University Business - September 2012 - (Page 74)

sponsored web seminar digest Making retention and student success part of your campus culture A University Business Web Seminar Digest • Originally Presented on July 31, 2012 At Carroll University, retention is at the top of the priority list—and it’s a fulltime job for the Director of Student Success. During this web seminar, top leaders at Carroll University discussed how they made retention a day-to-day priority and created a campus-wide culture of student success. They discussed Jenzabar’s customized retention technology platform and how it helped identify the unique factors that influence retention. Carroll University is located in Waukesha, Wisconsin, and has an undergraduate enrollment of 2,850 and a graduate enrollment of 450. DH: I came to Carroll in 2006. In my first year, we did a good job of identifying, recruiting and enrolling freshman students. That was Jim Wiseman’s 12th consecutive year of increasing recruitment. In fall of 2007, Jim proposed that we take the same approach to retaining students that we do in recruiting them. He said we were goal-driven to enroll a first-rate freshman class, but he thought it was time we approach retention with the same manner and the same zeal as we approach recruitment. So we did. And in 2008, we hired Jeff McNamara to be director of our student success program. Why was this so important to us? • We wanted to move students toward a successful degree at Carroll. • We wanted also to enhance the prestige, image, and reputation of our institution. The retention rate is one of the key numbers that colleges and universities are rated on. • It reinforces what our faculty do in the classroom. • It makes our campus more student centered. We tell visiting students that you really can’t hide here. Our teachers, coaches and staff will let Jeff know if you are missing classes, falling back on your grades, or not attending practices. • We continue to increase or maintain our FTE enrollment. • It makes good business sense. If you could retain 2 percent more students each year, you would see the benefit. Jeff has more than paid for himself. JW: When we first started talking about this program, we realized we could not achieve these goals by doing the same old things. We knew we needed a new approach to retention. We needed to be more purposeful about retaining and graduating our students. In the spring of 2008, we instituted the STAY Program: We needed to get the Right Students at the Right Time with the Right Attention and they would generate the Right Yield. We focused on first-time freshmen. Our challenges included: • Identifying the right student at the right time. • Deciding if we wanted a centralized or decentralized approach. • Figuring out how to provide attention to students so proactively that the students themselves might not even realize they needed attention. • Finding the best way to adjust the campus culture and to get the message across. JM: We learned that historical methods were not working. Faculty and staff are geared to doing what they can for students. But that meant that often, by the time my office became aware of a problem, it was too late. We tried to change that culture, by letting staff know that it was OK to pass along a student right at the beginning of a problem. Just let me know, and you can return to your area of expertise. We found students falling into three groups. 1. Those who would stay enrolled if they had some help 2. Those who would stay enrolled no matter what. 3. Those who would not stay enrolled, regardless of how much help they received.

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of University Business - September 2012

University Business - September 2012
Contents
Editor’s Note
College Index
Ad Index
Behind the News
Viewpoint
Independent Outlook
Financial Aid
Virtual Viewbooks: Ready? Or Not?
Technology Changes Everything
Connecting Learners, On Campus and Off
The Changing Face of the CIO
Efficiency Greats
The Administrator's Bookshelf
Oceans of Data
Education Innovators
Internet Technology
End Note

University Business - September 2012