain the “pieces” of an RU education (i.e., Core Curriculum, major, minor, electives), how do they work together to prepare students for the world beyond college, and what can students expect of each?

Facilitating our students’ success also requires that we know more and share what we know about the academic backgrounds of our new students and the behaviors and dispositions they bring with them into the classroom. It requires that we understand that merely challenging students to achieve our high expectations is only one-half of the equation: we must also offer them support to meet those expectations. Finally, it requires that we recognize that instructors’ attitudes and actions in the classroom communicate subtle and not-so-subtle messages about how seriously we are taking the academic enterprise at RU: faculty who “give up” the first day of class in a semester; whose syllabi are incomplete or unclear; who neither require attendance nor do anything in class that warrants it; who cancel classes on Fridays before breaks; and who do not give exams or similar summary evaluations during exam week lose credibility as rigorous, no matter how stringent they profess their expectations to be.

During the days of the Writing Across the Curriculum (WAC) program in the 1980s and early 1990s, conversations about ways we might best challenge and support our students took place far more frequently than they currently do. There were ongoing discussions about students’ academic strengths and deficiencies, both perceived and actual, and how writing might be used within the disciplines to

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enhance the former and eliminate the latter. Faculty had regular opportunities during retreats and workshops to learn about colleagues’ expectations of students. (We would argue that WAC led to a greater consistency of expectations and a higher level of expectations both within and across disciplines.) Sadly, the demise of WAC, coupled with higher education’s recent focus upon the use of technology as a learning tool (e.g., Radford’s erstwhile “Faculty Development Center” is now the “Center for Innovative Teaching and Learning”), has decreased the frequency of these basic conversations about teaching and learning.

This is by no means to denigrate the important work that the Center for Innovative Teaching and Learning does in teaching faculty to use new technology. To the contrary, the use of innovative pedagogies should be encouraged, for those innovations help faculty better instruct the 21st century learners for whom access to technology has become a way of life. However, if we are to reach our students, we need to reopen the other half of the dialogue about teaching and learning.

Recommendation

The Center for Innovative Teaching and Learning should return to its roots during the 2013-2014 academic year by sponsoring a year-long series of workshops and programs on the contemporary RU student, with specific focus upon three questions:

1. Who—in terms of both their academic backgrounds and the behaviors and attitudes they bring to RU with them—are our students?

2. How might we develop high and consistent academic expectations within and across disciplines to appropriately challenge them?

3. What support can we provide so that RU students succeed academically, personally, and socially; persist in their studies; and graduate?

Condition 2: Advice

Students are more likely to persist and graduate in settings that provide clear and consistent information about institutional requirements and effective advising about the choices students have to make regarding their programs of study and future career goals. Students, especially the many who are undecided about their plans, need to understand the road map to completion and know how to use it to achieve personal goals. Lest we forget most students are either undecided at entry about their field of study or change their minds, at least once, during their college years (Tinto, 2009).

Studies by the National Academic Advising Association (NACADA) and other organizations have repeatedly confirmed Tinto’s emphasis upon the importance of academic advising. For example, in 2010, the ACT published its most recent “What Works in Student Retention” report (ACT, 2010). Participating institutions were asked to indicate their on-campus retention practices and then, using a five-point scale in which five = major contribution and 1 = little or no contribution, indicate the degree to which the practice contributed to retention on their campus. Each of the top three practices were related to academic advising: [having] an academic advising center (3.98); [providing] an increased number of academic advisors (3.98); and [offering] advising interventions with selected student populations (3.93).

More recently, a study conducted by the Center for Public Education (see http://www.centerforpubliceducation.org/Main-Menu/Staffingstudents/High-school-rigor-and-good-

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advice-Setting-up-students-to-succeed) found that three factors were good predictors of academic persistence in the first year. Two had to do with academic preparation: the completion of high-level math classes or Advanced Placement or International Baccalaureate classes in high school. The third was academic advising; specifically, talking to an academic advisor in college either “sometimes” or “often” significantly improved freshmen’s chances to persist, with students from low socioeconomic backgrounds and low-academic achievement backgrounds demonstrating the greatest gains in persistence when they reported going to see an academic advisor in college. In fact, four-year institution students who saw their academic advisor “often” instead of “never” were found to be 53 percent more likely to persist.

At one level, Radford University has for many years recognized the importance of providing quality academic advising. The Academic Advising Committee has long been an important part of the Internal Governance system, and its recommendations have shaped academic policies and procedures. Each college (and “premajor”) has its own advising center staffed by professional advisors and graduate students. Students may not register until they have received a PIN from their advisors; presumably, this means that they cannot register unless they have had a conversation about academic requirements and course selection. (Of course, we would be naïve if we did not acknowledge that some advisors are willing to surrender the student’s PIN without dispensing any advice, trusting the student to understand University and program requirements and make good course choices.) Professional advisors are connected to national and regional advising networks, and they frequently enhance their professional development by attending and presenting papers at NACADA meetings.

At another level, however, especially given the critical role advising plays in retention, academic advising at RU is not given the attention it deserves. Significantly, the advising model in place is the same one we utilized decades ago, when RU was a far smaller and less complex institution. Among the issues that have come to light through investigation and in conversations with the advising staff:

There has historically been minimal administrative oversight of academic advising. Going back over 20 years, each of RU’s Assistant Vice Presidents/Vice Provosts for Academic Affairs (Drs. Self, Lerch, and Kennan) has had advising supervision as part of his job description, but each has been delegated so many other responsibilities that advising is often placed on the back burner;

Professional advisors are grossly underpaid. (Of course, the same can probably be said of many administrative and professional faculty and classified staff across the University; for the purposes of this report, the situation among advisors stands out because of the contributions they make to student persistence and graduation.) Equally critical is the fact that there are salary and title inequalities across colleges that cannot be explained by experience or performance. The inequities are harmful to morale, and the low salaries lead to high rates of turnover;

Much of the advising in advising centers is done by graduate students. There is consensus among the professional staff in the centers that graduate student advisors generally are very talented, mean well, work hard, and make important contributions to advising, but the learning curve is so long and the rate of turnover is so great that just about the time graduate students are fully trained and can be trusted as independent advisors, they earn their degrees and are gone;

There is currently a weak link in many instances between academic advising and career counseling. Overworked professional advisors, who largely interact with students during the students’ first year or two at RU, barely have time to discuss academic requirements and course selection. Faculty advisors, on the other hand, would typically much prefer serving

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as professional mentors than serve as course and program advisors, and they worry about their “liability” if incorrect advice keeps a student from graduating in a timely fashion;

The performance of faculty in their role as academic advisors is inconsistent at best. This is hardly unexpected, for at least two reasons:

o First, faculty receive very little training in how to be good advisors. Typically, college advising coordinators spend time “showing the ropes” to new faculty, but rarely is there any follow-up. While RU’s professional advisors make every effort to deliver developmental advising, which goes beyond simply giving information or signing a form (King, 2005), overburdened faculty advisors, some of whom advise more than 50 students, rarely have the time to do more than prescribe course selection; and

o Second, there are no rewards for academic advising in RU’s evaluation system. On the one hand, as per section 2.5 of the Teaching and Research Faculty Handbook (“University Service”), “tenured and tenure-track faculty members, and other faculty for whom university service is identified as a specific responsibility in their appointment, are expected to participate in the work of their departments, schools, and colleges outside of the classroom, to provide academic advising to students [emphasis added], and to serve in governance of the University.” Thus, academic advising is the only specifically prescribed University service all faculty must perform, no matter how skilled or interested they are. On the other hand, however, faculty may weight their evaluations such that as little as five percent of the overall evaluation is based upon service. The bottom line is that faculty at RU have little incentive to be good advisors. (Given this fact, it is commendable that so many do such an excellent job!)

There is little systematic or consistent assessment of academic advising; until relatively recently, there was none whatsoever.

Multiple technology platforms are being used to support academic advising. In some cases, these platforms do not interact well with each other, making it difficult for advising centers to exchange electronic communication about students who interact with more than one center.

Recommendations

1. Radford University should conduct a national search for a full-time Director of Academic Advising with administrative oversight for the academic advising enterprise. This person should report to the Coordinator/Director of Retention (if one is appointed) or the Vice Provost for Academic Affairs. Among others, his/her responsibilities should include:

a. Working with the professional advising staff and other important constituencies to develop a vision and strategic plan for advising at RU;

b. Establishing a process through which academic advisors would receive thorough and consistent training in following best practices (i.e. developmental rather than prescriptive) academic advising;

c. Developing an institutional plan for regularly assessing academic advising, and then using the results of that assessment to make improvements;

d. Creating and maintaining advising materials, including a comprehensive advising website with links to other pertinent sites;

e. Prior to and during registration periods, monitoring class availability and working with colleges and departments to obtain the best match possible between student demand and course supply;

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f. Addressing with appropriate administrators the problems and issues described above;g. Carefully examining the salaries and responsibilities of professional advising staff and

then recommending action to address inequities. This includes:i. Determining whether college advising coordinators are adequately

compensated, given the critical nature of the position vis-à-vis retention;ii. Examining issues of salary compression and inversion among professional

advising staff; andiii. Ensuring that job titles and salaries are consistent for professional advisors

across campus; e.g., there is no reason that an advising professional in one advising center is “assistant coordinator” while her counterpart in another is “advisor” when both are fulfilling exactly the same duties; and

h. Ensuring that at all levels Radford University emphasizes the importance of developmental rather than merely prescriptive advising. The picking and scheduling of classes needs to take place within the broader context of the student's life and career goals (O’Banion, 1994). Specifically, the University must be more intentional in adding a career counseling dimension to the advising process, for there is evidence that career planning plays an important part in the retention of college students (Liptak, 2006 and Liptak, 2007). Ms. Ellen Taylor, Director of Career Services and Community Engagement, has suggested that there are at least two organizational models we might consider: affiliating college Career Counselors with advising centers and having them engage in collaborative training and programming through Career Services, or affiliating Career Counselors with Career Services while they maintain close relationships with their colleges.

2. Radford University should discontinue the practice of assigning graduate students to serve as undergraduate advisors. Graduate student advisors should be replaced with full-time professional advisors, with the students assigned to other offices.

3. Radford University should carefully examine the role of teaching faculty in advising. It is currently the worst of all worlds: all faculty must advise, even if they do not want to, are not skilled in doing so, and receive no rewards for their efforts. In conjunction with the Faculty Senate, the University should decide if:

a. All academic advising should be handled by professional advisors in advising centers. This would probably improve the overall quality of advising at RU, and it would free overburdened faculty to devote more time to teaching, professional activity, University service, and career mentoring. However, it would be costly, requiring that at least some vacant faculty positions be shifted to advising centers; or

b. A limited number of faculty in each department or school—presumably, those most interested and skilled—should do all advising, rather than expecting all faculty to advise. This cadre of faculty advisors should be appropriately compensated (most likely, through reassigned time). This model would also probably improve the overall quality of advising, since these faculty could be more carefully trained and developed as advisors (through, for example, periodically sending them to NACADA meetings).

No matter which model we adopt—and even if we decide to maintain the current “all faculty advise” model—for the purposes of faculty evaluation, advising should be considered part of one’s teaching, not University service responsibilities. The reason for this goes beyond the point noted above; i.e., that given the construction of RU’s evaluation system, there is no

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incentive for faculty to take advising seriously other than their own altruism and interest in student success. More significantly, many students of advising have made the point that advising is teaching.

For example, Kramer (2003, p.6) listed nine principles of effective advising that “are also at the heart of the successful classroom experience.” The principles are that faculty must 1) engage the student; 2) provide personal meaning to students’ academic goals; 3) collaborate with others or use the full range of institutional resources; 4) share, give, and take responsibility; 5) connect academic interests with personal interests; 6) stimulate and support student academic and career planning; 7) promote intellectual and personal growth and success; 8) assess, evaluate, or track student progress; and 9) establish rapport with students. Just as programs and faculty create learning outcomes and syllabi for courses, learning outcomes and syllabi can be created for academic advising. (See Trabant, 2006, and sample advising syllabi used at 20 different institutions posted at http://www.nacada.ksu.edu/clearinghouse/links/syllabi.htm.) At RU, we might envision the creation of common University-level advising outcomes and syllabi, with college and program additions as warranted.

4. Radford University should develop a systematic process through which advising is assessed. In its “Concept” statement, NACADA (2006) has noted that “Regardless of the diversity of our institutions, our students, our advisors, and our organizational structures, academic advising has three components: curriculum (what advising deals with), pedagogy (how advising does what it does), and student learning outcomes (the result of academic advising).” As implied above, outside of the professional advising staff at RU, there is likely a somewhat fuzzy idea of the advising curriculum and an even less clear idea about advising pedagogy. However, there is almost no understanding about student learning outcomes for advising. As a University, we need to develop those outcomes, analytically assess the extent to which students are attaining them, and then make the adjustments needed to address deficiencies. (As an aside . . . given faculty trepidation whenever they hear the word “assessment,” assessing advising at RU would face less resistance if faculty did not function as advisors.)

5. Radford University should more efficiently use technology in advising. Currently, multiple advising note-recording packages are being used. We need to literally and figuratively get everyone on the same page—or, in this case, using the same system. That will undoubtedly mean that some professional advisors will be forced to abandon their current systems and learn a new one, but sacrifices will have to be made if the advising centers are to interact effectively with each other as they work with students who change majors or otherwise cross college boundaries.

Condition 3: Support

Students are more likely to persist and graduate in settings that provide academic, social, and personal support. Most students, especially those in their first year of college, require some form of support. Some may require academic assistance, while others may need social or personal support. Support may be provided in structured forms such as in summer bridge programs, mentor programs, and student clubs or it may arise in the everyday workings of the institution such as in student contact with faculty and staff advisors. Whatever its form, support needs to be readily available and connected to other parts of the student collegiate experience, not separated from it (Tinto, 2009).

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It is critical that we challenge Radford University students to achieve their full academic potential. However, it is equally critical that we maintain vibrant and effective support programs and services. As Tinto (2011) indicates, “It is one thing to hold high expectations; it is another to provide the support students need to achieve them.”

Historically, RU has offered a wide array of support. The Division of Student Affairs makes available multiple resources designed to support the personal and social development of students, and by extension facilitating their academic success: the Counseling Center, the Dean of Students Office, the Disability Resources Office, the Center for Diversity and Inclusion, Residential Life, Student Activities, Student Health Services, and the Substance Abuse and Violence Education Support Services Office, to name just a few. While the availability of these resources is vitally important to RU students, and while an analysis of them should be part of any 360-degree review of retention at Radford University, such an analysis is beyond the scope of this report. Rather, I will focus upon support mechanisms delivered under the auspices of Academic Affairs.

Supporting our students begins in the classroom, and those providing the support are our faculty. Tinto (2001) states unequivocally that institutions must “direct their actions to the classroom, especially for those in the first year, and construct classrooms whose attributes are such as to enhance the likelihood that students will succeed academically.” Ideally, the support faculty provide involves:

1. Creating explicit connections between skills like writing, reading, and math and instruction in academic disciplines;

2. Using pedagogies that involve students in their own learning—or, to use more contemporary terminology, “engage” them; and

3. Offering early and frequent feedback, especially to new students, so that students needing support can be directed to it.

The fact that these types of support represent “best practices” would not surprise faculty. I would argue that most RU faculty—and all of the “best” of them—endeavor to practice each of them. Unfortunately, enrollment growth and the concomitant growth in class sizes have made it increasingly difficult to support students in this way. As one senior member of the faculty has indicated: “I cannot teach my intro class the same way with 45 students as I did when there were only 35.” Another made this more explicit: “I no longer assign multiple papers to my intro students each semester. Reading multiple papers and providing helpful feedback on content and style in a reasonable amount of time for a class of 30 is a challenge. For a class of 45, it is impossible.”

Since it became increasingly difficult for faculty to offer students the support they need to succeed, the University began to offer UNIV 100: Introduction to Higher Education in 1996, it opened the Warren P. Self Learning Assistance and Resource Center (the LARC) in 2004, and it developed an “Early Warning” intervention system to assist students identified by faculty and advisors as needing help to survive. UNIV 100 and the LARC have been very successful; the Early Warning system has not yet realized its full potential. Specifically,

UNIV 100 is a one-hour, graded, elective course designed to facilitate new students’ academic success. Taught by a faculty or staff member and a student peer instructor, the course includes interactive activities that are directly related to success in the classroom (e.g., note taking, time management, study skills, interacting professionally with faculty) and those that indirectly affect academic success (e.g., dealing with homesickness, sharing living space in a residence hall). The course also promotes retention by connecting students to the University by expecting them to attend campus events. As indicated in Appendix E, UNIV 100 has had a significant impact upon

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new student retention at RU: since its inception in 1996, an average of 79.1% of students who have enrolled in UNIV 100 have returned for a second year, compared to only 67.9% of those who did not take the course. Significantly, as indicated in Appendix F, there appear to be no discernible differences in academic credentials between students who take UNIV 100 and those who do not; thus, the impact of UNIV 100 would appear to be independent of other variables affecting retention.

The Warren P. Self Learning Assistance and Resource Center offers free tutoring by trained student tutors in multiple disciplines, with special focus upon the hard sciences, mathematics and statistics, and writing. The LARC also offers assistance to students with more general academic concerns like test anxiety and reading comprehension. Between August 2011 and August 2012, 3,592 individual students—more than one-third of all Radford University students—made an appointment at the LARC. Even though the LARC has received numerous unsolicited testimonials from satisfied students, it is difficult to empirically determine the exact impact of the LARC on student success (a student may have performed well on an assignment or exam even without visiting the LARC), students clearly perceive that the LARC is helping: the 3,592 students who used the LARC made a total of 13,723 appointments, an average of over 3.8 visits per student. As a matter of fact, the popularity of the LARC has now in many ways outstripped its ability to serve students, especially if they wait too long to make appointments. Demand for services frequently exceeds the ability of the LARC to have tutors available at the times they are needed.

The Early Warning system gives faculty and advisors the opportunity to bring to the attention of the Office of Student Success students who are not doing well in their classes. In many cases, the issue is that the student is rarely (if ever) attending class. The Office of Student Success contacts the student to arrange a consultation/advising session, during which there is an attempt to identify reasons for the student’s academic problems and strategies are discussed through which the student might recover sufficiently to pass the course, or—if passing is impossible and the deadline has not passed—withdraw from it. Unfortunately, many faculty do not use the Early Warning system. Moreover, many of those who do use it use it poorly: they use it without first making a personal attempt to discuss the student’s struggles with him/her; they use it so early in the semester that the degree of risk for the student is not truly established; or they wait so long to use the system that the student’s grade cannot be salvaged despite an intervention. Furthermore, the Office of Student Success cannot force students to make appointments during which advice is given and referrals made; the Office can only assist the students who respond positively to its invitations.

Recommendations

1. Radford University should facilitate the efforts of faculty to support their students by limiting class sizes wherever possible. Operating under the assumption that faculty want to be supportive and understand what they need to do to be supportive, probably the easiest way to facilitate their support is to keep class sizes at a reasonable level. According to the University’s Common Data Set (see https://ir.radford.edu/common_data_set/2012-13/Instructional_Faculty_and_Class_Size.php), during the fall 2012 semester, approximately 15% of the course sections offered at RU (221 of 1474) had enrollments of 40 or more students; 11 of those sections exceeded 100 students. However, the Data Set also reports our student-to-faculty ratio as 19:1. What would be the implication of assigning each full-time faculty member who teaches an introductory course and agrees to engage students differently at least one section with an enrollment of 19 or 20?

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Retention rates would likely improve if we did so—and they would improve even more if we could guarantee each new freshman that at least one of his/her first semester classes, excluding UNIV 100 and CORE 101, would be limited to 19 or 20 students.

2. Radford University should support and expand the UNIV 100 course. Some might argue that we should make the course required for all students and offer the approximately 25 additional sections it would take to accommodate them. However, we are hesitant to add an additional requirement for students who may not benefit from the course and for those (like pre-nursing majors) whose schedules afford little flexibility. Moreover, given the highly interactive nature of the course, we do not want students to enroll only because they are forced to do so; they could ruin the experience for other students. (There may be better “marketing” strategies we can use to promote UNIV 100 for new students and their parents; such strategies might both influence more freshmen to enroll in the course and keep them from dropping the course during the first week, when they learn that they will be expected to participate in class and complete homework assignments, just as they do in any other credit-bearing course.)

Rather, we propose changing UNIV 100 in ways that will further benefit the students who take it. Specifically, we propose changing UNIV100 to a variable credit, one-or-two hour course. The one-hour version would be taught in 50-minute sessions twice each week over the first seven weeks of the semester; the two-hour version would be taught in either three 50-minute or two 75-minute sessions for approximately 10 weeks (so the course concluded prior to Thanksgiving break). Nationally, freshmen year experience courses range between one and three hours; a two-hour offering would hardly be unprecedented. See http://www.sc.edu/fye/research/surveys/survey_instruments/files/Executive_Summaries_2006_National_Survey_First-Year%20Seminars.pdf.)

a. The single-hour version would be designed largely for students with tight schedules (e.g., multiple lab courses) which make adding an additional hour challenging. The course would feature a “bare-bones” approach to facilitating the transition to higher education.

b. The two-hour version would be the default option and would be marketed to students and parents as the most desirable type. (We might explore requiring some students—e.g., premajors—to enroll in two-hour sections if they took the course; we might also investigate college-themed sections, with a portion of the course focusing upon an introduction to business, the fine arts, etc. at RU.) It would expand the role of the faculty and the course learning outcomes. The College Student Inventory (CSI, a Noel-Levitz product) or a similar instrument would be used to obtain behavioral and attitudinal information for new students. Faculty instructors would have access to the CSI results so that they could mentor individual students. This will help establish a critical one-to-one “connection” that is correlated with retention. More time could be spent in the course on helping students chose and clarify majors and link majors to careers. More intentional links could be established between selected sections of UNIV 100 and classes that meet Core Curriculum requirements. (See below.) Similarly, there would be more time to discuss a common reading or a set of common readings. Finally, two-hour UNIV 100 classes could be the locus of the assessment of new students that is increasingly critical.

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3. Radford University should support and expand the LARC.6 While we do not have the same empirical evidence as we do for UNIV 100, there is significant anecdotal evidence that the LARC works. Unfortunately, there is evidence that the LARC is underfunded and understaffed, to the point that significant numbers of students are turned away, especially if they are in need of urgent academic assistance. The University needs to do the following:

a. Adjust the LARC budget to accommodate student demand for services . Obviously, the demand for tutors may fluctuate somewhat by discipline from year to year. However, we can certainly glean trends, given eight years of usage data. (The development of a comprehensive enrollment and retention plan, as noted above, should enable RU to make more accurate projections of the number of students the LARC will need to serve annually, and thus its budget.) We should be able to do a better job of linking the LARC budget to student demand for services, lest the Interim Director of the LARC be forced to make repeated in-semester funding requests so that she can hire more tutors or give more hours to those who are already employed. Even though her requests are invariably granted, she often cannot make these requests until students who need assistance have already been disappointed. If the LARC plays a critical role in student success and retention, students who want to use the LARC should not be turned away. If the cost of these budget adjustments is prohibitive, the University should look into charging students a minimal amount for tutoring services—possibly, after offering three or four appointments for free. The LARC might also explore the possibility of using more group tutoring in a variation of the supplemental instruction model.

b. Assess whether the LARC is appropriately located and adequately equipped . A faculty member recently shared with us an email he sent to the Provost last spring, which read in part “[the LARC] should be a large, comfortable, well-equipped facility with lots of natural lighting”; he went on to suggest that the LARC should be more prominently used as an admissions marketing tool for students and their parents, for the presence of a visible and well-supported LARC would convey the message that we are serious when we say that we care about student success—and many of our students and their parents recognize that many students are entering the University with marginal academic credentials and poor study skills.

c. Evaluate the level of professional staffing in the LARC . In 2009, RU admitted 1,953 new students; in addition to student tutors, there was a LARC Director, Assistant Director, and three part-time professional tutors. In 2011, RU admitted 2,853 new students—exactly 900 more than two years previously—and the sole professional was the Interim Director. Given the difficulty in finding student tutors for certain courses, it would appear to make sense to once again hire a small number of part-time professional tutors, especially if their tutoring hours were flexible.

Day-to-day responsibility for the LARC continues to reside with an “interim” director who has now served for two years as administrator of the Center. The LARC deserves a permanent director whose compensation is equivalent to other program directors in

6 One of the programs with an excellent track record in promoting student retention (ACT, 2010) is Supplemental Instruction (SI), a program in which successful students attend difficult classes, especially in math and the sciences, and then host information and review sessions for students taking the class for the first time. RU had an SI program until about 10 years ago, when it fell victim to budget cuts; the SI budget was between $50,000 and $60,000 annually. In the course of preparing this report, Dr. Lerch queried chairs of departments whose classes were part of SI to determine whether we should explore bringing it back. The almost unanimous response was on the order of “SI worked . . . but no better than the LARC would if it were appropriately supported.”

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Academic Affairs. At our earliest opportunity, we need to either elevate the interim director to that status or conduct a search for a permanent director. Following that, an assistant director should also be appointed.

4. Radford University should better educate faculty and staff about the Early Warning system so that we can more effectively intervene with struggling students before it is too late. It should be made clear that faculty are in the best position to provide outreach to their students; the Early Warning system should not be seen as a way to pass that responsibility on to someone else. It may make sense for the University to consider establishing an administrative withdrawal policy for students who without excuse miss a given number of consecutive classes. The mere presence of such a policy may increase attendance and limit attendance-related interventions. Likewise, faculty should be educated to understand that interventions that are too early (e.g., following failure of a single quiz counting for only 10 percent of the final grade) or too late (e.g., in the 12th week of the semester, when only 10 percent of the final grade is unaccounted for) are not very helpful. We should also explore ways that students who are “flagged” have greater incentive to make appointments with the Office of Student Success so they can be assisted, referred, or told how to use RU’s academic policies to their advantage; this, of course, will be a significant challenge.

5. Radford University should increase the likelihood of new student success through ensuring that new students enroll in individual courses and combinations of courses that give them a reasonable chance to succeed. In our experience, departments, programs and colleges have rarely examined the totality of courses we make available to new students. We assume that if we offered 10 sections of course X in 2010, we should offer 10 (or maybe 11, if there is enrollment growth) in 2011. When it comes to choices students can make within Core Curriculum (or previously, General Education) areas, we have rarely examined student preference to match supply and demand.7 The result is that we are forced to advise a student, especially at Quest, that even though she wants to take course X, if it is full “course Y will work just as well, since it meets the same requirement.”

However, this is a bit disingenuous: although multiple courses may meet the same requirement, they do not offer the same likelihood of success. For example, when one examines courses that met the Core requirement in Social and Behavioral Science over the five fall semesters between 2007 and 2011, one finds that in one course 60.00% of students who enrolled earned grades of C or better, with the students collectively earning a 2.174 grade point average for the course; while in another course meeting the same requirement, 85.83% of students earned C’s or better, with a collective GPA of 2.773.8

Additionally, little is done to help students enroll in time schedules that are conducive to success. Given the choice, it is understandable that few students will opt for early morning or late-in-the-day courses every day. However, a student who has an 8:00 a.m. class but not another until 5:00 p.m. on a given day is almost certain to be tempted to cut one or the other.

We are by no means suggesting that only courses with historically high success rates be made available to new students. Nor are we recommending that every student be permitted to

7 We recognize that supply is heavily influenced by the number of faculty, especially tenure-track faculty, within departments and colleges and across the University.8 Data for all students in which new freshmen enrolled in the fall semesters between 2007 and 2011 were provided by the Office of Institutional Research and will be made available upon request.

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enroll in his/her “perfect” time schedule. We are suggesting, however—again, within the context of a comprehensive strategic plan for enrollment and retention—that RU take a careful look at its offerings to determine whether we have the capacity to offer new students schedules that are balanced both academically and in terms of class times so they will have the appropriate mix of courses during the first semester. A new student’s academic success during the first semester should be dependent upon his/her effort and motivation, not whether he/she got first choices or “leftovers” because of how early or late in the process he registered.9

Condition 4: Involvement

Students are more likely to persist and graduate in settings that involve them as valued members of the institution. The frequency and quality of contact with faculty, staff, and other students is an important independent predictor of student persistence. This is true for large and small, rural and urban, public and private, and 2- and 4-year colleges and universities. It is true for women as well as men, students of color and Anglo students, and part-time and full-time students. Simply put, involvement matters, and at no point does it matter more than during the first year of college when student attachments are so tenuous and the pull of the institution so weak (Tinto, 2009).

During the past few years, Radford University has strengthened its efforts to “involve students as valued members of the institution.” The recently developed New Student Welcome Week, featuring programs and events designed to develop a sense of institutional “belongingness” among new students, is but one example. For many years, Friday of the first week of classes each fall has featured “Club Fair,” during which RU clubs and organizations distribute information and recruit members in a festival-like atmosphere. All UNIV 100 students are expected to explore Club Fair and contemplate joining clubs in which they are interested.

In addition, the past decade has seen a dramatic expansion of the number of students who are engaged in collaborative professional activity with faculty mentors. Hundreds of these students present their research at the Undergraduate and Graduate Student Forum each spring, and dozens join their faculty at professional meetings in the disciplines annually.

Unfortunately, most of these collaborative research opportunities do not manifest themselves during the freshman year, when students are most vulnerable. Moreover, most of their classes—indeed, virtually all of them other than UNIV 100 and CORE 101—are so large that it is difficult for students to make the vital connection with a faculty member that might influence their retention. Two of the recommendations in the “Support” section above—limiting class sizes in at least some sections, and expanding UNIV 100 so that students have more one-to-one contact with Faculty and Peer Instructors—should be very helpful in establishing meaningful professional connections between new students and the University.

9 The Office of Institutional Research has provided data indicating that during fall 2010 and 2011, 77% of freshmen who attended Quest in June were retained through the next two falls, compared to only 62% of those who did not come until just before classes started in August. While it is undoubtedly true that the motivation of the former group explains some of this difference, it is likely just as true that, despite our best efforts to reserve seats, the latter group is frequently forced to enroll in combinations of whatever requirement-meeting courses are available and take those courses at less-than-desirable combinations of times. This is not a recipe for success and retention.

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A new “involvement” initiative RU should consider is doing more to welcome students and establish academic expectations soon after they arrive on campus. Currently, new (fall) freshmen arrive on campus on the Friday before the first week of classes. While fall 2012 featured a Sunday evening New Student Convocation and more intentionally structured “Welcome Week” programming, the focus of the latter events was on establishing social connections and involvement rather than academic ones. We therefore suggest a reorganization of “move-in” and school-opening activities to establish academic connections and involvement.

Recommendation

New freshmen entering RU in the fall should move-in on Wednesday or Thursday, not Friday. (The exact day should be determined by the number of functions we hope to fulfill with the students, and the time necessary to adequately fulfill them.) The additional day(s) the students would spend before classes begin could be devoted to matters like schedule adjustment; library and campus tours; safety instruction (before students engage in risky behaviors during their first weekend on campus); the completion of new student assessments and inventories; immersion into campus history and traditions; discussions of conduct expectations, especially as they relate to classroom behaviors; etc. Changing move-in in this way should enable students to more effectively “hit the ground running” in their classes on Monday morning and take full advantage of Welcome Week activities planned primarily by the Division of Student Affairs.

Condition 5: Learning

Students are more likely to persist and graduate in settings that foster learning. Learning has always been the key to student retention. Students who learn are students who stay. Institutions that are successful in building settings that educate their students are successful in retaining their students. Again, involvement seems to be the key. Students who are actively involved in learning, that is who spend more time on task especially with others, are more likely to learn and, in turn, more likely to stay (Tinto, 2009).

During most of the 1990s, the Divisions of Academic and Student Affairs at Radford University collaborated in the implementation of “Freshmen Connections,” the institution’s first learning community. One hundred and forty freshmen self-selected into the program. They lived in Floyd Hall and enrolled in English 101, Sociology 110 and an additional course that varied over the life of the program. A common reading, Friday Night Lights, was required. (The author, H.G. (“Buzz”) Bissinger, visited campus and spoke to classes multiple times.) Students worked on assignments across courses—submitting, for example, a paper in English and then revising and resubmitting it in sociology. Every two weeks, the faculty and staff involved in the course got together over lunch to reflect, plan, and discuss successes and failures; the residential component of the course meant that struggling individual students could be identified and assisted. While Freshmen Connections was extremely labor-intensive, and while students sometimes complained that it felt like “grade 13,” it was extraordinarily successful, with fall-to-fall retention rates of between 85 and 90%.10

10 Ironically, the success of the program contributed to its demise. Because of its success, the Vice President for Academic Affairs at that time decided that it should be expanded. Given scheduling logistics, that was possible only if the program be contracted such that students enrolled in two rather than three courses offered by a greater number of instructors, not all of whom shared the same commitment to the program as the Freshmen Connections group. The common reading disappeared, and—due to security issues after September 11, 2001—so did the residential component. The repeated budget crises of the early 2000s were the program’s death knell.

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More recently, the Office of New Student Programs has experimented with offering less complicated learning communities. For example, this is the second year of “Core Connections,” in which special sections of UNIV 100 are linked to designated sections of CORE 201. Students eligible for Core Connections (again, they self-select into the program) are new freshmen who bring to RU dual-enrollment credit for CORE 101 and CORE 102. Once again, it appears as if this learning community is a success: the fall 2011-fall 2012 retention rate was 90.16%.11 Interestingly, Core Connections also seemed to produce a disproportionate number of student leaders. Moreover, there is a perception among the program’s instructors that it may work even better with more intentional direction and coordination; currently, because there is minimal administrative oversight of the program, some potentially beneficial aspects (like the common reader) are not used as extensively as they might be.

RU’s success with learning communities for new students is neither unusual nor unexpected. In fact, because of the ways they promote student success and retention, Tinto recommends that

. . .colleges and universities should make learning communities and the collaborative pedagogy that underlies them the hallmark of the first year experience. They should ensure that shared learning is the norm, not the exception, of student first year experience (2009).

Recommendations

1. Radford University should expand the number and variety of its learning community offerings. At the outset, these need not be arranged in elaborate or logistically complicated ways. It should not be terribly difficult for each college to pilot at least one simple learning community as early as fall 2013 by linking one or more designated sections of UNIV 100 to one or more sections of a CORE course or a course meeting a Core or major requirement for each of the students in the class. Each learning community could be “themed” in some way. For example, pre-business majors might have the opportunity to take UNIV 100 and ECON 106, using a common reading, in a “Business Connections” learning community; criminal justice majors might similarly link UNIV 100 and CRJU 150.

2. (Assuming that learning community offerings are expanded), Radford University should appoint a part-time Coordinator of Learning Communities. One of the reasons that the Freshmen Connections program worked so well is that a faculty member who taught in the program also had one course reassigned to serve as program coordinator. As noted above, one of the lessons learned from the Core Connections program is that it can only meet its full potential if someone has administrative oversight of all of the program’s moving parts.

3. Radford University should make full use of the Scholar-Citizen Initiative’s potential to impact retention. While it was never designed as a retention initiative, it is becoming increasingly apparent that the “Connect” in “Create. Connect. Contribute.” goes beyond merely connecting classroom knowledge to community service or theory to practice. If the SCI has the culture-shifting impact at RU that its authors fervently hope that it does, it will also have connected students to the University and the local community in ways that enhance their chances for persistence and graduation—by, for example, connecting them professionally to faculty delivering the program, socially to their fellow students, and personally to community leaders and agencies. Thus, learning communities with a Scholar-Citizen theme, possibly linking sections of UNIV 100 to sections of CORE courses, courses

11 Data provided by the Office of Institutional Research.

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meeting Core Curriculum requirements, or the LEAD 110 course, should be offered as soon as possible.

4. Radford University should continue to develop new opportunities for students to become deeply involved in their own learning. The proposed “Integrated Semester,” which is itself a type of learning community, is but one promising example; it has the potential to “engender a coherent interdisciplinary or cross-subject learning that is not easily attainable through enrollment in unrelated, stand-alone courses” (Tinto, 2009). While we suspect that lecturing remains the preferred pedagogical style of many faculty, there is considerable evidence that students do not learn best if their instructors do all of the talking and just a handful of students actively participate. Deep learning is, once again, about forging connections: faculty-student; student-student; course-course; discipline-discipline, etc.

Additional Proactive Recommendations

The recommendations listed above are listed vis-à-vis Tinto’s (2009) conditions for student retention. A commitment to enhancing retention at Radford University also requires the following:

1. The appointment of a full-time Coordinator of Student Retention. Currently, RU has numerous pieces of a good retention program in place: an effective first-year experience course, excellent tutoring, learning communities, academic recovery programs (see below), etc., but there is no one charged to coordinate our offerings, bring key players together, and strategically plan new directions. As a result, individuals are too frequently doing the good work of retention in silos with minimal collaboration. If RU’s retention overall is to be better than the sum of its parts, efforts must be coordinated.12

2. Addressing staffing inadequacies in the Office of New Student Programs. Retention is a concern largely for new students: RU loses approximately 25% of our students after one year of enrollment, but only another 15% over the next five.13 Unfortunately, at the same time that the number of our new students has increased dramatically (i.e., RU welcomed two of the largest cohorts of new students in its history in fall 2011 and fall 2012), even when its currently advertised position is filled, NSP will have 80% as many staff members as it did when the institution was admitting significantly smaller classes.

3. The appointment of an Ombudsman. If students at RU are the victims of violence or discrimination, they have a place to go. However, if their complaint or problem is more nebulous, they and their parents are not sure whom to contact. Frequently, they contact what they think is the right office, only to be “bounced” from one office to another. The University should set a goal that no student or parent with a problem to be resolved or an issue to be considered need make more than one phone call. It would then be the ombudsman’s role to investigate the matter and return the call—ideally, within 24 hours. Minimizing student and parent frustration may have only a minimal impact upon retention rates, but every effort should be made to make RU as “customer-friendly” as possible.

4. Additional outreach to students who left the University in good standing to engage them in conversations about reenrolling. Each October, the University can obtain information about whether students who left RU the previous year are continuing their education elsewhere. Students who have transferred to another institution are presumably not

12 Christopher Newport University recently hired Ms. Jeannine DiPasquale as its first “Director of Academic Success” to fill this role.13 As per the Office of Institutional Research, RU’s six-year graduation rate for the 2005 cohort was approximately 60%.

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planning to return to Radford. However, there are students who leave the University for personal reasons and who are not enrolled at other colleges or universities. Currently, we make no attempt to contact them for the purposes of bringing them back, even though we are now offering more and more online courses that should ease their return. And their impact on graduation rates is not insignificant: those students who were readmitted to RU between 1998 and 2005 ultimately increased our graduation rates for their entering cohorts between 4 and 7%.14

5. Consideration of the co-location of student academic support services in a single attractive and contemporary facility. The relatively recent renovation of Heth Hall brought together a variety of student support offices—e.g., the Registrar’s Office, Financial Aid, Student Accounts—in one building. We believe that our students would benefit significantly and RU would make a substantial statement about the degree to which it values student success if academic support services were similarly co-located in pleasant and modern surroundings. While this co-location would ideally include each of the academic advising centers because of the frequency with which they interact, we recognize that many of RU’s academic buildings have been renovated or planned for construction with new advising centers included. However, we believe that, since facilities for each of RU’s colleges have been renovated, completed, or are in the planning stages, the next step is for the University to bring together offices housing NSP, the LARC, the Office of Student Success, the Scholar-Citizen Initiative, the Core Curriculum, pre-major advising, etc.

We will be so bold as to suggest three possible locations: in a renovated Whitt Hall—if, in fact, Whitt is deemed worthy of renovation; on the site of the current Fairfax Hall—if the political obstacles connected with razing the building can be surmounted; or on the corner of Fairfax and Adams streets—assuming that the assortment of current apartments currently on the site will be demolished when the new building housing the College of Humanities and Behavioral Sciences is built. Each of these sites in located in a high-student-traffic area.

Reactive Initiatives: Establishing Programs Supporting Academic Recovery

Despite any university’s best efforts, there will be students who do not meet its academic expectations. The university must therefore establish probation and suspension thresholds that are reasonable and fair, decide whether to give students second chances, and create academic recovery programs that provide opportunity and support, but that also make it clear that the ultimate responsibility for returning to good academic standing rests with the student. This section of our report outlines Radford University’s current probation, suspension, and readmission policies and then offers recommendations regarding how they might be revised to better serve our students.

1. Current Policies: Probation and Suspension

Presently, all students with cumulative grade point averages below 2.00 are placed on probation at the end of each semester (unless they are subject to suspension). Suspension policies differ between new and continuing students:

14 Data provided by the Office of Institutional Research.

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New students who earn less than a 1.25 at the conclusion of the first semester of enrollment are suspended and cannot continue in the next session unless they are invited to and agree to participate in the SORTS program. (See below.)

Continuing students are suspended at only one point in time: at the conclusion of all summer sessions. Students are suspended if they have attempted a minimum of 30 hours and their cumulative grade point averages are below 2.00. These students also cannot continue for the next session. The University makes no exceptions to suspension for continuing students.

Any student who is suspended, is readmitted (see below), and falls below the suspension threshold for a second time is dismissed from the University and may not reenroll at Radford in the future.

Comments

Radford University’s suspension policy for new students is arguably the most stringent of such policies at public universities in the Commonwealth. Most institutions do not suspend students after a single semester of poor performance; those that ostensibly do (e.g., Christopher Newport) allow virtually all affected students to return in the spring in a recovery program. While RU’s strict policy may be good for the academic reputation of the University and encourages students to be serious about their studies beginning with their first day on campus, one could argue that it does not acknowledge the transition issues faced by new students. Having a policy that is not in line with institutional peers also likely affects perceptions of the institution when retention rates are compared.

On the other hand, one could contend that RU’s suspension policy for continuing students is too lenient. When the policy was implemented in 1996, we made the assumption that students would attempt 30 hours during their first year of enrollment. Struggling students and their advisors soon figured out that if students used class withdrawals judiciously and/or registered for fewer classes so that they remained below 30 hours attempted, at the end of all summer sessions following their first year they would not be subject to suspension. Rather, they could remain enrolled on probation for another entire year.

2. Current Academic Recovery Programs

Suspended new students who are judged to have the greatest opportunity for success—typically, those with between a 1.00 and 1.24 GPA during their first semester of enrollment—are offered an exception to suspension, provided they participate in SORTS (Students On the Road To Success), a contracted program that involves peer mentoring , structured study halls, and other types of support. Currently, there is no University-structured recovery program for students on probation—i.e., students with less than 30 hours attempted whose cumulative grade point averages fall between 1.25 and 2.00.

Comments

Despite the valiant efforts of peer mentors, the New Student Programs staff initially and the Office of Student Success more recently, the SORTS program has achieved very limited success.15 For example, in spring 2012:

15 All SORTS retention data provided by the Office of Institutional Research.

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SORTS, Spring 2012

New Students, GPA <1.25 Fall 2011

Offered SORTS Entered SORTS Academically Successful (Retained through Fall

2012)243 67 55 24 (43.6%)

The percentage of students “salvaged” through SORTS since its inception is approximately 45%, so spring 2012 was typical. And it should be noted that even this figure is merely a one-semester success rate. Historically, SORTS students have not persisted to graduation: only 22% of the 445 students who were part of SORTS between 2001 and 2008 have graduated. (Eight remained enrolled.)

It could be argued, of course, that it is worth our effort to facilitate the recovery of any student; maybe we should be joyful that 24 students who performed miserably in fall 2011 might be on the road to recovery. Clearly, though, the value of SORTS must be examined in light of limited resources: might the human and financial resources that are currently being directed to SORTS be better focused upon students on probation and those who have experienced a “reality check” by being separated from RU through academic suspension, who ostensibly have greater probability for retention and graduation?

3. Current Readmission Policy

All students who do not maintain continuous enrollment at RU must apply for readmission. Those who left in good standing are, for all intents and purposes, automatically readmitted. The applications of those who were not in good standing when they left RU are reviewed by the Readmission Committee (i.e., the Academic Advising Committee); those who are readmitted are those who are judged most likely to be able to rapidly return to good standing. Readmitted students must remove half of their grade point deficits during their first semester of enrollment following readmission. Failure to do so results in dismissal from the University.

While the Readmission Committee has generally made good decisions about which students to readmit, those decisions are frequently made with incomplete information, resulting in “seat-of-the pants” judgments. Moreover, the Committee always struggles to make consistent decisions across programs and colleges. Occasionally, due to program GPA or other requirements, a student may be judged readmissable to the University but not to the program he/she left; this further complicates decisions. Finally, students who are readmitted receive no structured academic support to facilitate their academic recovery upon their return to RU.

Recommendations

Radford University should revise its academic probation and suspension policies and its programs designed to help students return to good standing. Specific recommendations will be enumerated below and then compared to current policies in tables that follow.

Suspension Policy

1. (New Students; minimum of 12 hour attempted) Radford University should suspend new freshmen and transfer full-time students who earn less than a 1.00 GPA in the first semester of enrollment. All new students who fall below the 1.00 suspension threshold

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must serve a semester of suspension during the next (i.e., fall or spring term); there will be no exceptions. (There will be no SORTS program; see below.)

2. (Continuing Students) Radford University should suspend continuing students who have attempted a minimum of 24 hours under either of two conditions:

a. Their cumulative GPA falls below 1.00; orb. Following three consecutive semesters on academic probation.

All continuing students who fall below the suspension threshold must serve a semester of suspension during the next (i.e., fall or spring term); there will be no exceptions.

Probation Policy

All students whose cumulative GPAs are at least 1.00 but are below 2.00 at the end of any term will be placed on academic probation, unless they are subject to suspension because they have been on probation for three consecutive semesters.

Recovery Programs

1. Students on academic probation must enroll in UNIV 150 during their first semester on probation. They will be permitted to enroll in no more than 14 hours, including UNIV 150.

2. As a condition of their readmission, students returning to RU after a semester of suspension must enroll in UNIV 150, a one-hour graded course taught by a faculty/staff instructor and a peer instructor. This course will focus upon helping students find their path to academic success. Readmitted students will be permitted to enroll in no more than 14 hours, including UNIV 150.

Readmission Procedures

1. There should be no change in readmission procedures for students who left RU in good standing.

2. Students who did not leave in good standing should be informed in detail about the criteria that will be used to determine their readmission. They should be required to demonstrate with greater specificity than is currently the case their worthiness for readmission. A new readmission application should be developed that:

a. Includes information about how the student has used his/her time productively (e.g., working, completing courses at a community college) while away from RU;

b. Includes a narrative describing the reasons for his/her poor academic performance and an academic recovery plan;

c. Includes two non-family letters of reference; andd. Includes documentation if/as appropriate.

3. A rubric should be developed for use by one or more representatives from each college and premajor to make preliminary recommendations about readmission based upon the written application. A recent analysis of students who were readmitted for the spring 2011, fall 2011, and spring 2012 semesters, for example, seems to indicate that, as a general rule, the greater a student’s grade point deficit at the time of readmission, the worse his/her chances for academic survival following readmission.16 Grade point deficit should therefore

16 Data provided by Ms. Sarah Turner, Readmission Coordinator, Radford University Office of the Registrar.

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be included in the rubric, along with other factors to which we might find that success is linked: “repeats” and course withdrawals remaining; major; numbers of hours attempted; etc. Decisions will never be perfect, but we should be more analytic in making them.

4. Final decisions about readmission should be made by a reconstituted (and considerably smaller) Readmission Committee following the review of applications, recommendations, and documentation. In especially difficult cases, the Committee may require interviews with applicants before rendering final decisions.

Summary Table: Academic Probation and Suspension Policies

Policy Current Proposed Comments/ImplicationsSuspension (New Students) GPA < 1.25 GPA < 1.00 Lowers the suspension

threshold. However, virtually all students between 1.00

and 1.25 are currently given exceptions to suspension by

being invited to participate in SORTS, so the effect on

numbers actually suspended should be negligible.

Suspension (Continuing Students)

At conclusion of all summer sessions after 30 hours

attempted in which the GPA falls below 2.00.

At conclusion of any semester after 24 hours attempted in which the

cumulative GPA falls below 1.00; OR following three

consecutive semesters on academic probation

Students can be suspended following any semester, not

just the summer. Would mean that a perpetually

struggling student would be suspended no later than following his/her third

semester of enrollment rather than his/her fourth.

Academic Probation (all students)

Cumulative GPA between 1.25 and 1.99

Cumulative GPA between 1.00 and 1.99

Adjusted to account for changes in suspension policy.

Summary Table: Recovery Programs

Situation Current Proposed Comments/ImplicationsSuspension (New Students) Some new students invited

to participate in SORTSNone. All students must

serve a semester of suspension.

While some students may be suspended for reasons

beyond their control, they should take a semester to get

their lives in order rather than being permitted to

immediately reenroll.Suspension (Continuing

Students)None None

Probation None Students must enroll in UNIV 150 and a total of no more

than 14 hours

Offers heretofore unavailable support to students who

should be our most academically salvageable

Readmitted Students None Students must enroll in UNIV 150 and a total of no more

than 14 hours

Offers heretofore unavailable support to students who are

returning to campus after serving a semester of

suspension

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Final Thoughts

The best-designed retention programs are only as effective as the professionals who are delivering those programs. Growing the University’s enrollment to 10,000 students will not only require adding more faculty to keep classes small enough so that instructors can appropriately challenge and support students. It will also require that the number of staff supporting the University’s retention efforts keeps pace with increases in the numbers of students we are serving.

It is in recognition of this reality that many of the recommendations in this report pertain to the hiring of additional staff and/or appropriately compensating current staff. (It is worth mentioning that not as many new positions may be needed as one may assume upon first reading of this report. While both the Director of Retention and the Director of Advising should be separate, full-time positions, some of the other part-time retention-related responsibilities we have discussed might be combined under the oversight of a single individual.) Decisions to add new staff are rarely popular among overworked faculty, no matter whether the new positions offer oversight of key retention initiatives or are on the “front lines” of retention as they work directly with students in NSP, the LARC, and academic advising centers. However, we believe that improvements in retention will not occur unless RU invests in additional professionals whose work in retention will complement and supplement that of our excellent current faculty and staff who are already stretched too thin.

The investment in additional retention staff—indeed, the investment in any retention initiatives—is one that will require institutional patience. Noel-Levitz and other similar organizations have calculated that even relatively small increases in student retention can pay huge future financial dividends that institutions can then invest in the academic enterprise. More important, though, is the positive impact that the facilitation of students’ academic success has upon their lives and those of their families.

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References

AASCU. (2005). Student Success in State Colleges and Universities: A Matter of Culture and Leadership. Washington, DC: American Association of State Colleges and Universities (AASCU).

ACT. (2010). What Works in Student Retention: Fourth National Survey (Public Four-Year Colleges and Universities Report). Iowa City, Iowa.

Center for Public Education. (2012). High School Rigor and Good Advice: Setting Up Students to Succeed. Posted at http://www.centerforpubliceducation.org/Main-Menu/Staffingstudents/High-school-rigor-and-good-advice-Setting-up-students-to-succeed, October 11.

King, M. C. (2005). Developmental Academic Advising. Retrieved from NACADA Clearinghouse of Academic Advising Resources Web site: http://www.nacada.ksu.edu/Clearinghouse/AdvisingIssues/dev_adv.htm .

Kramer, G. (2003). Advising as teaching. In G. Kramer (Ed.), Faculty advising examined. (pp.1–22). Bolton, MA: Anker.

Liptak, J.J. (2006). College Survival & Success Scale. Indianapolis, IN: JIST Publishing. See http://jist.emcpublishingllc.com/page-jist/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/College-to-Career-Transition-Inventory-Administrators-Guide.pdf for information.

Liptak, J.J. (2007). An Assessment-based Approach to First-year Programming. Presented at the 20th International Conference on the First-Year Experience, Big Island, Hawaii.

National Academic Advising Association. (2006). NACADA Concept of Academic Advising. Retrieved from http://www.nacada.ksu.edu/Clearinghouse/AdvisingIssues/Concept-Advising.htm

O'Banion, T. (1994). An Academic Advising Model . NACADA Journal , 14(2), 10 - 16.

Radford University Teaching and Research Faculty Handbook

Ripley, Amanda. (2012). College is Dead. Long Live College! Time, October 29, 32-41.

Tinto, Vincent. (2009). Taking Student Retention Seriously. Speech delivered at the FYE Curriculum Design Symposium, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia, February 5.

Tinto, Vincent. (2011). Student Success, in the Classroom. Posted at http://www.insidehighered.com/views/2011/11/03/essay-focus-student-success-efforts-what-happens-classroom, November 3.

Trabant, T.D. (2006). Advising Syllabus 101. Retrieved from NACADA Clearinghouse of Academic Advising Resources Web site: http://www.nacada.ksu.edu/Clearinghouse/AdvisingIssues/syllabus101.htm.

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Appendices

Appendix A: New Student Fall-to-Fall Retention Rates …………………………………………………………… 28

Appendix B: New Freshmen Fall-to-Fall Retention Rates by Gender and Ethnicity …………………. 29

Appendix C: Retention Rates by Entering Academic Credentials ……………………………………………. 30

Appendix D: Retention Rates at Virginia Public Universities (Fall 2010 Cohort) ……………………… 31

Appendix E: UNIV 100 Retention …………………………………………………………………………………………… 32

Appendix F: Who Takes UNIV 100? ……………………………………………………………………………………….. 33

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Appendix A: New Student Fall-to-Fall Retention Rates

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Fall Term

New Freshmen

New Transfers

1st Gen NF

1st Gen TR

2011 74.35 81.05 71.28 81.642010 76.10 80.46 73.82 76.172009 75.95 80.96 77.70 80.372008 78.24 82.04 78.27 82.522007 78.06 82.67 79.25 79.202006 76.80 84.24 76.04 83.332005 73.73 82.84 73.21 79.642004 78.47 82.04 77.51 82.882003 75.86 81.91 75.00 82.352002 77.49 79.88 77.46 77.022001 77.52 78.09 74.48 81.722000 79.08 79.32 79.87 80.411999 73.14 74.31 71.48 72.481998 75.88 73.78 n/a n/a1997 74.38 76.55 n/a n/a1996 75.30 74.65 n/a n/a1995 72.47 76.34 n/a n/a1994 68.10 73.35 n/a n/a

Average 75.72 79.02 75.75 80.50

Appendix B: New Freshmen Fall-to-Fall Retention Rates by Gender and Ethnicity

Gender

Ethnicity Fall 2001

Fall 2002

Fall 2003

Fall 2004 Fall 2005

Fall 2006

Fall 2007

Fall 2008

Fall 2009

Fall 2010 Fall 2011

12-Year Total

Female Am. Indian or Alaska Native 66.67% 50.00% 71.43% 100.00% 40.00% 60.00% 66.67% 100.00% 100.00% 100.00% 85.71% 75.47%Asian 82.61% 86.96% 88.00% 68.97% 68.42% 67.74% 89.29% 65.00% 71.43% 76.92% 83.33% 73.41%Black or African American 85.83% 79.37% 81.08% 86.67% 66.18% 82.81% 76.19% 72.73% 75.00% 74.19% 90.99% 77.42%Hispanic 78.57% 65.63% 81.48% 76.47% 72.72% 75.76% 68.00% 83.67% 73.33% 60.00% 88.68% 73.70%Native Hawaiian Other Pacific Islander

50.00% 50.00% 60.00% 100.00% 75.00%

Race and Ethnicity Unknown 60.00% 75.00% 100.00% 100.00% 72.73%Refused to Disclose 100.00% 73.68% 80.00% 80.00% 87.50% 79.17%Two or More Races 60.00% 73.33% 76.92% 63.64% 69.05%White 79.38% 78.74% 78.28% 79.32% 74.87% 77.88% 77.99% 78.62% 79.56% 80.85% 78.01% 78.61%Nonresident Alien 100.00% 60.00%Total Female 79.83% 78.53% 78.72% 79.47% 73.93% 77.89% 77.84% 78.11% 78.67% 79.87% 76.51% 78.19%

Male Am. Indian or Alaska Native 100.00% 25.00% 50.00% 60.00% 50.00% 100.00% 100.00% 83.33% 100.00% 77.14%Asian 80.00% 58.82% 72.73% 66.67% 57,14% 58.82% 87.50% 60.87% 58.33% 47.06% 60.00% 65.00%Black or African American 81.58% 75.86% 84.62% 78.95% 81.25% 82.76% 73.68% 77.78% 73.33% 72.22% 65.82% 76.33%Hispanic 66.67% 70.83% 85.71% 80.95% 64.00% 72.73% 81.48% 76.00% 60.00% 84.62% 82.76% 76.26%Native Hawaiian Other Pacific Islander

100.00% 100.00% 80.00% 90.91%

Race and Ethnicity Unknown 100.00% 20.00%Refused to Disclose 87.50% 58.33% 68.18% 80.00% 50.00% 100.00% 70.69%Two or More Races 46.15% 85.00% 61.29% 65.63%White 77.80% 76.43% 75.24% 77.05% 74.13% 75.37% 78.59% 79.66% 73.81% 70.19% 72.48% 75.10%Nonresident Alien 77.78% 50.00% 69.23%Total Male 77.98% 75.83% 75.71% 76.91% 73.61% 75.22% 78.34% 78.75% 72.20% 70.87% 71.57% 74.79%

Total 79.12% 77.49% 77.55% 78.50% 73.80% 76.83% 76.83% 78.37% 75.95% 76.10% 74.35% 76.82%

Appendix C: Retention Rates by Entering Academic Credentials

Retained New Freshmen (2007-2011)

Average 25th Percentile 50th Percentile 75th PercentileHigh School

GPA3.20 2.90 3.16 3.46

SAT Score 1019 930 1000 1090

Non-Retained New Freshmen (2007-2011)

Average 25th Percentile 50th Percentile 75th PercentileHigh School

GPA3.07 2.78 3.04 3.33

SAT Score 1018 930 1010 1090

Appendix D: Retention and Graduation Rates at Virginia Public Universities (Fall 2004 Cohort)

Institution Retention Rate (Fall 2011 Cohort)

Six-Year Graduation Rate (2004 Cohort)

University of Virginia—Main Campus 97% 93%College of William and Mary 95% 90%

James Madison University 91% 82%Virginia Tech 91% 80%

George Mason University 87% 63%Virginia Military Institute 87% 70%

Virginia Commonwealth University 86% 50%University of Mary Washington 85% 75%Christopher Newport University 84% 60%

Old Dominion University 80% 50%Longwood University 78% 59%

Radford University 76% 57%Norfolk State University 73% 34%Virginia State University 71% 41%

The University of Virginia’s College at Wise 63% 48%

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Appendix E: UNIV 100 Retention

NF Overall UNIV 100 New Freshmen Did not Take UNIV 100

Fall Term Cohort Retained

Fall to Fall Retention Cohort Retained

Fall to Fall Retention Cohort Retained

Fall to Fall Retention

2011 2,035 1,513 74.3% 1,491 1,159 77.7% 544 354 65.1%2010 1,837 1,398 76.1% 1,380 1,080 78.3% 457 318 69.6%2009 1,447 1,099 76.0% 1,134 895 78.9% 313 204 65.2%2008 1,875 1,467 78.2% 1,426 1,158 81.2% 449 309 68.8%2007 1,841 1,437 78.1% 1,450 1,162 80.1% 391 275 70.3%2006 1,733 1,331 76.8% 1,432 1,147 80.1% 301 184 61.1%2005 1,896 1,398 73.7% 1,543 1,179 76.4% 353 219 62.0%2004 1,830 1,436 78.5% 1,450 1,186 81.8% 380 250 65.8%2003 1,802 1,367 75.9% 1,354 1,065 78.7% 448 302 67.4%2002 1,817 1,408 77.5% 1,358 1,088 80.1% 459 320 69.7%2001 1,877 1,455 77.5% 1,457 1,166 80.0% 420 289 68.8%2000 1,759 1,391 79.1% 1,389 1,121 80.7% 370 270 73.0%1999 1,664 1,217 73.1% 1,302 989 76.0% 362 228 63.0%1998 1,526 1,158 75.9% 1,101 873 79.3% 425 285 67.1%1997 1,624 1,208 74.4% 998 775 77.7% 626 433 69.2%1996 1,429 1,076 75.3% 740 570 77.0% 689 506 73.4%Total 21,005 16,613 79.1% 6,987 4,746 67.9%

20002001

20022003

20042005

20062007

20082009

20102011

60%

65%

70%

75%

80%

85%

Took UNIV 100 Did Not Take UNIV 100

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Appendix F: Who Takes UNIV 100?

UNIV100 Enrollment of New Students (2008-2012)Took

UNIV100 Did Not Take UNIV100% Took

UNIV100Total New Students 7,244 5,594 56%New Freshmen 7,059 2,188 76%Transfer 185 3,406 5%

Average High School GPA (NF) 3.17 3.15Average SAT Scores (NF) 1015 1023

Took UNIV100 Did Not Take UNIV100

% Took UNIV100

Lived in Institutional Housing (NF) 6,857 2,034 77%Lived Off Campus (NF) 202 154 57%Lived in Institutional Housing (TR) 111 1,047 10%Lived Off Campus (TR) 74 2,359 3%

UNIV100 Enrollment of New Freshmen by Total Fall Hours

Enrolled Hours (Minus UNIV100)Took

UNIV100 Did Not Take UNIV100% Took

UNIV1002 0 2 0%3 0 1 0%9 1 0 100%11 29 100 22%12 497 102 83%13 811 70 92%14 512 965 35%15 3,040 842 78%16 2,086 68 97%17 83 36 70%18 0 2 0%

UNIV100 Enrollment of New Freshmen by Major

MajorTook

UNIV100 Did Not Take UNIV100% Took

UNIV100Finance 27 24 53%Sociology 13 11 54%Philosophy and Religious Studies 5 4 56%Music 94 67 58%

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Foreign Language 10 7 59%Economics 19 12 61%Geography 5 3 63%Pre-Business 474 230 67%Accounting 86 37 70%Management 82 34 71%Anthropology 5 2 71%Psychology 307 122 72%Exercise, Sport, and Health Education 359 142 72%Athletic Training 86 34 72%Biology 336 130 72%Chemistry 94 32 75%Mathematics 50 17 75%Media Studies 124 42 75%Marketing 166 55 75%Theatre 61 20 75%Foods and Nutrition 77 25 75%Information Science and Systems 50 16 76%Physics 60 19 76%Pre-Major 1406 434 76%Recreation, Parks, and Tourism 52 16 76%Design 230 65 78%Political Science 89 25 78%Computer Science and Technology 216 60 78%Social Work 53 13 80%History 107 25 81%Art 165 38 81%Criminal Justice 405 93 81%English 80 17 82%Pre-Nursing 718 145 83%Pre-Music 25 5 83%Interdisciplinary Studies 521 103 83%Communication 146 28 84%Social Science 52 9 85%Dance 73 12 86%Communication Sciences and Disorders 54 8 87%Geospatial Science 14 2 88%Anthropological Sciences 29 4 88%Geology 34 1 97%

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