Retention at Radford University: Current Status and Recommendations for Enhancement

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

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% / $14,500
2011 / 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 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, we[2] 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. 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 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 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.