Student Retention Issues: Faculty Roles and Responsibilities

What Faculty Members Need to Know About Retention

Teacher. Scholar. Advisor. Faculty members have always worn a lot of hats. And now, on top of everything else, you need to … make sure that your students don’t drop out? Does that mean you need to relax your grading policies? Be “nicer”? Or what?

If you have been asked to become a part of a retention effort on your campus, you’re not alone. Today, busy faculty members are being asked to pay increasing attention to dropout issues at most higher education institutions.

The reason is obvious: less than 60 percent of undergraduates now graduate within six years. The result is lost revenue, lost potential, and lost dreams. Increasingly, campuses are being held accountable for their graduation rate, and their drop-out rates.

Students drop out for many reasons. If Tolstoy were with us today, he might have said that while successful students are all alike, failing students fail in their own way. And that’s why campuses need to provide a range of solutions and methods of support.

Clearly, the answer can’t be to simply stop giving failing grades.

In fact, new research tells us that increased focus on academic rigor can increase student commitment. That is because today’s undergraduate students are searching for meaning, relevancy, and purpose in their college coursework.

Our latest Magna Publications White Paper, What Faculty Members Need to Know About Retention, details key methods professors can employ to prevent dropouts and increase student success in college.

You will learn:

Why retention matters
12 ways to improve retention
Why faculty members are central to campus retention efforts
How to improve retention without sacrificing standards
The relationship between meaningful coursework and retention
Effective retention interventions to use in the classroom
Strategies for getting to know all the students in your classes
Advice on retaining today’s Millennial students
Ways to “frontload” assistance in a semester
How to make retention efforts more “intrusive”
The connection between student retention and job security
How retention efforts can improve student evaluations
Creating an “endowed chair” in your department to support retention

For faculty members new to the topic of student retention, this report covers key terminology, details known principles or best practices of student success, and describes how faculty can work effectively with other campus resources and personnel to make needed improvements.

This 47-page report also includes an informative retention quiz, designed to impart vital background knowledge on this crucial higher education issue, along with answers to common faculty member questions about retention.

What Faculty Members Need to Know About Retention is recommended for faculty members, instructors, academic affairs professionals and student affairs administrators and staff. It is based on an online seminar originally delivered by Jerry Pattengale, Ph.D. on November 20, 2008. Dr. Pattengale is assistant provost for scholarship and public engagement and a professor of History at Indiana Wesleyan University. He led the development of Indiana Wesleyan University’s first-year experience program, and retention rates have climbed from 68 percent to 82 percent since its implementation.

Increasing retention in college classes doesn’t have to take a lot of time or lower academic standards. Learn how professors can maintain academic quality, improve course evaluations, and enhance motivation levels by investing in What Faculty Members Need to Know About Retention today.

Cost

You can download the PDF of this white paper, or get the print version mailed to you.

Price per white paper for quantities up to:	1	2-10	11+
Print	$139	$129	$119
PDF Download	$99	$89	$79

A Campus Access License is available for an additional $200. It allows the purchasing institution to load the white paper onto the institution’s password-protected internal web site for unlimited access by members of the campus community.