**** REMEMBER – this is my opinion / I am typing as I listen so please ignore typos (autocorrect) / spelling errors / grammar!
LeAnn Blankenburg – Projects & system Administrator / Western Iowa Tech Community College – Sioux city, IA
- History & Background
- Stagnant Enrollments FA/04 – FA/07
- Declining regional population base
- aging of regional population
- Philosophy:
- “Let’s do a better job of retaining our current students – ROI to “save” current students and keep them coming back for subsequent semesters and graduate! – can be just as effective as continually going out to recruit new students”
- hired 10 retention liaisons 5-10hrs per week
- intensive and purposeful calling / contacting strategy and timeline developed
- built collaboration between student services and faculty
- student not graduated but not enrolled for next term
- student who have applied but haven’t yet registered
- students who had withdrawn during prior semester
- 1st time students who hand’t registered for Orientation
- first time students within first couple of weeks to check on their progress
- students at risk of being disenrolled for non-payment
- students who are reported as absent or not attending
- student who drop their classes
- Intended for all 1st time degree seeking students
- curriculum designed to orient new students to college – right info at the right time!
- key campus leaders as guest speakers
- Curriculum to meet students needs
- Scavenger HUNT on the PORTAL
- (pretty much the same as our own Freshman Seminar)
- Online Reporting tool for all to use (Datatel Portal)
- Campus Wide opportunities to support concerns:
- Faculty can report attendance issues
- Housing Staff can report behavior concerns
- Financial Concerns can be reported
- Process mapping prior to implementation services
- Beware of temptation with automated cases
- Student did not respond to outreach – 576
- Student was contacted: 638
- Issue was resolved: 59
- 1,388 cases opened
- 2007: Retention Liaisons
- 2009 – College Experience Class
- 2010 – Retention Alert Reporting System
- Fall Headcount: Fall 07 (5919) v. Fall 11 (6787) – 80% RETENTION
- ? who is responding to the Retention Alert? The Retention Staff – Those Retention Leaders are actively CALLING their students and have been helping, sitting down and creating an academic plan WITH Those students
- ? What happens if they don’t attend the class?
(I went to this last year and this just backed up some of the information??? I sorta think a nap would have done me more good though! But she did a good job)