"Successful college student retention strategies need to address this complex mix of procedures and regulations and look to minimize the burden on the customer, the individual student."

Mark Shay
Chief Academic Liasion
EducationDynamics

National ACademic ADvising Association is a great resource for more information about how advising can improve student retention.

The National Survey of Student Engagement is an annual survey whose results will provide an estimate of how undergraduates spend their time and what they gain from attending college. Survey items on NSSE represent empirically confirmed good practices in undergraduate education.

Student Retention . org is a non-profit center for the study of student persistence in postsecondary education and offers an effective practice database along with workshops

The Policy Center on the First Year of College invites postsecondary institutions in a model for voluntary, comprehensive self-study and development and implementation of an intentional action plan designed to enhance the effectiveness of the first year.

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College Student Retention Articles Archive

• Sophmore Slump or Jump
• Successful College Student Retention
• Improving Undergraduate Retention
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Retaining Students

Sophomore Slump or Jump?

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Two recent articles on student engagement have highlighted an interesting evolution of young adults in the residential college experience.

In the 2/1/08 edition of the Chronicle of Higher Education in a column called On-Course ‘The Myth of First-Year Enlightenment,’ James Lang discusses a book called The First Year Out: Understanding American Teens After High School which details that today's first year students, commonly known as freshman, are more occupied with managing their daily lives than with their intellectual development. Rather than becoming fully involved with the free thought traditionally associated with the early college years, today's freshman are busy dealing with money, social freedom and navigating the world that is nearly free of parental involvement. The column and the book discuss a decline the "Myth of First Year Enlightenment" vision of traditional college life, wherein previous generations of students would dramatically alter their intellectual and social perceptions of the world.

First Year Enlightenment boils down to the same acronym as the First Year Experience—FYE—which is a student engagement initiative started at the University of South Carolina. The First Year Experience "movement" was initially developed as a course called University 101 at South Carolina, and has since caught on at universities across the country. As schools look to improve retention, a growing number of programs are now commonly referring to this course as the first year seminar. The First Year Experience involves course and counseling focus intended to help students manage the transition that occurs in the first year of college. These initiatives seek to cultivate an understanding of the role of the university, provide ways to become more engaged on campus and ideally become more successful. These programs help students cope with some of the realities, at times harsh realities, of university life such as faculty indifference, time management and self-motivation.

The administration of First Year Experience programs has grown into a community itself. Led by South Carolina's National Resource Center for First Year Experience and Students in Transition, college administrators, counselors and sometimes faculty share best practices through seminars, journals and even a large

Some retention circles are now starting to discuss the need for similar student success programs in the sophomore year of college as well, coaching students to further engage rather than assume they are fully acclimated after their first year experience programs. Such programs, or :>"Second year experience" seek to shower students with the same resources and attention during their second year of university and possibly beyond.

So the First Year Enlightenment may now be occurring later in life—perhaps during the sophomore or junior years, post-study abroad or in even in graduate school. For now, universities are less concerned with evolving philosophies on life than the First Year Experience and the success and retention of their students.

Related Articles include:
Innovative Ways to Improve Undergraduate Retention

Additional sections of this journal address student recruiting and Innovative Practices in Communicating with Students. We have also placed all articles with a common theme of online education and distance education programs in a separate portal. New articles will be posted each Monday, please check back by bookmarking this site or placing a link to this Student Retention portal.

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Mark Shay is the founder of EDU - a leading academic directory advertising provider, - part of Education Dynamics, a leader in student lead generation and enrollment management services.