In 2004, 862 freshmen enrolled at USM. Now four years later, it can be estimated that only between 80 and 130 of those students will graduate this May.
By May ’09, it’s likely that only between 215 and 240 of the original 2004 cohort will have graduated.
What happened to the other 600 students? About half of them, roughly 290 students, left USM before they could enter their sophomore year.
One of the greatest challenges facing USM, according to Interim President Joe Wood, is retention – or “persistence,” the more pc term – which is defined as the percentage of full-time first-year regularly admitted degree candidates who finish their freshman year at this university and come back for their second.
According to an October “Moving Forward” letter to the university community, he says that while the national average of retention for our peer institutions is 75 percent, USM’s is 68.
And while improving retention has been a concern for more than 20 years, the current climate of financial crisis – which relates in part to decreasing enrollment – has drawn even more attention to the effort.
The new Entry Year Experience (EYE) courses and general education curriculum; the new Office for Early Student Success; and the development of an advising handbook are all recent attempts to stem an old problem.
In 1985, USM’s retention rate was closer to 60 percent.
This rate remained steady until 1994, when a series of efforts were made to improve the academic experience of students with a focus on community building, early intervention, and expanded advising.
For the past ten years our retention rate has been hovering around the current 68 percent, meaning each class loses about a third of its students between their freshman and sophomore years.
Last week, Syracuse University’s Dr. Vincent Tinto, a nationally renowned expert on issues of retention and student success, was invited to speak at USM in several forums, including at the meeting of the Board of Trustees and for a workshop titled “Creating Conditions for Student Success,” which was televised across the University of Maine System.
One of the major ideas addressed during these presentations was the creation of “learning communities,” which would involve first-year students co-enrolling in a series of courses, meaning that the same group of students would progress together through a sequence of related, interdisciplinary classes.
This is an idea not unlike the recently accepted gen-ed curriculum, which will take effect in September 2009.
In a luncheon held between his presentations, Tinto spoke casually with a handful of representatives across campus, including professors, staff, and several students.
Concerns about how to build community at USM were brought up by the students, who included senior Student Senator Sri Dyhana and junior Senator Katherine Letourneau.
Likewise, the professors present brought up concerns from their end of the situation.
Gary Johnson, professor of history, reminded Tinto and the others present that no matter how much data is gathered by administrative offices, including the Office of Academic Assessment and the newly formed Office of Early Student Success, professors don’t always know what to do with the information – if they’ve even been provided with it.
This came in reaction to Tinto’s suggestion that USM needed more and better methods for collecting data that can inform where things are going both wrong and right, which will help bring more agreement across campus as to what shape solutions might take.
Susan Campbell, executive director of Advising and Academic Resources, had another concern.
“How do you get a money-worried campus to be self-reflective?” she asked, wondering how the university community can even begin to address internal issues while facing an $8.2 million-and-growing financial crisis.
Tinto’s response was not very heartening.
“You can’t,” he said, “these are important questions, but a bad time.”
Susan McWilliams, assistant provost of undergraduate education and a member of the gen-ed curriculum planning committee, seemed not necessarily to agree.
“In this convulsive period of change,” she said, carefully, “we’re in a great place to convulse some more.”
In addressing issues of student success – which the university hopes will lead to increased retention – McWilliams thinks that there isn’t an institutional consensus as to what success is, which means there are conflicting definitions of what can be done to address it.
“How does a community,” she said, choosing her words slowly, “come to an ethos?”
Though the room was full of tension as the group listened to Tinto speak on USM’s current concerns and convulsions, but everyone had something to ask, something to say.
Their regard for him is not surprising – recent efforts to improve student success and retention, including the creation of the Office of Early Student Success, are modeled after Tinto’s own recommendations and research.
These efforts and his research try to address the primary reasons that approximately 600 of USM’s original 2004 cohort won’t graduate – and why 290 left before 2005.
According to his research, reasons nationwide include: difficulty with transitioning from high school or another institution, having narrow or unclear goals, increasing debt or insufficient finances, family and interpersonal concerns, a perceived lack of “fit” and students’ loneliness and isolation.
While efforts so far have been successful, bringing USM’s retention rate up eight percentage points since it’s first efforts in ’94, there is still work to be done.
According to his “Moving Forward” letter, Joe Wood has made addressing retention a priority.
“Without a higher retention rate,” he says, “we will continue to lose tuition revenues and face increased recruitment costs because of time and effort needed to replace those students who leave prior to graduation.”
But, as Tinto and others brought to the table, with a lack of campus-wide agreement as to what might be done, with tuition revenue decreasing every semester, and amidst a time of convulsive change – including university-wide cuts of programs, positions, and dollars – the solutions aren’t going to come easily.