250 likes | 424 Views
VCCS Dropout Rates Freshman to Sophomore Two-Year Public Institutions 49.8% VCCS Student Retention Rate Summary Fall 2002-Fall 2003.
E N D
VCCS Dropout RatesFreshman to SophomoreTwo-Year Public Institutions49.8%VCCS Student Retention Rate SummaryFall 2002-Fall 2003
All colleges are to submit plans to improve graduation rates towards the goal of ranking in the top 10% for graduation, retention, and placement rates by 2009…. Dr. Glenn DuBoisChancellor’s 2004-2005 Goals
Three types of attrition Expected and justified Stopping out Unnecessary and preventable by institutional interventions
Major Factors in Attrition Dissonance Transition difficulties Lack of certainty about major Irrelevance Isolation and lack of connection
Why do students leave college? Incongruence What they encounter is not what they expected….
Why do students leave college? Isolation Inability to connect with significant members of the campus community….
Students don’t have interactions with institutions; they have encounters and interactions with individuals.
What happens to students after they enroll frequently has a more powerful impact on whether they stay and achieve their goals or leave. Tinto 1987, 1993
Transforming Students Through Validation Success appears to be contingent on whether [faculty and staff] can validate students in an academic or interpersonal way. Dr. Laura Rendon, 1994
We demonstrate concern for students through our actions. Act “as if” small encounters matter because they often do.
ALL aspects of campus life can have an impact on persistence or attrition decisions and behaviors.Promoting student persistence requires an institution-wide commitment.
The “secret” of effective retention lies in the development of effective educational communities that involve students in their social and intellectual life and ensure that all students are able to learn and grow while they are in college. “Educational Principles of Effective Retention,” Vincent Tinto, 1988
Institutions which consciously reach out to establish personal bonds among students, faculty, and staff, and which emphasize frequent and rewarding contacts outside the classroom are those which most successfully retain students. Such interaction is the single strongest predictor of student persistence. Leaving College Vincent Tinto, Professor of Education Syracuse University, 1987, 1993
I assumed that the most important and memorable academic learning goes on inside the classroom. The evidence shows the opposite is true. When we asked students to think of a specific critical incident or moment that had changed them profoundly, four-fifths of them chose a situation or event outside the classroom. Richard Light, Harvard University Making the Most of College, 2001
National Institutional PrioritiesReportCommunity, junior, technical collegesNoel-Levitz, Inc. • Concern for the Individual • Instructional Effectiveness • Academic Advising • Campus Climate • Student Centeredness
ORIGINAL PERSISTENCE SCORES • + 14 • +21 • - 6 • -17 • +35 • +1 • -30 • - 2 • +9 • 0
SIMULATION CONCLUSIONS Illustrates that the decision to withdraw is usually a complex process involving a series of events which occur over time, rather than a decision resulting from a single event at one point in time.
SIMULATION CONCLUSIONS Illustrates that student characteristics (profiles) combine with institutional experiences (incidents) to shape a student’s decision to persist or withdraw.
SIMULATION CONCLUSIONS Illustrates that similar experiences and events affect students differently and that we can respond to students and their needs if we come to know them from our interactions with them--in class, in advising meetings--by paying attentionto small encounters.
SIMULATION CONCLUSIONS Illustrates that ALL aspects of campus life can have an impact on persistence or attrition decisions and behaviors.
SIMULATION CONCLUSIONS Illustrates that careful interventions by individuals and/or specifically designed programs can have a positive influence on students’ social and academic integration and, subsequently, on their persistence behaviors.
SIMULATION CONCLUSIONS To encourage and promote an institutional dialogue about collaborations that can enhance programs, services, attitudes and behaviors that can enhance student satisfaction, achievement, and persistence.
Coordination of the efforts of faculty and staff, academic and student affairs, should be the norm, not the exception. Rather than working at odds, campus units must come to see themselves as working together.Tinto, 1993
What on-campus Pathways participants report:The simulation exercise showed me that I matter, that I can make a difference….
It takes a campus community to support student achievement and success….