The University will continue the retention initiatives it started in 2008-09 with some modifications and adaptations. We found these programs to be successful in their inaugural year.
Initiatives geared to all students
Mention in for Retention
The Mention it for Retention program had more than 125 referrals a semester in its first year! We will continue to use the Web as the primary means for faculty and staff to refer at-risk students and will send out a reminder e-mail with the link the week of August 17. We encourage you to use this program to notify the retention specialist of any concerns you may have about particular students or any general retention issues you may have noticed. If your issue is more immediately pressing or the Web is not available, please feel free to call the Retention Office at 304-876-5482
FASTPASS (Families And Shepherd Together Promoting Academic Success for Students)
FASTPASS is now our brand new parents Web page! We are migrating FASTPASS as it was last year to this site, which will contain all the information that was previously disseminated through the newsletter, but in a different format. The new Web pages will continue to address time-sensitive issues for students that might be of interest to parents. It will also offer resources and information about Shepherd University services, policies, programs, events on campus, etc. to parents and families. In addition, it will contain links to other important pages on the Shepherd site and will have a method by which parents can communicate with us either by asking a specific question or simply supplying us with an e-mail address for on-going communications. Our efforts with FASTPASS last year yielded several contacts from concerned parents; thus we were able to begin to partner with parents in the early stages of their students' academic careers at Shepherd.
Surveys/Interviews
The ACT-developed Withdrawing/Nonreturning Student Survey (Short Form) that we sent out last semester yielded a very low return rate. We are exploring mailing the survey again as well as the possibility of conducting telephone interviews with non-returning students. We hope these measures will help us in our efforts to identify students' reasons for leaving college before completing a degree program.
Initiatives geared to first-time in college (FTIC) freshmen
Philosophy 100 Course
This course earns 3 credits and will include a mix of "how to be a successful university student" and "learning to learn" topics. This is an academic class geared toward provisional first-year students and is required of all students who are admitted on contract (i.e., students who have not met minimal admissions requirements). Last year the class was titled Philosophy 199 and, as a pilot course, was only strongly recommended for contract students.
Student Readiness Inventory
The Student Readiness Inventory, a paper and pencil survey created by ACT, was once again administered to all entering, FTIC freshmen. Last year, we used the survey results, in conjunction with other lagging indicators, such as low mid-term grades, to help to identify at-risk students. We then reached out to these students with specific interventions. We will do the same this year with some additional measures in place to assure that we are identifying and contacting the students in most need of attention and intervention.
