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Five Year Retention Plan Table of Contents
Five Year Retention Plan:
The Issues
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The issues of attrition and retention relate directly to the quality of students recruited and admitted and to the academic and social programs that surround them. The Office of Admissions must be held accountable for the continued enhancement of the quality of a diverse student cohort. Superior students persist to graduation at higher rates. Faculty and professional staff must be accountable for creating and maintaining those surroundings which evoke from students a commitment to persist and grow to graduation. Unless we modify our academic and campus culture to reflect the importance of our new graduation rate goal, we will not succeed.
In this section, we discuss the following issues that have been identified by the Retention Council and Steering Committee as the most critical ones to address if we want to improve students' experiences at Syracuse University and subsequently improve retention and graduation rates. Within each of the issues, we describe several key points raised by faculty, staff or students. For each of these issues and key points, we have developed action items and recommendations; these are reported in the next section.
Issue 1: A number of good students perceive that there is insufficient academic challenge to their degree programs.
Through anecdotal evidence, results of the National Survey of Student Engagement, retention research studies, the Gateway Student Forum, and the Academic Plan Town Meetings, it is clear that there are a number of students on our campus who do not find the academic culture challenging enough. We know that forty percent of our dropouts are students who are on track in terms of both cumulative GPA and credits earned. While there may be a number of reasons for this, at least one points to the lack of an academic environment that demands significant student effort. Students mention that courses are not as challenging as they expected or are easier than those they completed in high school.
Some students have also voiced their frustration with the lack of recognition for their academic successes at Syracuse University. Their perception is that merit awards are distributed based on academic success in high school, but no additional awards are given to those that were less successful in high school and who have achieved at a higher level at Syracuse University.
Students receive instruction from senior faculty, junior faculty, part-time faculty, and graduate assistants. Each of these classroom instructors brings different insights, strengths and weaknesses to the classroom, in part, due to their level of experience and due to the differing support networks that are available to them. Not all of these groups are connected into the school or college support structure, and even those that are closer to this support may not always take advantage of it. Complaints about teaching assistants continue to be an issue despite the success of the Teaching Assistant Program and the Future Professoriate Program. Undergraduate teaching assistants are part of some courses and programs, and peer advisers and mentors provide support in other ways. These groups of students receive varying amounts of support and training to perform their instructional-support roles, which at times are a critical part of the academic experience.
Issue 2: Some students perceive that there is insufficient opportunity to build or enhance their degree programs through coursework in other schools or colleges or through out-of-classroom experiences.
Students have indicated that their expectation is that they will be able to take advantage of the many opportunities at Syracuse University that are described to them when they are selecting a college to attend. Once enrolled in their programs of study, they find that not all of these opportunities are available due to curricular demands, financial constraints, or courses being closed to non-majors. Students who are alternate offered (that is, admitted to a school or college other than their first choice) or those who want to change their majors, may expect to be able to transfer easily into another school or college, but may find this difficult due to limited availability. For other students, the path to a new major is not open due to their academic performance at Syracuse University. This limits the opportunities for a large number of enrolled students who are expecting more flexibility at a large university. There are over 1,000 students each year who attempt to transfer to another school or college (intra-university transfers, or IUTs). In the College of Arts and Sciences, the acceptance rate of these students is very high, that is, over 90% are allowed to IUT into the College. However, the acceptance rates into the professional schools are considerably lower, closer to 40-50%. It is clear there are a large number of students who are not able to change schools or colleges at the time they ask to do so. It is not clear what impact this has on the student's decision to stay or leave the institution. In addition, it is not clear if there is an interaction between students who have been alternate offered and those who are unsuccessful IUTs. However, we do know that approximately 500 students a year are unsuccessful in their requests to transfer to a different school or college. This number is a large signal to us that this is an area that we must examine thoroughly and quickly.
Students also are interested in taking part in faculty research, internships, and study abroad but may be limited in the opportunities available to them. This could be due to financial or curricular constraints or insufficient sites being open. Students may not have the proper advising to help them identify ways to address these constraints, or there just may not be enough opportunities to meet the demands of the students.
Issue 3: Students do not always view the University as student-centered.
Syracuse University aspires "to become the nation's leading student-centered research university." Yet, it is the perception of students that the institutional environment does not consistently demonstrate student-centeredness.
Syracuse University is an institution with large residence halls that were not designed to build community among students but rather to meet basic housing needs. Further, the University's student centers were designed as multi-purpose spaces to meet myriad campus demands, rather than as meeting and gathering places that students could call their own. Syracuse University has made significant strides in overcoming the challenges presented by our residential space limitations through the Learning Communities program offered by the Division of Undergraduate Studies, in collaboration with the Office of Residence Life. Further, by offering student organizations preferential scheduling opportunities in the Schine and Goldstein Student Centers, we have maximized student access to space in which social and recreational activities can occur. However, these efforts alone are not enough.
Students complain that there are not enough non-alcohol activities for students. They would like more social, academic, and cultural activities including a campus movie theatre and/or a video rental facility; significantly improved transportation to the Carousel Mall and to other local attractions; and more high-profile entertainment (e.g., speakers, concerts, comedians). In addition, there is a lack of support for student professional organizations (e.g., Society of Women Engineers, National Student Nurses Association, Public Relations Student Society of America) since the student activity fee does not support these organizations. These organizations provide many wonderful opportunities for students, but these are not consistent from year to year, due to the continuous turnover of student leaders.
Students deride the University as a nickel-and-dime enterprise that is full of hidden charges on top of high tuition. This attitude of every-unit-for-itself presents an image of uncoordinated, unchecked license to charge students at will. This image undermines the concept of providing a value-added, quality education.
Tradition is one of the defining characteristics of the elite colleges and universities in the United States. Traditions create linkage-meaningful experiences, which lead to positive memories, which result in committed and involved alums. There is a perception that, as an institution, we do not have enough traditions, experiences that engage the entire Syracuse University community. While our athletic program has encouraged the building of some traditions, students view ticket prices to athletic events as being too high to encourage more participation. Activities, such as the Ice Cream Social and Strawberry Festival, occur during the summer when most of our students are not here. Traditions like this would help to build community in ways that encourage students' commitment to the University while they are enrolled and as alums.
Finally, not all students adjust easily to college nor to the many transitions that occur throughout the undergraduate lifecycle. The experiences of moving into a residence hall, transitioning to the sophomore year, moving off campus, studying abroad, seeking out a first job or graduate study, and, finally, graduating from the University are both thrilling and terrifying for many students. These transitions or the perception of what it means to be going to college may lead students into the use or abuse of substances that distract them and that contribute to anti-intellectual social patterns. Our support services are not adequate to meet the needs of all of our students. Faculty and staff are not sufficiently trained to understand indicators of risk and to know where to turn for assistance.
Issue 4: Administrators have identified certain student subgroups that are at-risk for leaving this institution. For some of these, we understand the institutional barriers to their success. For others, we need more research to understand the issues.
The first three issues above address those concerns that would improve the campus environment for all students. However, the Retention Council and Steering Committee also have identified a number of subgroups of students who may be more at-risk for leaving the university (e.g., students of color, undecided students, alternate offers, IUTs, high financial need). For some of these groups, we are clear about the interventions that would work with these students. It will be critical to monitor carefully the success of these programs and to determine what, if any, modifications are necessary. For other groups, we are less clear. For these groups, additional research is necessary before we can determine what interventions, if any, are appropriate and useful.
Issue 5: Administrative requests have been frustrated by the lack of institutional research to support good decision-making.
For many years university-wide and school/college retention statistics have been provided. Recently, as a more comprehensive data set has been developed that includes information from housing, financial aid, and admissions, we have been able to provide additional research data. However, the demand for data has exceeded the capacity to produce these data, especially given the new technical infrastructure. Longitudinal data are not available through the data warehouse and we must rely on a combination of old and new data sets. The way data have been stored and named has changed with the new PeopleSoft system, and the necessity for providing crosswalks has slowed the institutional research process considerably.
Because there is no office of institutional research at Syracuse University, the function of providing a complete data profile of our students is no one's responsibility. The Associate Vice President for Undergraduate Studies and Retention, Horace Smith, and the Retention Council are accountable for understanding why students leave and under what conditions, so that they can coordinate effective interventions for improved retention. In the absence of an office of institutional research, such considerations and decision-making are hampered.
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