Summit Targets Student Success
UNM Retention Rates Too Low
Maybe what the University of New Mexico needed all along was a little outside help.
The school’s below-average retention and graduation rates have long been one of its most significant struggles, and there’s been little improvement over the past decade.
It’s time to tackle that full force, UNM leaders say. The university this year partnered with the North Carolina-based John N. Gardner Institute for Excellence in Undergraduate Education, a nonprofit that helps colleges and universities improve student success. UNM began working with the institute last spring after signing a one-year $47,500 contract.
UNM kicked off the partnership Wednesday with a student success summit attended by nearly 200 faculty members, students, staff and administrators.
“I have never felt so hopeful at being able to make changes at UNM as I am today,” Faculty Senate president Amy Neel said. “… I have chills standing up here thinking we can finally start … working together.”
UNM’s retention rate has long been too low, administrators say, but it took a particularly harsh dip for the freshman class of 2010, when it went from 78.3 percent in 2009 to 74.1 percent. The rate this year recovered by more than two percentage points. UNM reported 76.6 percent of freshman who entered school in 2011 came back this year.
The national average varies widely, but most top 100 schools have rates higher than 85 percent. However, UNM’s retention rate is higher than other state universities, such as New Mexico Tech and New Mexico Highlands, both of which have rates lower than 50 percent, according to U.S. News & World Report.
UNM administrators laud this year’s retention rate increase, but have said they still have a long way to go before reaching their goal of a rate that surpasses 80 percent.
“That’s a lot, but it’s not anywhere, anywhere where it needs to be. And neither is our graduation rate,” Provost Chaouki Abdallah said.
UNM and the institute launched “Foundations of Excellence,” a program that will help create new strategies for improving freshmen retention rates and the quality of education. Among the initiatives is a survey for faculty and staff that will be sent out next month with questions about how programs and services for first-year students are perceived.
A second survey in November will ask freshmen whether they feel academically prepared, welcome on campus, well-advised on course requirements and other topics. Respondents to both surveys will remain anonymous. Although the initiative’s goal is to keep more students in school, the ultimate feat would be providing a higher-quality education, administrators said.
“We’re not working towards some percentage point numbers. Really, we are working to make things better for our students,” University College and Honors College dean Kate Krause said. “We’ve got to think of ways to get this message out and inspire our troops to really do our best. We wanna shake things up. This is a time for change and transformation, and I hope at least some of you will jump on my bandwagon for that.”