Top 10 Retention Tips
1. Provide a collaborative and active learning environment. Get students involved in learning; make sure they are getting more out of the classroom experience than taking notes!
2. Make sure your institution is student-centered. Develop a screening and training process for hiring individuals who are aligned with your school's service philosophy.
3. Implement intervention advising. Don't wait until they leave you to try to keep them.
4. Assess their academic skills and make sure they are placed in the appropriate level classes...if you don't offer developmental coursework, you are asking for poor retention.
5. Have a mandatory, consistent and structured orientation not only to the institution, but to college life and available services.
6. If everyone is in charge, no one is in charge. Someone needs to be designated the official student retention cheerleader and champion!
7. Retention is more than just scheduling classes--it's caring! Make sure those individuals working on retention have listings of community support services and other resources available.
8. Document, document, document and share the information you have gathered! The knowledge gained in one office needs to transfer to others so that students have a seamless service experience.
9. Analyze and learn. The more you document, the more you can review and analyze data to increase services. Learn from what you have and make good use of it by improving processes.
10.Include career services and career exploration options at the front door! The more confident an individual is regarding their major the more likely they are to graduate.