Increasing our Competence to Influence Student Retention and Persistence

If you work in higher education in Tennessee, you know that we’re all scrambling to adapt to a new model of funding. We are no longer funded on how many students are here on Day 14 of the semester. As part of the Tennessee Higher Education Commission Complete College Tennessee Act, institutions are now funded based on retention, referred to as outcomes based funding.

We’re feeling this at the University of Memphis as our base funding has been cut significantly over the last five years and we have yet to see the effects of our efforts to significantly increase our retention and graduation rates. We’re on the cusp, but that’s not good enough. We all have to be working toward helping students come here, stay here, and graduate from here. It has to be the job of all, particularly student affairs.

Now, there is evidence that students involved in activities and such are more likely to stay, but I would argue that dispositions have a large influence in those numbers and few in student affairs could provide evidence that students perceive their programs influence the decision to come and stay here. Furthermore, student affairs professionals have to more strongly connect their work to the goal of retention. You might work with the Student Programming Board, serve as a hall director, coordinate programs for identity groups such as students with disabilities, or run the student union but you’re not doing your job here in Tennessee unless you think your primary job is to influence retention and graduation.

We should each examine how the ACPA/NASPA Professional Competency areas connect to retention. Consider some of the following examples:

Through developing skills in advising and helping, how are we strengthening our conversations to incorporate questions about decision to stay, influence of involvement in staying, engaging student leaders in helping their peers to persist and graduate?

Looking at the different skills in equity, diversity, and inclusion, do we have the competence to support students from diverse backgrounds considering the facts that might influence their decision to stay (e.g. first generation status, campus climate issues for LGBT students).

If we are committed to the competency of student learning and development, are we creating experiences and connecting students to opportunities to become engaged in activities/programs/services that connect their in-class learning to their out of class learning, thus strengthening the perception that college, in its entirety, helps them become something they aspire toward.

There are few meetings anymore that I am in that we aren’t discussing how student affairs contributes to retention. These meetings have made me think more and more about how I should be developing the skills needed so that when I interact with students I can meet their individual and group needs and connect them more strongly to the institution, in the hopes they will stay and graduate.

What kinds of things are you doing to push the needle up on retention?

Does your student affairs division have a culture in which staff identifies that they directly influence retention and they are working toward increasing retention and graduation rates?