TTU sets aggressive goal: Boost student retention 8-10 percent
Student retention efforts at Tennessee Tech University take on renewed vigor this year with an aggressive goal to improve the rate by 8-10 percent.
The current freshman-to-sophomore retention rate is 72 percent.
TTU Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs Jack Armistead said several new and redesigned retention strategies are in play now to improve the rate.
“We’ve been hovering around this 72 percent figure for many, many years,” Armistead said. “I think an 8-10 percent improvement is a realistic goal for us within four or five years.”
Retention and graduation rates will receive greater focus in Tennessee this year as the state legislature considers changing the funding formula for higher education. The funding formula now focuses primarily on fall enrollment. In the future, Gov. Phil Bredesen would like to have the formula become more focused on outcomes like student retention and graduation rates.
TTU already has among the highest retention and graduation rates of Tennessee Board of Regents four-year schools. Reasons to improve student retention are critical, Armistead said.
Student success ties directly to successful education generally. And TTU’s budget can be increased dramatically by its ability to retain more students. In short, it’s more cost effective to retain students than it is to recruit new ones, he said.
Even a modest 2 percent improvement in student retention over a four-year period translates to millions in state funding, Armistead said.
“We’re doing an awful lot of things to try to promote retention campuswide, and we need to find the right formula to improve retention,” he said.
To achieve the 8-10 percent goal, various groups at TTU are focusing on a host of solutions. Among the most immediate are:
- Revamping the first floor of the Angelo and Jennette Volpe Library to create a learning commons.
- Launching learning villages in residence halls.
- Tweaking the University 1020 (First Year Connections) course to better meet student needs.
Learning Commons
Imagine walking into the main floor of the Volpe Library to a coffee shop, a huge selection of open-access computers, large screen televisions, and an IT help desk complete with the most knowledgeable expertise available anywhere.
If you can imagine that, then you’ve just seen the TTU library of the future.
By the fall semester 2010, the Volpe Library’s main floor will be transformed into a learning commons, an area that could almost be described as the university’s livingroom: a place to study, snack, surf the Web, research and more.
It’s to be a space that works for both individual study and group study sessions. It’ll become a place for socializing and relaxation as well as for intense research and quiet reflection.
TTU’s learning commons will be based on those already established at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville’s undergraduate library and one at North Carolina State University in Raleigh, N.C.
UTK’s learning commons, for example, houses a coffee shop and eatery, 166 PCs and 18 iMacs. It is a collaboration between the university’s IT department and the university library.
NCSU revamped much of the space in the east wing of its D.H. Hill Library in 2007 and filled it with technology critical to student learning.
The TTU Library Redesign Committee has been meeting since February 2009 to create a concept for the library’s future and to follow though on former Director Winston Walden’s interest in creating a learning commons. The committee adopted the view that learning assistance is just as important to the library’s mission as is information access.
To complete the vision, TTU will hire a new Dean of Library and Learning Assistance. The new dean will manage the library and serve as the university’s “senior partner” for all efforts on campus now aimed at learning assistance. Armistead said interviews for the new dean begin in January.
Learning Villages
Two learning village communities will launch at TTU in the fall semester 2010. Each with 150 students, the learning villages will be organized around themes. Eventually, Armistead said, virtually every student and many faculty members will belong to one of the villages.
The first two learning village themes are service-leadership and the environment.
“Basically, this puts faculty into the residence halls more than they are now, gives students more ownership over their living and learning arrangements than they had before, and provides more mentoring and tutoring in the residence halls,” Armistead said.
As the villages are named and develop themes, each one will take on its own character, becoming a place for life-long personal connections.
“We’re not prescribing this. We’re putting the students together initially and giving them a theme; from that point on, they will begin to plan their own destinies,” he said.
It will take four or five years to roll out the program to create a total of 10 or so learning villages. Armistead says the learning villages concept has proven highly effective in improving student retention at other universities.
TTU’s current learning communities program, where small groups of first-year students take two to three courses together, has already proven to be highly successful in retaining students. Early figures show TTU managed to retain 93% of the 73 students who enrolled in last fall’s learning communities sections.
A learning community fosters ready-made study groups, new friendships from the start of college, and the chance to experience connections between courses through shared assignments and activities. Learning communities also guarantee enrollment in popular required courses and allow students to enjoy a small, caring community within the larger context of the university.
University 1020
The University 1020 course all freshmen take is being tweaked over time to better meet the needs of students. The course has not yet shown that it improves student retention, but investigations under way now may yield new information, said Linda Null, who directs the program.
- A two-year study is examining whether to remodel the course using material focused more on helping freshmen make social connections or academic ones. In addition, a formal survey of those who have taken the course is looking for other clues for program redesign.
- Beginning in the fall 2010, all University 1020 sections will include an undergraduate student-mentor who will follow the members of each section all the way through the end of the spring semester. Null says freshmen can benefit by having more personal contact with an older student.
None of these major projects – learning villages, learning commons or University 1020 – is funded using state money. The villages will be paid for via a combination of funding from the Student Success Fee and housing fees. University 1020 is also funded through the Student Success Fee. The library renovations will be paid for using federal stimulus dollars.
Other retention efforts
Dozens of other efforts across campus also are aimed at retention. Two focus on freshmen and at-risk students:
- An Engineering Residence Hall Program provides freshmen support through relaxing activities, tutoring and a computer lab.
- A Student Success Center within the College of Arts & Sciences targets at-risk students by providing them an advisor who helps them develop plans for academic improvement.
