“The more faculty interact with students, create opportunities for
collaborative learning and make assignments and expectations clear, the greater
the gains in students’ intentions to complete their degrees, sense of
responsibility for their own learning, confidence, and motivations to pursue
their majors.” (Cabrera & La Nasa 2002). National benchmarks provided by
Noel-Levitz’ National Student Satisfaction and Priorities Report (2008) reveal
that, across institutional types, instructional effectiveness and academic
advising are the two most important elements of students’ college experience:
instructional effectiveness ranked number one for all but four year public
institutions, ranking second by only one hundredth of a point (6.32 for
instruction; 6.33 for advising, on a 7 point scale). The same Noel-Levitz
research shows that the more satisfied students are, the more likely they are
to re-enroll. For many students the classroom is where they make their most
tangible connection to their college or university. We know that faculty
involvement in retention initiatives is essential to the success of those
efforts.
How will we
define Retention for Mississippi College?
Retention for Mississippi College will be defined as a
collaborative effort between faculty, staff and administration to create, track
and deliver academic excellence and increased student satisfaction with their overall
Mississippi College experience.
Higher retention rates mean more
competitive recruiting, greater selectivity, increased student satisfaction and
revenue. We will prioritize our efforts to increase the number of undergraduate
students retained from first to second year (freshman to sophomore). We
recognize there is no one reason why students leave our institution, therefore
we seek to consider all processes, systems, technology, and culture across
campus affecting student retention and success.
We
will prioritize and focus our efforts each year and track data including Freshman
to Sophomore retention rates, graduation rates, special population retention
and employment of students in their field of study.
Outcomes
and Metrics
Progression,
Persistence, Retention, Completion, and Graduation (PPRCG)
The desired outcomes
of improved retention are satisfactory academic progress, course completion, persistence,
completion (or graduation) and employment.