Creating Departmental Retention Plans

What steps does your department already take to assist students in being successful at ISU, and to retain those students at the university?

  • Advising
  • Consistent course scheduling
  • Working with Educational Student Services in the College
  • Faculty try to meet needs of students
  • Small classes
  • Acquaintance/relationship w/profs
  • Good foundation for advising for education or jobs
  • Group advising residence hall
  • Open labs that develop relationships with senior students
  • Adjusted curriculum to reflect actual aspiring goals of students
  • Train department advisors
  • Use gifted advisors (support talented people in this role)
  • Adopt career focus in 100-level courses
  • Focus on internships
  • Track at-risk students (college-based)
  • Call in help from library (info-literacy); the writing center; the career center; the counseling center
  • Use of administrative assistants to counsel & do triage w/students
  • One-on-one advisement
  • Keep office hours
  • Attendance policy
  • Prompt response to students’ questions or concerns
  • Specific advising docs to reduce confusion for SS & advisors
  • No core courses at same time
  • Initial year, everyone is advised by Director of U. G. Study
  • Provide a means for SS to shift between progs in department to allow SS to switch easier
  • Keep all majors on sequence—helps to use soph advisors, jr advisors
  • Identify professional faculty advisor—someone among faculty who does a great job and give them release time
  • Great academic advising
  • Identify resources on campus to assist students
  • Recapture plan development in 2012-2013 AY for stop-outs
  • Communication & development relationship with student
  • Student help center
  • Supplemental instructors for undergraduates
  • Monitor attendance in certain classes. We know that attendance behavior is very important; particularly at the freshman year. The purpose is to help modify behavior.
  • We utilize a math diagnostic to help determine math deficiency then we remediate on the specific area of deficiency.
  • Developing a professional advising model that directs students to our most knowledgeable advisors
  • Created a student advocate position for distance students
  • Tutoring assistance
  • There has not been a focused effort in the area of retention. General efforts impacting this would be:
  • Proper scheduling of classes to insure student can progress on time
  • College has a student development enter to help students develop professionally
  • Central advising for years 1 & 2; faculty advising for years 3 & 4
  • Program evaluations to align majors w/employer needs & student desires
  • College requires 2 courses in college in freshman year to “connect” them w/college
  • Faculty advising, but impact hurt by removing need for advisor to give PIN.
  • Course substitutionsome programs flexible, some are nottrying to encourage more flexibility
  • Removing roadblocks for students
  • Change approach to advisingcentralize advising more with better advisors (is faculty though)
  • CoBcentralized advising but encourage immediate feedback to the professional advisor
  • Shouldn’t every faculty member be involved in advising? learn about curriculummake sure faculty have sense of overall curriculum
  • Advising to the individuals who perform it most competently
  • Internships (offering)—paid with course credit
  • “applied” emphasis
  • “careers” class
  • Regular faculty office hours
  • Attendance policies
  • Faculty advisors
  • Faculty attendance at social and/or honor events (i.e. awards, welcome back activities)
  • Share contact information for faculty and advisors

Which entities within your department, college, campus, and the community do you already utilize to assist your department in retaining students? Who/What are the facilitators of your retention efforts?

  • Education student services
  • Faculty, students, mentors, residence hall staff
  • International Programs & Services
  • Local ECON organizations (e.g. TH Econ Development)
  • Alumni in relevant agencies
  • Hospitals, clinics, labs, schools
  • SCoB, BCoE—student services offices
  • CoT—tutoring center
  • Career Services
  • Specialized entry courses (COT130, BUS class, ELED101)
  • Library – concierge, math & writing, computer extra labs
  • School of Music—8 1hour mentoring sessions for freshmen
  • Retention committee
  • Tutors for theory & literacy classes
  • Honors programs & courses
  • Internship sites and experiential learning activities in the community (different agencies)
  • Writing centers
  • Library services
  • Student special activities
  • Call Res Life to notify re: attendance
  • Call Student Counseling re: anxiety
  • Call Security re: safety, healthcare crisis
  • Scholarships, if still funded (Foundation)
  • Child care scholarships available at Early Childhood Education Center
  • Writing center
  • Math center
  • Referrals to Student Academic Support Services (now called Center for Student Success)
  • Writing center
  • Help center
  • Directors of programs
  • Financial aid for certificate seeking students
  • Facilitators: faculty/advisors, student services assistant, chairperson
  • Student services (Kara Harris) etc.
  • We have some outstanding chairs in the CoT and in many cases are the champions of our student success efforts
  • Writing center
  • Library
  • Student organizations
  • CoT centralized advising but some departments chose to be advised but new programs cannot be part of centralized departments so their advising comes back to department
  • More applied programs (CoB)
  • Internships (library)
  • Careers class
  • Tutoring
  • Grad students for tutoring
  • Learning communities
  • Outreach directorconnection with alumni
  • Centralized advising
  • Tutoring (in some departments)
  • Using GA’s for tutoring
  • Outreach director (for internships)
  • Referring to the Career Center
  • Student organizations
  • Writing center
  • Math center
  • Student Academic Center (tutoring, SI’s)
  • Student Counseling Center

What do you see as inhibiting factors for the retention of your students?

  • Outside factors—family issues, money, lack of motivation, time commitment for teacher education
  • Passing Praxis-meeting requirements for entering program
  • External-personal finances
  • Family
  • Working
  • Preparation coming into college (writing, math, critical thinking)
  • Nature of our undergraduate programs
  • Music – performance requirements, interviews, C or better, 2.5 gpa
  • Education – BCP
  • SCoB – GPA requirement from pre-business to business
  • Financial issues, job responsibilities
  • Maintenance of traditional, residential, full-time model
  • Pre-college academic preparation
  • Student population
  • 1st generation
  • Class size—too large
  • Students must work to support themselves
  • Lack of scholarships
  • Delivery of the curriculum in a timely manner (difficult due to scarce resources)
  • Heavy teaching loads, services, & research. No enough time to advise all students
  • How to track juniors & seniors when some of them do not show for advisement
  • Foundation
  • Outside jobs
  • Cost of textbooks/software/mats
  • Family situation (early pregnancy)
  • SS’ inability to structure own time
  • No credit for extra work to help students outside of classroom
  • Lack of scholarship monies
  • Math & writing skills. Lack of support systems outside of the CoT. I am talking about the need of a family member who can provide insight and coach the student in making appropriate decisions. Many of our students are working too many hours but this is necessary to pay for college expenses.
  • Recruiting too many poorly prepared students
  • Large class sizes
  • Unrealistic student expectations
  • Minimal coursework in college in 1st year. None in our department.
  • Family problems
  • Lack of motivation, preparation
  • Lack of resources, (money & time)
  • Students with learning disabilities who don’t divulge the info or who don’t seek assistance (i.e.-with Debbie Huckabee)
  • For education students-the Praxis exam-if can’t pass it they leave the major
  • Bad advice from up upperclassmen or previous graduates

How can those inhibiting factors be neutralized or repurposed to help students?

  • Early career counseling (middle school)
  • Financialon campus job availability
  • Improve teaching—to increase student motivation & retention
  • Offer more scholarships
  • Hire more faculty
  • Bring back the PIN # for juniors & seniors
  • Monitor transitions from university college to their department
  • Campaign to neutralize negative press about Foundation
  • Overt ed.re. expectations of college for parents
  • Scholarship program—reduce cost of textbooks
  • Advertise availability re: counseling
  • Remedial courses/tutoring opportunities
  • Templates online to help SS structure own time; encourage SS to meet with faculty during office hours
  • Direct students with poor writing skills to the writing center
  • We need to look at key courses that could be redesigned to keep academic rigor but allow a higher level of success.
  • Initiating new recruiting efforts
  • More consistency in course requirements & expectations
  • Teach some common 1st year F.S. courses in our building?
  • Make sure students (new freshmen) with learning disabilities are aware of the need to seek assistance

If you could create a “wish list” of things you could do to assist your students in being successful at ISU, what would it include? Please be specific.

  • Available scholarships
  • Realistic education and occupational expectations—given preparation
  • Better use of writing & math centers
  • Re-evaluate undergraduate programs to avoid inappropriate assumptions about preparing students for graduate school.
  • More on-campus student employment
  • Change expectations
  • More staff in student services @ the college level
  • Increase # of student employment opportunities
  • Contact each one that stop-out for one semester to re-enroll
  • We still have a lot more work to do to help our students be successful with their mat skills. We likewise have a problem with students lacking appropriate writing skills. We need to be more invasive and deliberate. We need to be more aware of courses with high WDF rates and an understanding of why our students are not successful in these courses.
  • Better preparing & development of necessary skills before they begin their major
  • Dedicated advising for all 4 years. Require students to see advisors to register. Maybe convert faculty role to that of a mentor.
  • Faculty being strong representatives of their program, regardless of whether they are advising
  • Linking incentives/resources to faculty who do high advising loads
  • Increased rigor/lower grade inflation in high schools so that student are better prepared academically

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