The traditional 18-22 year-old, full-time and on-campus undergraduate student is no longer the norm across U.S. and Canadian institutions.
"Non-traditional students are now the 'traditional' student," said presenter Jody Gordon, Vice President of Students at University of the Frasier Valley. These non-traditional students at two- and four-year institutions come from a variety of backgrounds and have different needs for their individual student success.
Gordon led a pre-conference workshop at the Strategic Enrollment Management Conference in Los Angeles, CA, with Stan Henderson, Vice Chancellor for Enrollment Management and Student Life at the University of Michigan, Dearborn and the recipient of this year's AACRAO Strategic Enrollment Management Lifetime Achievement Award.
About 15 attendees from the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom and Lebanon attended Gordon and Henderson's workshop, "Fitting Students to Success: Retention, One Student at a Time." In the workshop, Gordon and Henderson defined student success, its potential barriers, defining student types with data; student success principles; and high-impact practices and trends.
Gordon and Henderson also described how the SEM Planning Framework allows institutions to be attentive to students' needs without shoehorning students into preconceived success models.
"There is no template, one-size-fits-all model that ensures student success," warned Henderson. "Campuses have to move from 'enrollment by chance' to 'enrollment by design' -- and to do that, strategic enrollment planning has to first understand and then become part of the culture of the entire campus."
Workshop attendees broke into small groups to discuss first generation students and social differences at their institutions, and what programming and services could be deployed to ensure success for these students. Attendees talked about how seemingly small bureaucratic details, such as naming conventions on applications, can negatively impact a student's first year at an institution. They also talked about campus support programs that could improve the experience of first generation students, such as transition programs, student ambassador and peer mentor programs, and student communities focused on mental health.
Gordon and Henderson closed the workshop with broad, but impactful, recommendations to improve student success at their institution:
1. Designate someone or a group of people to coordinate a campusÉwide planning, implementation, assessment team.
2. Conduct a systematic analysis of the characteristics of your students. =tyu6frdFocus on the nexus of student characteristics and institutional characteristics (first generation, low-income, underrepresented, nontraditional students, etc…).
3. Build community through group services.
4. Carefully review the high impact strategies for implementation.
5. Establish realistic short-term and long-term retention, progression, and completion goals.
6. Orchestrate the change process. Implement, measure, improve!