Campus Wide Retention Planning: The Six-Minute "Read"
Bonnie
Alberts
Black
Hills State University
Since
Tinto's challenge to "Rethink.the causes and cures of student
attrition" (Tinto, 1987 and 1993), American higher education has
faced the costly truth of high attrition and actively sought viable
interventions to improve college student retention. ACT's most
recent survey results, What Works In Student Retention?
(ACT, 2004), summarize the current state of affairs in retention
practices and concerns among over one thousand colleges and universities.
By articulating these shared concerns, this ACT report serves
to identify and focus appropriate targets, strategies, and recommendations
for intervention. However, the best work in research and reporting
is of little use if, as practitioners, we stay too busy to engage
and learn from the information and insights provided.
This
ACT Survey Report, What Works In Student Retention?,
offers the briefest possible overview of its results in a one
page Executive Summary and a five-page view of "Programs with
the Greatest Impact on Retention" within a full report of their
data, analyses, and recommendations. Section
D of the survey presented eighty-two retention interventions from
which institutions chose those they use and rated each for its
contribution to retention. Of the practices with the greatest
mean contribution to retention, three to five advising strategies
placed among the top eight interventions, depending on the type
of institution reporting (Two-Year Public, Four-Year Public, Four-Year
Private, and All Surveys). It is also apparent that institutions
with high retention and graduation performance are more likely
to have implemented retention interventions from the Advising
Program strategies. [See Summary Table D and Tables 8 and 10]
(ACT, 2004).
As
higher education professionals, we have watched and participated
in efforts to find those "cures" that answer Tinto's challenge
to improve student success and persistence. Throughout this period
of trial, error, success, and sharing our experiences, ACT has
encouraged and supported our efforts with its continuous provision
of useful research and data analyses to which we can anchor our
practices and thereby evaluate our results. In 1979, ACT embarked
on the first of six national studies on academic advising, the
last of which was published as a NACADA monograph, The Status
of Academic Advising: Findings from the ACT Sixth National Survey
(NACADA, 2004). From its first What Works In Student
Retention? (ACT, 1980) to its recent policy report, The
Role of Academic and Non-Academic Factors in Improving College
Retention (ACT, 2004), ACT has provided valuable documentation
and guidance to higher education practices.
While
some of the points made in the latest What Works In Student
Retention? (ACT, 2004) are conspicuously common sense applications,
others are provocatively insightful. Even the most common knowledge
can provoke new meaning when seen from a previously unrecognized
perspective. The data are clearly presented, but the analyses
and consequent recommendations call for our active attention.
To one who has participated in designing, developing and implementing
integrated, comprehensive, academic and non-academic retention
strategies on two community college and four university campuses,
this report and these findings prompt a dichotomous response.
The
report is heartening, because the findings and recommendations
affirm our experiences. We know them to be correct; they take
time, but they are effective and doable. While each recommendation
is simple enough in and of itself, the complexity of coordination
and implementation can be paralyzing. The antidote for this paralysis
is to pay particular attention to two of the recommendations-
1) "Designate a visible individual to coordinate a campus-wide
planning team" (ACT, 2004), and make certain that it is someone
with both the authority to act and the necessary skills to 2)
"[o]rchestrate the change process" (ACT, 2004). The "designated
individual" will assure that the mission does not lose its momentum.
The "campus-wide planning team" will give the movement broad based
interest and outreach to spectators who should be participants.
And "orchestrat[ing] the change process" will provide a rationale
and infrastructure essential to the movement's endurance.
It
is disheartening to realize that collectively, institutions virtually
blame students for not persisting. "Student characteristics cited
as having the greatest impact were lack of motivation to succeed,
inadequate financial resources, inadequate preparation for college,
and poor study skills" (ACT, 2004). It would seem that even the
two contributing institutional characteristics that surfaced-the
amount of financial aid available and student-institution fit
(ACT, 2004) were also about students' inadequacies. However, following
the "What Works." recommendations may lead institutions through
processes that could help them better define the points of departure
between their students and their institutions, thereby clarifying
ways in which the institution itself may be contributing to attrition
by not advocating to
provide appropriately what students need to achieve success. Certainly
".required remedial/developmental.mandated course placement."
(ACT, 2004) and tutoring and learning assistance represent efforts
to narrow the gap between under prepared students and rigorous
institutional expectations-a clarion
point of departure.
While
the data vary slightly by type of institution-public/private,
two-year/four-year-the concerns and recommendations are the same.
The standing imperative is that we must "read and heed."
Too few of us are aware of and take advantage of the available
research and conclusions. From individual researchers to major
contributors like ACT, NACADA, and CSRDE (Consortium of Student
Retention Data Exchange), we have the gift of shared experiences
and compiled and analyzed data, of which we make too little use.
Perhaps, in some ways, we are our students. Fueled by a sense
of futility, we may lack motivation to succeed at student retention,
our financial resources may be inadequate,
and we may be underprepared for the task at hand. Due to heavy
workloads, we can benefit most from thoughtful summaries of pertinent
research information. In What Works in Student Retention?
Wes Habley, Randy McClanahan, and their ACT team have done
a commendable job of analyzing, organizing, and presenting their
findings. As committed professionals, we must reward that effort
with our attention and response. What Works in Student Retention?
is an easy read with a challenge to identify with the findings
and relate them to our own institutional settings, while comparing
or contrasting them to our own experiences. Armed with this knowledge
and energized by these perspectives, can we provoke our institutions
to respond to the retention challenges of our students?
At
the core of these recommendations stands academic advising, particularly
".advising interventions for selected populations.' (ACT, 2004)
and expanding advising to address career/life planning (ACT, 2004).
"Selected populations" is a chameleon term that
can be applied to whomever you serve-under prepared students,
non-traditional students, student athletes, probation students,
honors students, millennial students. Wouldn't all of our students
benefit from appropriate advising interventions? With "lack of
motivation to succeed." among the highest contributors to attrition
(ACT, 2004) and often tied to life relevance and goals, the value
of expanded academic advising is too conspicuous to let pass.
Nevertheless , enhancing academic advising alone cannot carry
the burden of retention mandates and objectives. An integrated
approach that addresses non-academic and academic issues necessitates
collaboration across campuses to construct a net of awareness
and practices to catch even the inconspicuous struggler.
The
essentials of this ACT Report are presented in an Executive Summary-a
one-page, one-minute read-and a five-page review of "Programs
with Greatest Impact on Retention" and specific recommendations
for enhanced practices and retention interventions. This brevity
facilitates sharing with under informed, yet essential, players
whose cooperation and access to information also is restricted
by their overloads and time constraints. At the same time, each
element begs for extended attention and is ripe for use as a springboard
for creative "Think Tank" processes to evaluate the
applicability and possibilities, as well as specific ways to manifest
the intentions for a particular campus. If you are looking for
a short cut to the starting point of a long and potentially fruitful
journey to improved student retention, begin with What Works
in Student Retention?
What
Works In Student Retention? (
http://www.act.org/path/policy/reports/retain.html
) [Find the Executive Summary on page 6 in all categories
and Section E with Recommendations on pages 18-22 in All Survey
Colleges and pages 21-25 in other categories.]
The
Role of Academic and Non-Academic Factors in Improving
College Retention (http://www.act.org/path/policy/reports
)
References
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