The CONSORTIUM for STUDENT RETENTION DATA EXCHANGE
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The UNIVERSITY of OKLAHOMA

An Easy, Cost-Effective Way To Remain Current With Student Success


Twelve presentations are selected from the top rated sessions at our National Symposium on Student Retention each year for live presentation as webinars.

All webinars take place from 1:00 – 2:00 pm Central Time on the designated date, during which time participants may ask questions and provide feedback. An unlimited number of colleagues from the registrant’s institution may attend. CSRDE members and non-members are invited to participate. Each registration includes 5 weeks of access to the recorded podcast.

"We have found the CSRDE webinars to be an essential value-added component of our membership. The menu of award-winning presentations by colleagues who have “walked the walk” makes this option a convenient, efficient, and economical way to maintain both currency and contacts in our field. This webinar platform provides easy scheduling along with - yet another featured bonus! - options to share within our organizations. The level of coordination and support of these programs from the CSRDE staff/team is always amazing, always professional."
John Rollins, Director, Academic Performance Studies
Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University

Webinar Cost
  • CSRDE members:
    One to six webinars are included with membership, depending on level
  • Add'l webinars for members:
    $129 each
    $79 each for blocks of 3 or more
  • Non-CSRDE members:
    $229 each

2009 - 2010 Webinar Series

Donna Allen, Southern Arkansas University

Sarah Jennings, Southern Arkansas University

Shelly Whaley, Southern Arkansas University

J Courson, Southern Arkansas University

Sandra Smith, Southern Arkansas University

BAM is a unique orientation program that encompasses much more than a typical orientation program. Backed by preliminary research findings, this new twist on a traditional orientation has proven successful. It follows a holistic approach to beginning the University experience. By offering appropriate sessions for specialized populations along with the services to enhance these sessions, individual needs are met. Specialized populations include beginning freshmen, transfer students, veterans, and nontraditional students. In addition to these specialized populations, the vital role of parents is embraced and addressed in both segmented and combined sessions. Academic expectations, transitions to college, utilizing a BAM Facebook group, housing, freshmen seminar, student activities, academic and developmental advising, financial aid, billing, technology, participation in a mentoring program (mentors attend program), and other areas of orientation are combined into one cohesive program. Services are provided for each group as part of the overall program such as child care for students with children, and evening sessions. Anecdotal and formal evaluations indicate a high level of satisfaction and increased comfort level as students begin their University experience. Participants will receive retention statistics, detailed program information, timeline and outline guide for implementation, as well as practical tips for day-to-day operation of the program.

Cynthia Wolf Johnson, University of North Carolina-Charlotte

Ted Elling, University of North Carolina-Charlotte

Steve Coppola, University of North Carolina-Charlotte

Carolyn Blattner, University of North Carolina-Charlotte

Faced with a noticeable decrease in returning student enrollment, the University of North Carolina at Charlotte identified new transfers as the single largest attrition-prone population. Presenters will describe a process that identified barriers to the success and retention of the transfer student population. An inter-divisional working group was formed to research causes of transfer student attrition and to propose an integrated series of programs and services to address issues specific to this population. Sample outcomes included: identification of risk factors, development of data-informed decision-making processes, and increased student success and retention. Programs that were developed and reframed included: admissions, community college support, new student orientation, academic advising, University College to assist new and transitioning students, campus engagement, and career planning. Sample data collection and assessment methods included: real time evaluation of new student orientation, early analysis of social and academic engagement and program participation, academic achievement metrics, and retention. Presenters will share multiple lessons learned and how this process is being examined by the University of North Carolina system and its constituent campuses, of which this institution enrolls the largest number of transfer students.

Paula Yanish, Aims Community College

Marti Demarest, Aims Community College

Aims Community College introduced a new program entitled Emerging Scholars in fall 2007 to serve underprepared students and improve retention rates for this population. Specifically, the program was established to assist incoming, degree/certificate-seeking students who placed into at least two levels of remediation (English/math, math/reading, reading/English) with adjustment to college issues and successfully transitioning to college-level courses. Contained within this paper is a description of the evolution of this program including national, state, and institutional trend data; the theoretical framework for the program; program elements; results; and implications for practice.

Fiona Bain-Greenwood, Seneca College

Many post-secondary institutions are recording increasing enrollment rates, yet, these rates mask a common struggle: the high number of students who drop-out of their program of study. At some Ontario community colleges, almost 50 percent of students who enroll do not persist until graduation. Research shows the many reasons why students drop out of higher education institutions, but few initiatives try to identify these students before they actually leave. Foundations for Success, a pilot project involving 2,000 randomly assigned participants sponsored by the Canada Millennium Scholarship Foundation in partnership with Confederation College, Mohawk College, and Seneca College, aims to test whether case manager-facilitated access to a combination of academic support, career education, mentoring, and financial incentives will increase the likelihood that students perceived at-risk of dropping out of college will persist and successfully complete their studies. This paper will argue that students deemed at-risk of not completing their program of study are more likely to engage in student support services if these services are coupled with a case management approach and a financial incentive. Preliminary results after one semester indicate a grade point average differential of 11% of students in the two treatment groups in relation to the control group.

Bernadette Jungblut, University of Central Florida

Ronald Atwell, University of Central Florida

DeLaine Priest, University of Central Florida

Morgan Wang, University of Central Florida

Data-mining and logistic regression techniques are used to predict the First Time in College students most likely to be at risk for retention failure. Using incoming students'' academic preparation and demographic characteristics, we predict and test their likely achievement gaps in terms of retention, probation status, and term GPA. Factors employed to make these predictions (based on a risk score generated for each incoming student) include the following: financial aid, scholarships, and grants; high school overall GPA, class rank, class size, and percentile; SAT total and component scores; ACT total and component scores; high school English, math, science, and social science units and GPA earned; ethnicity, gender, and intended university academic program/major. The results have been used to identify which students most need the Knight Success Program; to design that program; and to improve the retention and persistence of the program participants. Over the past four (4) years, we have reassessed this program''s performance and undertaken additional data analyses to inform decisions taken to improve the program''s design, implementation, and effectiveness.

Mark Fincher, University of Arkansas-Little Rock

Adult student retention is an issue of growing concern for many institutions. Adult retention differs from traditional retention much like traditional students differ from adult students. As the majority of student body growth comes from adult students, adult student retention management will become critical to the majority of colleges and universities.

David Mayes, Arkansas State University-Beebe

Retention of students on college campuses is becoming an increasingly important topic throughout higher education in the United States. This paper will present findings related to the success of student support services and programs in the retention of students at Arkansas State University-Beebe (ASUB). ASUB is a rural, two-year college with a student body of approximately 4,000, across each of its four campuses. While the composition of our student body is continuously changing, many of our students continue to be non-traditional students, first-generation students, and low-income students. This research will allow us to look at success rates of typical student services on the retention of these types of students. Areas to be addressed will include student organizations, residence halls, new student orientation, the learning center, guidance services, financial aid, admissions, and student support services. While it is widely accepted that these types of student programs are tied to student retention, it is important to continue to provide empirical evidence supporting this fact across a wide range of settings and student body compositions. This research will present ASUB’s efforts toward this goal.

Sarah Lang, Indiana University-Purdue University-Indianapolis

Attrition from the biology major is a complex problem because biology is the most popular of the STEM disciplines and thus loses the greatest number of individuals. Using a sequential, explanatory, mixed methods design, this paper compared students who persisted in the major with students who left the major by examining how their college biology experiences figured into their persistence in or departure from the major. All participants entered The University of Texas at Austin as biology freshmen in the fall semesters of 2001 through 2004; 319 students responded to a questionnaire developed for the study; and 35 students participated in semi-structured life story interviews and homogenous focus groups. Findings of this study demonstrate: 1) Biology persisters did not actively decide to stay in the biology major; they chose not to leave; 2) Biology switchers did not leave biology due to preference for other disciplines; they left due to difficulties or dissatisfaction with aspects of the biology major, including their courses, faculty, and peers; and 3) Performance, particularly in introductory coursework, had a powerful, though differential effect on persistence, depending on how well participants performed in non-biology coursework or in comparison to their peers.

Peter Collier, Portland State University

Expertise development mentoring provides new students with useful information about “what to do in order to succeed at the university”, insights into the culture of higher education, and tips on how to become “more expert” students. Incorporating concepts from developmental advising, skill acquisition, and identity development, this form of mentoring goes beyond informing students about the range of support services available on campus, providing scripts for how to use specific campus resources appropriately as well as strategies for key campus interactions. In this paper we examine the effectiveness of this approach through a case study of a U.S. Department of Education FIPSE Program-funded intervention designed to improve first-generation student academic success and retention at Portland State University, the Students First Mentoring Project (SFMP). After describing the key elements of this intervention, along with the underlying conceptual model, we present three years (2005-2008) of program results to establish that the program positively impacts first-generation student’s academic performance and persistence. We conclude by discussing the implications of this successful expertise-development mentoring program for first generation students and the colleges and universities seeking to support these students.

Kristi Meyer, University of Texas-San Antonio

Jinny Case, University of Texas-San Antonio

The University of Texas at San Antonio has spent the last twelve years developing a highly effective suite of retention programs targeting freshmen and sophomores. To extend the reach of these student success programs, the Graduation Initiative (GI) was created in 2007. Since then, the following has been accomplished: 1. GI Analysts assigned to specific colleges researched barriers to graduation and, along with college stakeholders, developed Graduation Improvement Plans specifically tailored to the barriers discovered. College staff, faculty, and GI analysts have worked together at implementing actions from these plans. 2. Staff of the Initiative also developed an institution-wide Graduation Improvement Plan, delivered to the Provost in July, 2008. The institutional plan incorporates the barriers shared across the colleges, as well as barriers only addressable at the institutional level. 3. In the Late Intervention program, GI Analysts have worked with seniors overdue for their four-year graduation, completing tailored progress plans with them and following their semester progress to five or six-year graduation. Program participants have graduated at significantly higher rates than similar non-participants. Additional student program services include outreach to rising sophomores, fiscal and time management training, and an effort to re-enroll stop-out students so they can complete their undergraduate degrees.

Trey Standish, North Carolina State University

Keeping students retained and moving them towards a successful outcome is a hard task made harder if the student is already home. At NC State, a statistical model has been developed to forecast the likelihood of a student returning for the second year based on demographic and performance information known after their first fall semester. The results are available at the beginning of the student''s spring semester giving academic support teams an entire semester to intervene. The forecast correctly predicts retention for 88% of new freshmen and a score is provided for all kinds of first-year students. The model is a logistic regression that identifies attributes correlated with student success to simultaneously identify retention bottlenecks and create a retention score that is equivalent to the likelihood a student is retained. Statistical knowledge is not required.

Register

CSRDE institutional members sign up for webinars using their membership registration forms. The number of webinars depends on the level of membership. If your institution is a CSRDE member and you would like to participate in a webinar, email csrde@ou.edu and we will put you in contact with the CSRDE representative on your campus. If you are an individual member, your membership includes one webinar. If neither you nor your institution are CSRDE members, you may use this form to register for a webinar.

If you are interested in purchasing podcasts from previous years’ presentations, please review the information using the dropdown box above for each year.

Accessing the Webinar

For each webinar, CSRDE will send the following emails:

  1. One to two weeks before webinar – Confirmation of your registration plus instructions to test your computer for compatibility. You may test your system now.
  2. One day before webinar – Login information and instructions for accessing the webinar
  3. Registrants will have five weeks in which to access and review the podcast and share the link with other colleagues at your institution.
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The Consortium for Student Retention Data Exchange at the University of Oklahoma is a consortium of two-year and four-year institutions dedicated to achieving the highest levels of student success through collaboratively sharing data, knowledge, and innovation.