[PeterParker]

and retention rates:

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Colleges get creative to keep freshmen

By MATTHEW BOWERS, The Virginian-Pilot
© August 30, 2006


Upperclassmen in purple-striped shirts guide James Madison University freshmen through their first days, from convocation to a campus "beach party." Theater majors at Christopher Newport University have loosened up new students by showing how a sword fight is staged.

At Norfolk State University, the welcoming process was more low-key for Tamerra Thompson. Her freshman-year lifesaver, she said, was a four-week "summer bridge" program before school started last year. She met other students, learned her way around campus, and got early tastes of college classes and life.

Helping college freshmen make it to sophomore year and beyond is becoming a growth industry in higher education.

More and more high school graduates are going straight to college - a record 69 percent in 2005, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. So, these days, "not just the best and the brightest" arrive on campuses, said Randy Swing, co-director and senior scholar at the Policy Center on the First Year of College in Brevard, N.C.

The fact is, he said, "they're weaker students than historically have attended college, and they need a helping hand... "

Economics also motivate colleges. Even those that used to "brag that they ran off half their students" can't afford to any longer, he said, because they rely more on tuition and less on government money to cover their costs.

In Virginia, beefed-up efforts to ease the transition to college students come after a decade of barely budging freshm an retention rates - the percentage of students who return for their second year.

The rate for Virginia's public schools has crept up less than 3 percentage points in the past decade, to 84 percent, according to State Council of Higher Education figures. Private schools in that time inched up by a little more than 1 percentage point, to 73 percent.

The State Council reports that Old Dominion University in Norfolk last fall saw 76 percent of its freshmen return as sophomores. For Norfolk State and Virginia Wesleyan College, the figures were closer to two out of three.

Nationally, the 2006 retention rate for four-year public schools is 70 percent, and for private schools, it's 70.6 percent, as estimated by the Center for the of College Student Retention in Bedford, N.H.

Educators and researchers warn that such rates can mislead, because they don't account for students who leave schools for reasons other than academic problems, such as those who transfer to other schools. At ODU, for instance, at least 20 percent of freshmen have family military connections and are more transient, said John R. Broderick, vice president for institutional advancement.

Nevertheless, ODU has been devoting more attention to student retention. This fall for the first time, it has collected orientation and guidance programs, once divided between academic and student-life offices, under one roof. ODU officials call the new setup the University College. The idea is to make it easier for new students to find the services they need and to improve collaboration among those providing the services.

"What those students do in the dorms affects how they do in the classroom, and vice versa," said Charles Wilson, University College dean. "We have to work together."

NSU offers new students a variety of advising, mentoring and tutoring services under its Office of First Year Experience.

Last year, it changed the format of its long-running required course, University 101 - Introduction to University Life - so that students take it within their academic departments, to increase bonding among classmates. Required for graduation, the one-semester course ranges from the history of the university to balancing checkbooks.

"We are really stepping up our efforts to engage students," said Sharon Hoggard, a school spokeswoman, "because we found that, if they feel detached, they don't stay."

Thompson, a sophomore applied-mathematics major from Brooklyn, N.Y., also called mandatory tutoring for scholarship students a big help. "I know it got me through last year," she said.

At Virginia Wesleyan in Virginia Beach, the First-Year Seminar orientation class has been expanded to a full semester and remodeled to incorporate research and critical-thinking skills.

"We don't want them to think that their job as students is to sit down and absorb facts," said Lisa Carstens, an associate dean who heads the seminar.

Other Virginia schools take the fun approach to help students bond with the college and, increasingly, with specific academic departments within.

James Madison in Harrisonburg has received national praise for its freshm an-welcoming programs, which include karaoke, all-night volleyball and an attention-getting discussion topic: "The Naked Roommate and 107 Other Issues."

Virginia Tech in Blacksburg this year added sessions on safe ways to use online social-networking services such as Facebook and MySpace.com, and on financial literacy, such as avoiding credit card debt. The College of William and Mary in Williamsburg includes mandatory sessions on alcohol and sexual assault; at least four such crimes involving students were reported last fall.

This year, Christopher Newport in Newport News added an academic festival in which various departments showed their lighter sides - with swords, in the theater department's case.

Quietly but perhaps more significantly, the school also began a series of 68 first-year seminars under a "liberal learning core curriculum." One title: "Good Laws, Bad Ethics and Ugly Consumers."

Assessing whether such efforts help may be difficult to measure, college officials say. The variables are many. But they believe it's important to try.

"At the end of the semester, it's highly unlikely this one course is the reason they stay or go," Virginia Wesleyan's Carstens said.

Still, she added, "We want everyone who's on the fence to stay."


Tomorrow: Telling good online colleges from the not-so-good.


Reach Matthew Bowers at (757) 222-3893 or matthew.bowers@pilotonline.com.