COMMITTEE ON RETENTION
Prepared by Wayne Locust and Sheila Mahan
Background: The retention of students is fundamental to the core business of any institution, yet until
the most recent decade, many colleges across the country paid little attention or paid mere lip service to
the importance of strategic management of student persistence and graduation. However, the time is now
long overdue for the incorporation of retention planning into the University’s enrollment management
efforts. The competition of replacing departing students with new students is extremely fierce, and it is a
lot less expensive to retain a student than it is to recruit one.
“Retention” is an outcome. It is the convergence of many variables including students’ incoming
characteristics, their experiences, both formal and informal, and their satisfaction and success. Thus
student retention should be everyone’s business.
However, an entity focused on retention -- data analysis, information sharing, program development, and
strategic interventions -- is both necessary and desirable to ensure the University at Albany community’s
knowledge base and to guide strategic thinking about ways to improve. Many universities have either an
Office of Retention or a Retention Committee that is generally charged with the review and analysis of
retention data; the creation of retention programs and initiatives; and development or revision of policies
and procedures to improve and enhance the retention of students. Areas that should be explored, but not
limited to include the establishments of a First Year Experience Program, or New Student Orientation
Program; and the review and analysis of time to degree and course availability.
Thus, the Provost is establishing the University Retention Committee, to be chaired by Sheila Mahan,
Assistant Vice President for Academic Affairs. While the focus of this effort will initially be on the
academic programs and experiences, representatives from across campus will be invited to participate.
Membership will include representatives from:
Undergraduate Admissions (Robert Andrea)
Undergraduate Studies (Sue Faerman)
Academic Support Services/EOP (Carson Carr)
Advisement Services Center (Sue Phillips)
College of Arts and Sciences Dean’s Office (Gregory Stevens)
Academic Affairs Planning and Assessment (Bruce Szelest)
Associate Vice President for Student Affairs (Christine Bouchard)
Two teaching faculty from the University Senate (to be identified via Senate Chair)
Two or three students (to be identified via Undergraduate Studies and Student Association)
Committee Charge:
The committee is charged with the on-going examination and evaluation of
retention data, with its analysis shared with Executive Committee and Faculty Governance. It also has
the responsibility to identify barriers to student persistence and graduation; identify best practices;
develop university-wide retention strategies; review existing policies and procedures that serve as
impediments to strong retention; and make recommendations for new policies, programs or initiatives, or
revisions to existing policies to governance and administrative channels as appropriate.
Agenda for the 2005-2006 academic year
1)
Develop University Retention Report and Plan: On the question of retention, the
University is data rich and information poor. Many studies have been done, much data
collected, but we have not assembled it into informative, actionable reports. We must ensure
that efforts are informed by what we know from data as well as what we feel is right. And we
must ensure that we assess our efforts as we move forward. As part of its ongoing effort, the
Retention Committee will:
a.
Examine University retention data, national benchmark data, student satisfaction reports
(national and University)
b.
Provide preliminary report by December 1, 2005, and ongoing reports thereafter
c.
Engage campus in education/discussion to develop appropriate goals for improvement to
retention and strategies to achieve goals as part of formal “retention plan” for 2006-07.
(Spring 2006)
2)
Explore and enhance the “First-year Experience”: The retention of students from
freshman to sophomore year is widely regarded as the key institutional opportunity to affect
its rate of persistence to graduation. While there are certainly other opportunities during the
lifecycle of a student, improving the retention rate from freshman to sophomore year provides
significant institutional benefit. That is why 80 percent of colleges and universities around
the country, including the University at Albany, have a “first-year experience” program – a
set of academic and cocurricular activities that are purposefully organized to create an
“intentional” first year experience. However, the University at Albany’s program, “Project
Renaissance,” is limited to 380 students, and while there are other pockets of activity focused
on the freshman-year experience, they are not widespread, coordinated or integrated.
In other words, most UAlbany first-year students do not benefit from an “intentional” first-
year experience. The University must find ways to expand the intellectual and academic
benefits that it has seen in Project Renaissance – which has a first to second-year retention
rate 6-8 percentage points higher than students not in these groups. Furthermore Project
Renaissance students’ graduation rate of 69.4% is just behind Presidential Scholars (69.7%)
and far ahead of students in none of these groups (56.3%).
The task requires an understanding of the “current state” of the freshman year and the
articulation of a “desired state” – that is set of goals for first-year students. Then we must
identify and implement a set of experiences (academic/intellectual, residential/social)
intentionally designed to achieve these goals. (In this regard, there is no need to invent
programs, as many exist throughout the country; the task will be to tailor well-established
initiatives to UAlbany’s particular needs and culture.) Whether by expanding Project
Renaissance, or developing other first-year programs, the University must address what is an
increasing gap between its first-year experience and those of competitor institutions.
(Additional members of the faculty from key departments will be enlisted in this effort.) This
perspective can also inform ongoing compact planning initiatives arising from academic
units.
3)
Improve course management/access: Without question one of the major sources of student
dissatisfaction at UAlbany is course availability and our procedures to access courses. This is
the University’s “core business” and the reason that students attend college, yet the process
has actually gotten worse in recent years as a result of a number of changes (General
Education requirements, budget reductions, etc). Capitalizing on the new technology tools
available to the University (PeopleSoft, DARS, and Resource25), the Committee will seek a
better understanding of the situation and more proactive management to ensure that:
a.
Supply of courses equals academic requirements
b.
Academic requirements are deliverable
c.
Student demand is managed through advisement and other efforts to structure the
academic experience for them to maximize availability
d.
Student course preferences, course-taking patterns, and other student-driven variables are
better understood as factors in this tight ‘economy’
e.
Other institutional practices that affect registration access, such as classroom
management, are coordinated to achieve maximum access
This is the proverbial “low-hanging fruit” to improve student satisfaction, which is not to
suggest that revisions will be easy (given entrenched patterns by faculty, departments,
administrative units, governance and students). But any improvements will affect virtually
all students to some degree.
4)
Continue improvements to academic advisement: Academic advisement appears at the top of
every national survey of what’s most important to students. In 2004 an Advisement Task
Force began a review of University-wide advisement, including its various forms of delivery
throughout the campus, as well as the issues, challenges and needs of students and advisors
around this core academic support activity. The Advisement Policy current under review by
the University Senate includes joint formation of a working group to implement many
recommendations that emerged from the initial report (more resources and training for
advisors, better resources for students, continued review of advising policies and practices,
etc.) and to consider advisement-related matters on an ongoing basis.
Given the centrality of advisement to student satisfaction and academic progress (and the
overlap between the leadership of the task force and the Retention Committee), it is proposed
that this activity be folded under the umbrella of the Retention Committee.
5)
Use technology to improve student-centered services and reduce runaround: Many
institutions have begun using “portals” like MyUAlbany to proactively provide services to
students. While MyUAlbany is not a true portal (which allows users to modify what they see
and what information they receive), we can certainly capitalize on it to provide students with
key information and procedural guidance, and reduce runaround and red tape. For example,
this week we will work on bringing declare/change major and minor links to the portal which
will eliminate the need for students to obtain two signatures and return a form to the
Advisement Services Center. Instead, they will simply submit an online form and will
receive email confirmation when the change is made.
The Retention Committee will be encourage to assist in identifying opportunities to eliminate
red tape and runaround and to advise on proposals for the portal.
6)
Customer Service Training and Mentoring of front-line staff: The University at Albany
currently provides no orientation or reinforcement of a campus culture that we value students.
Many individual offices do so, but too often our students interacting with the academic
administrative units and business administrative units are not treated as “customers.” Too
often they are sent away or read the rules. At the same time, staff in these front line units
have not received training to deal with the public, are not empowered to step outside the
regulations, and have not received an institutional message about the value we place on
service to students. As a result, no one feels good about these interactions – students feel
the University is bureaucratic and uncaring, and staff feel students are rude and not worthy of
assistance.
We need to break this cycle. Working with colleagues in the Office of Human Resources
Management, we will attempt to develop programs to support a campus culture of student
service with particular attention to providing front line staff with the interpersonal tools as
well as information to support services.
