Investigating Strategic Measures For The Retention Success

retention and graduation rates, the NCAA rolls out new rules and regulations”. Black Issues in Higher

Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) are experiencing low retention rates with first generation college students. The students are not graduating within a four to six year enrollment period, and or are not returning after their freshmen year. As the American workforce looks to colleges and universities to fulfill the workforce pipeline with educated diverse workers, HBCUs are in the spotlight to produce qualified minority graduates. Moreover, HBCU’s are looking to refine their methods of inclusion and buy-in, this will in-turn manifest a higher level of retention amongst first generation college students.

The faculty is entrenched in their ways, and change causes ambiguity and uncertainty. Moreover, the faculty in the organization feel uncertain about the new concepts presented by Dr. Ball to the deans altering their salaries and evaluations (Bolman & Deal, 2013, p. 31). The proposed changes create competition and unrest among the faculty and will shatter the business-as-usual campus conduct and job security. The dean's and faculty are grasping at the symbolic frame, defending their beloved academic lifestyle (Bolman & Deal, 2013, p. 248). The secondary problem in this case is support from the deans of the incentive program that will restore Weston University prestigious reputation as set by the board and developed by the president.

In the organization that I work at, the Academic Enhancement Center, which is part of Saint Francis College. The center was created in 2003 is to provide academic and skills tutoring to undergraduates at the college. The core objectives of the AEC are to help students gained confidence in themselves, enhance their skills, help them succeed in their studies and retain current students. However, the academic enhancement center must complete with other organizations within the college for financial resources and other assets to run efficiently. In part four of Artistry Choice, & Leadership Reframing Organizations, states that power is crucial in central political thinking. In St. Francis College, power is centralized in the office of the president, then distributed down to the provost of the college, which is subsequently divided by the deans. In the academic enhancement center, assistant dean Monica Michalski is in charge of the Academic Enhancement Center. Dean Michalski however, supervises the Office of Freshman Studies that assists first year undergraduate students making the transition to college as smoothly

Though I remained closely connected to the Office of Admissions during my time in CNS, I observed, as in outsider, significant staffing changes, compromised staff morale, and increased skepticism the institution held for admissions and recruitment staff. In addition, recruitment efforts were often berated publicly as the cause for matriculation declines by ethnicity, major, or caliber. More than 15 admissions officers, the majority from the recruitment division, resigned due to dissatisfaction and/or lack of confidence in changes in leadership and direction of the institution – many of these positions were not replaced. Due to changes in leadership in both admissions and CNS, my position is returning to the Office of Admissions in June 2016. Given the state of the organization, I sought to address the following questions:

Section 1: Introduction The theme for this paper is to select an organization that I 'm familiar with, which is recruiting and retention for the state of Georgia. I will identify an existing performance gap that can be closed by developing a training program. I will also describe how I would develop an effective training program. The references for this paper will come from Chapters 8-10 of the textbook and other resource materials.

There are special laws and regulations that will set the rules on how to manage records and clear retention schedules, but most state laws are usually who govern how long medical records will be retained. Regarding retention requirements, it all will be related to the organization’s needs. In a high risk facility the retention periods might be longer than in a small community hospital that is expected just to reach the minimum requirement, so regulations will provide specific time frames. The Texas Medical Board’s rule 165.1(b), directs physicians to retain medical records seven years, counting from the date of last treatment. In the case of a patient younger than 18 years old, these records are going to be kept until the patient reaches age 21, or for seven years after the last treatment, whichever is longer. Additionally, if the medical records are related to any civil, criminal, or administrative

The public institution selected for this research project is a nonprofit, multi-campus and Georgia’s third-largest technical college based in Waco. The institution has an open admissions policy. It enrolls less than 7,000 students annually, in certificate, diploma, and associate degree programs. The highest degree offered at the institution is an associate degree. The student-faculty ratio is 18-to-1. The challenge for West Georgia Technical College (WGTC) is to design and implement effective retention strategies and programs for first-time students that monitor, encourage , and reward student retention using available resources and without burdening faculty and staff with cumbersome tracking and reporting procedures. While the limitations present an overwhelming task, the consequences of not solving the problem exceed any potential limitations. With these limitations in mind, the researcher’s task is to find a workable solution. First-year retention rates involving higher education undergraduates during the previous several years have improved marginally even with various improvement efforts (Barefoot, 2000; Tinto, 2004). Large numbers of first-year students are exiting college due to unsatisfactory academic skills, failures to adapt both socially and academically, in addition to having an inadequate commitment to the objective of finishing college (Ishler & Upcraft, 2005; Tinto, 1987).

This program has grown from an isolated unit functioning on its own accord out of a singular office, to one that now engages both student and academic affairs personnel. The program has grown significantly in size, from an initial 75 students served to an approximate 250 students served. The program has led the university in a direction towards a more cohesive attitude and effort as it relates to retention and completion goals. Based on gains made through the Academic at Risk Mentoring Initiative, the newly modified strategic plan now challenges the institution to grow from its 15 year average of 70-75% freshman to sophomore retention rate to an 80% average over the next five years. Thus far, the student mentoring aspect of this initiative has been reduced and the mentor-mentee ratio has been reduced. It has called for fine tuning of old position descriptions and training agendas to fit the needs of the program. Moreover, it has called for the hiring of new personnel all together to compensate the programs expansion. The program relies on res life directors and hires from a diverse array of backgrounds including Communities and Schools to effectively fill mentor positions in ways that work with the mission of the program. The philosophy behind this approach being, “If we are approaching students the right way and helping them to be successful, then retention is the measurement of that. It’s not really the

Michael Lee, J., & Wes Lee, S. (2013). Repositioning HBCUs for the Future. Retrieved September 14, 2015.

The logic of connecting an intervention to an improvement of an organizational process is critical and vital to organizational change and success. Both quantitative and qualitative data will be utilized to assess the immediate effects of improving retention of African American male students. The quantitative data can be process related, while the qualitative data will detail the observation of behavior (the researcher's and participants thoughts, feelings, and ideas). Using quantitative data to show that an intervention made a difference and the logic of using qualitative data to show that an intervention made a difference is important to the implementation of the intervention. “These data will enable the research to reconstruct the implementation of an intervention, analyze the effects of the implementation, and draw valid inferences and conclusions” (Capella, 2015).

The retention rate expresses the likelihood of a student to return to the institution he or she is attending the following year. Taking this data and pairing it with the SAT scores of the institution, the formula generated is able to determine the percentage of a specific student or incoming body of students continuing in their studies at a given school. The average retention rate for all institutions was 0.642, or 64.2% which means that 62% of entering students are likely to continue their education. For public institutions, the retention rate averaged 0.565, or 56.5% while private institutions had a rate of 0.657, or 65.7%. The likelihood of students enrolled in private institutions exceeded that of public institutions by almost 10%, showcasing the need for assistance and priority for public

The plan to collect and organize literature that explains the history of retention starts with the collections of scholarly, peer reviewed articles that provide insight to the history of retention. The literature will be organized alphabetically at first then to gain a better insight into the history of retention the collections of scholarly, peer review articles will be organized according to the date they were published. The history of retention begins at the point higher education brought it in the forefront of their agendas; subsequently, this time began when there were an influx of adult learners returning to college to obtain new or improve their skill set, to

Many colleges and universities throughout the United States and several other countries face a common problem. Student retention is a growing problem across the nation for all ethnic groups and all ages. Each individual who chooses to drop out of school has their own personal reasons as to why they do. However, many drops out can be completely avoided. When students drop out they are not clearly thinking about how it’s going to affect their future, the future of their children and even grandchildren. Although there are several reasons as to why students drop out of school, we will be exploring a few as it relates to why student retention is a growing problem.

Further, qualitative research based on this finding indicates that institutional factors may provide the additional mediating factor for collaboration capacity to transmit its effect over long time spans. The results of this study provide a contribution toward the theory of collaboration and its impact on performance by opening the black box of collaboration and explaining what happens when the internal gears of the collaborative process turn in either direction to positively or negatively affect performance outcomes. It provides empirical contributions by offering an approach that investigates at the phenomena of collaboration from a non-linear perspective, at multiple levels, and through multiple