Retention and Graduation Data Collection Sub-Committee Proposal – Approved  0503

After reviewing the Data Book statistics and the recommendations from the R and G Committees, the data sub committee recommends the following retention project to study and improve the retention and graduation rates.

I. Identify 5-6 academic programs who will follow a cohort of students in their programs, including full time first time students  beginning Fall 2011 to improve their retention to graduation.  Each program coordinator  along with dept. faculty will track student progress in each semester  to identify road blocks to student success and develop intervention strategies in conjunction with counseling to assist students each semester to move towards graduation.

To target students in a particular program for faculty mentoring, counseling and intervention to retain and graduate students by  providing program coordinators with the names of students in each program divided into the following categories:

1. full time first time students
2. developmental or ESL courses
2. 0-15 credits
3. 16-30 credits
4. 31-45 credits (an emphasis could be placed on students with 30+ credits in each program)
5. 45 credits or more

II. To  plan for the implementation of this project, a study will be conducted this summer to review the graduation study data from Fall 2006-2009 (or another 3 year time period) for the programs in the project.  In this study, information relevant to retention and graduation of  students who were in the programs over the 3 years will be reviewed by faculty in their departments. 

All the above data would be utilized to plan for strategies for improving success of the students in the programs outlined in the project..  The strategies will not only be at the course level, but could also expand to individualized counseling and  engagement activities related to each academic program.,