Review and Assessment of Factors Contributing to
Missouri State University
Student Retention
Fall 2006
Maribeth Ehasz, Ph.D

The purpose of this consultation was to gather information about key activities, programs, processes, and services in order to better understand factors influencing student retention at Missouri State University. The consultation was initiated by Dr. Belinda McCarthy, Provost.

Interviews were held on Thursday, November 16 with a variety of university faculty, staff and students. These interviews included conversations with representatives from student affairs, student government, academic advising, undergraduate programs, enrollment management and colleges. A luncheon meeting was also held with members of the Provost Task Force on Student Success. 

Other data used in this consultation included a review of the university catalog, advisement materials, annual reports, student orientation packets, recruitment brochures, assessment plans, research reports and survey information. Information available on the web regarding Missouri State University’s strategic plan and performance measures was also examined. Data available on student enrollment, grade point averages, retention and graduation rates were also studied.

This consultation report will present strengths and weaknesses observed. Suggested recommendations will include opportunities and threats that need to be considered in order to improve student success at Missouri State University.

Strengths: Missouri State University has many valuable assets that have the potential to positively affect student retention and success. Continuing to support and strengthen them will be important. These include:

1. Academic Advising – The model for academic advising is a mixed model that includes centralized advising centers for undecided students, business majors and several education majors. Faculty is involved in advising all other students. It is positive that advising is required for new freshmen and transfers, sophomores, probation students. The training and development programs offered to advisors are outstanding and a model to other institutions. The advising tools, particularly the Faculty/Advisor Resource Center, are extremely valuable and comprehensive. The creation of a University Advising Council could strengthen advising at all levels of the university.

2. Housing and Residence Life – The majority of freshmen live on campus (2/3) since it is a mandatory requirement. Upper class students are also on-campus residents in high numbers. There are a number of programs designed in the residence halls to reach out to students and draw them into the MSU community. Midnight breakfasts are one example of a successful way to involve students. Attempts are also made to partner with faculty and engage them with students through activities such as help with move-in (Join the Bear Crew), door-to-door visits (Make a House Call) and hall programs (Share the Wisdom). Learning communities are being planned.

3. Distinctions – Students, faculty, and staff articulated often that MSU advantages included a compact campus, location in the third largest city in Missouri and affordability. MSU is seen as an “academic school” rather than an athletic school. 

4. Faculty involvement- There appear to be faculty involved in advisory committees for almost every activity or policy review. Faculty may not be aware of their role in student retention. Academic standards should never be diminished but at the same time student success can be encouraged. Establishing incentives and rewards to increase their involvement in engaging students in the academic life at MSU as well as collaborating with others in the development of retention initiatives should be explored.

5. Facilities – There is great excitement associated with the Campus Center project. Students are hopeful that this center will become a strong connecting place for students. 

6. Academic support – MSU requires faculty to report mid-term grades for students. This is a rare practice for large institutions but important in an early alert risk system. Residence life staff is involved in follow-up activities regarding midterm reports. 

7. Freshmen Seminar – The IDS 110 course is a mandatory requirement for new students. Peer leaders are involved in the course. Faculty, student affairs staff and advisors serve as instructors of the course.

8. Parent involvement – There appears to be several ways for parents to become engaged with MSU and follow their students’ educational process. Some examples include a parent handbook provided during orientation, a Parent Association, and the Partners in Education (PIE) program that gives access to students’ records. Working with parents to help them understand the importance of students “leaving home” to engage in a new life at MSU while not deserting the family could be valuable.

9. The Career Center has been successful in reaching targets for early contact with new freshmen. Partnering with the University Advisement Center to work closely with undecided students is important.

10. Assessment – MSU participates in several national assessment programs (NSEE, CIRP, CSS) and various units regularly assess their activities emphasizing learning outcomes.

Weaknesses: Missouri State University has several areas that may be negatively influencing student retention and success. Strengthening, improving, and evaluating these areas are important. These include:

1. Academic support services such as study skills, writing, math, and economics tutoring, are not centralized or summarized in one place and it may be difficult for advisors and students to know where to find them or use them.

2. Academic support services are limited. There is minimal tutoring and no supplemental instruction is available.

3. Retention data collection and tracking are weak and there does not seem to be one area or leader that has responsibility and accountability for these data. Eliminating students who transfer to other institutions in creating first year retention rates is very unconventional. It seems that neither entering class cohort groups are tracked nor are sub-groups of students within the cohorts. It is unclear how results of assessment information are used to improve retention.

4. Students are drawn off campus and may be connecting more with downtown establishments than with MSU activities, programs, and classes. Weekends begin on Thursdays or Fridays which likely effects class attendance.

5. Students find it easy on the weekends to go back home and engage with their families and friends rather than stay close to their MSU community.

6. Many MSU students work off campus. The College Student Survey administered by the Center for Assessment and Faculty Support indicates that 62% of their sample works off- campus. Creating more on-campus jobs would be helpful in drawing students back to campus. The importance of actively engaging students in classroom act

7. The IDS 110 course receives mixed reviews from faculty, staff, and students. It has been recently revised to include more academic content and the contact hours have been reduced from 32 sessions to 16 sessions in an 8 week period. This change eliminated the transition and life skills topics that are particularly important to new students. The assumption is that these topics are included in a required PE course that is often taken later in students’ academic careers when they are upperclass students. Although a faculty committee recommended the course changes, there are still relatively small numbers of faculty that teach the course.

8. Feedback was received that class availability for freshmen is limited. There does not seem to be an understanding of “success” courses for freshmen and it is unclear how previous academic strengths and weaknesses are considered when freshmen select their initial courses. 

9. Although midterm grades are collected, they do not seem to be available in all classes. There does not seem to be a consistent response across the university to information received in the midterm reports in order to establish an early alert risk program. It is also unclear what actions are taken to work with students on probation after the first term.

10. Feedback was received that MSU students struggle with math classes. Strategies to encourage success in this area need to be explored.

11. It appears that students often receive the run-around in receiving information or handling business processes at various MSU offices. It seems to be a general practice since no specific office was identified.

12. It is unclear what characteristics identify successful MSU students and what characteristics identify students at risk.

RECOMMENDATIONS: MSU has the opportunity to make a difference in student retention and success through consideration of the following:

1.      Responsibility and accountability for the retention and success of MSU students needs to be centralized and coordinated. This includes the collection and tracking of data specifically geared to retention. Without the data, it is very difficult to come up with a meaningful retention plan that establishes priorities and targets. Although retention involves everyone, it is not advanced if there is no identified area that is responsible and accountable for advancing it.

Retention data collection needs to be organized by cohort groups and include all students that entered the university that specific fall term. Separate tracking could be developed for students entering in the summer term and those entering in the spring term. These are all different types of students with different needs. It is helpful to track attrition by required and non-required status. This would identify those who needed to leave because of grades and those who left for other reasons. Examples of sub-groups to track include specific residence halls, high schools, selective admissions, undecided, honors, scholars, scholarship recipients, majors, ethnicity, national origin, gender, high school gpa, and ACT score regions to name a few. It will also be important to assess the ramifications of the new selection standards used for admission.

There needs to be a clear concentration of resources dedicated to first year students. Initially, the priority would be first time in college students. This might involve reorganization, restructuring, reallocation of resources and personnel. The IDS 110 course cannot provide everything that new freshmen need to succeed. It needs to be associated with other “first year” programs and packaged together. This will be a culture change for the institution since it is used to serving and working with “everyone.” The Freshmen Week program coordinated by the orientation staff is a good start but freshmen activities need to be extended at least to the first six weeks of the term. A number of areas could be involved such as advising, student activities, counseling, career services, recreation, housing and residence life. The freshmen year program needs to complement and support the academic experience.

Plans are underway to participate in a national benchmarking assessment for the IDS 110 course. This should be encouraged as an external assessment may help define and promote course outcomes and value to all groups – faculty, staff, and students.  The course is new and different but it is still carrying an old image. Not everyone has embraced it and intentional efforts need to be taken to gain buy-in and support for the contribution that it makes to student success.  Training and development activities with all faculty, staff, and students involved in facilitating the course need to be encouraged.

Risk courses for freshmen need to be identified and shared with advisors. A course is identified as a risk course when the D, F and W rates are consistently high. Often these courses are in the sciences and math and are difficult for students across all universities. A strategy used successfully at some institutions has been changing the grading system to A, B, C, F and no credit. If a student works hard, participates, and attempts the work but does not successfully accomplish the expected outcomes, the student receives a no credit. It also may be helpful to develop new placement tests and new introductory courses or change the pedagogy. Sometimes it is obvious through tracking these courses each term that the course is a risk course because of the faculty member involved. In one instance, students were identified as more successful in a chemistry course during the summer term than in any of the other terms that the course was available. In the summer, the course was taught by a full professor and in the fall and spring it was taught by an adjunct.

A guide to available academic support services needs to be developed and centralizing these services in one unit or location would be valuable. Expanding tutoring and learning assistance programs on line and in person is recommended as well as taking them to the residence halls or off-campus locations. Establishing a supplemental instruction program for specific risk courses would also be helpful.  Creating a “map to success” for new students would be a good way to coordinate important information.

Establish a plan for responding to students with poor midterm grade reports and to students on probation. Identify those individuals responsible for taking specific proactive steps and work collaborating on reaching students. Residence life staff is already making some contact with residents but collaboration with academic advisors, faculty and support services could be strengthened. The validity and reliability of midterm grade reports needs to be reviewed. If they are not accurate reflections of students’ progress then they are not valuable. Other early alert programs could be developed such as tracking student attendance, assignment completion, pre-registration and class participation.

There may be an opportunity to enhance campus life as a result of the new ordinance restricting 18-20 year olds from certain establishments in downtown Springfield that serve alcohol.   Students seem very concerned about the impact this will have on student life. There is concern that alcohol use will become more suppressed on campus or that the attraction of the downtown scene will diminish. Promoting on-campus late night activities that are alcohol free but interesting, engaging, and supported by students is important. A renewed emphasis on MSU campus life will also draw students back from their hometown excursions on weekends. 

The growth of the local community college and the A plus plan that provides free tuition at the community college for the upper ¼ of a graduating class has the potential for draining MSU of talented students. It also will increase the number of students beginning their MSU careers as upperclassmen. Attention will need to be focused on establishing early connections with transfer students from the community college. These students will not be required to reside on campus and will continue to build the image of MSU as a commuter institution. It will be important to continue to articulate advantages to beginning and finishing your college career at MSU.

Invest in creating and marketing your brand identity. You can be intentional about the message that best describes your institution, attracts students who will succeed and encourages student success. Currently, the brand identity of MSU is somewhat vague and limited. For example, one message is that it is affordable but so is the local community college. Another message is that it is compact but it is unclear that this makes a difference to enrollment and student success. 

There are many opportunities to improve retention and student success of freshmen students at Missouri State University. Retention improvement does not happen overnight but one-step at a time. An investment now will be a payoff for the future success of Missouri State University students.

The most important step is to recognize the significance of creating or identifying an individual, entity or unit that is responsible and accountable for coordinating and improving student retention and success at Missouri State University. Second, retention data collection and tracking are critical to discovering risk groups and success groups. This will enable Missouri State University to concentrate financial and personnel resources in the most important areas. It will be detrimental to attempt to reach “all” students and more beneficial to target “risk” populations for increased attention. Third, dedicating resources to first year students and establishing a comprehensive “first year program” that involves multiple areas of the university will make a difference in improving student retention and success. 

Retention will improve as students become more aware of the expectations that the university has for their success. Students also need to be aware of the resources that are available to support their success and how to access them. MSU needs to consistently review policies and practices that may distract from student success. Students need to know that they are being selected to not just attend MSU but to graduate from MSU.