Students
need to feel they are engaged to and with the college. They need to
have their social structure and support systems rebuilt while attending
college so they have someone to lean on or go to in times of stress or
need. They can go to fellow students for some information such as what
professor to never take; what classes will fulfill requirements; which
administrator cares about students and will try to help out ; etc. But
there are many times when another student can’t help out or provide the
support needed in the situation. These are the times when they might
have asked a parent what to do but the parents do not understand the
system and the school. So, they need a sort of collegiate parent figure –
a mentor.
There is a reality rites des passage about
college. It really does not come with a user’s manual though the FAQ’s
recommended to help end the shuffle could fill the need. College is a
strange environment that prior knowledge and experience including
orientation do not prepare one for. There are new rules to learn.
Traditions and morés to absorb. A whole new way of life and a new lace
to try and find one’s way around. In fact, college is a strange place
not only because it is new and unique but because it seems to put all
new students through a rite de passage involved in just finding one’s
way around, finding a parking spot in time to get to class or just
getting from one place to another on time. It is almost as if
universities in particular put new students though a geographical hazing
by having them find their way around campus without the use of helpful
signs. Signage on most campuses ranges from weak to non-existent.
There
are administrative and procedural challenges and tests that are added
on too just to see if a new student is really college material. In most
schools for example, there is the rite/test of “find the advisor” which
is part of the registration ritual. Students need to sign up for courses
of course but to do so they must have them signed off from her academic
advisor. But since it is the summer prior to the start of classes, the
advisors are quite often no9t on campus. The advisor might have office
hours but since classes have not begun, the hours are neither posted nor
the advisor in the office for the unposted hours. So the student has to
work to find someone willing to sign off on the schedule unless of
course she finds out from another student shuffled around the campus
that the way to end the test is to just sign the registration form for
the advisor. First, no one at registration checks for an actual
signature nor would know the actual one if he saw it. Two, the advisor
usually does not know what should actually be taken as well as another
student who already passed this test and learned from experience. Or
three, the advisor is found or another takes some pity on the student
and signs off for the assigned advisor.
These
processes do not help further the engagements between student and
school. In fact, they initiate rifts between the two. The student begins
to find that the school is not showing the engagement and caring that
was promised and that he or she is “on my own”. But this need not be
the situation if the college engaged students with mentors. A mentoring
system could also increase retention by approximately 84% of the total
number of students who were mentored.
Most
colleges assign a new student an academic advisor thinking that
academics are important as they are, but not to the decision to leave.
They forget about the major reason why students leave – the human
element of attrition. But mentors can strengthen that attachment, the
engagement at least at the beginning of the experience. Mentors need
not be drawn from the academic sector alone by the way. In fact, many
students report that though faculty are a primary source of direct
contact, many others report that they have found relationships in
interactions with others who have reached out to them such as staff and
administrators. With some training, everyone, from the president on up
at the college can be a mentor if he or she is willing. This includes
not just full time employees and faculty but adjuncts As well. It would
be a very inexpensive investment to pay adjuncts for another fewer
hours of mentoring some students Keep in mind that students do not draw
distinctions between full and adjunct faculty.
And
every person at the school should be willing to become a mentor to
students. Students are what everyone is there for after all. In fact, it
is in helping students that members of the campus community really meet
their goals. Helping the college reach its mission by helping students
succeed and stay in school provides most people at a college their
reason for being and working at the school. Moreover, a student
completed by AcademicMAPS found that people work at a college not for
the high pay and short hours but for the chance to be part of something
bigger than they are; a chance to contribute to the school, its students
and a better future for everyone.
Tikun Olam
This is a version of a Jewish belief called Tikun Olam - to save the world. Tikun Olam
realizes that every person is a world unto him or herself. So to save a
person, to make a person better is to better, to save the world. And
that is what people in a college or university do. They strengthen each
and every student, each and every world and in so doing, the people who
work in a college have many opportunities to save worlds and make our
world better as they do so. By engaging students as mentors, they are
also engaging in tikun olam
which gives their lives greater meaning and value. By doing so, they
also better their own worlds as well as the institution itself.
For
example, a university with a population of 2,575 students and 300
employees with an attrition rate of 81.1% that has its employees mentor
300 students has an opportunity to save between 300 to 252 student
worlds. That could increase their retention rate by up to 14% which
could also add $1,387,445 to the budget. And if employees were willing
to mentor up to 8 students each, it could be possible to add to the
retention rate by a factor of 67% which would be an amazing turnaround.
It
is necessary of course to realize that not everyone is capable of
reaching out to students in an appropriate manner to mentor students
even with training which everyone should have before they do mentor.
With this realization, it will be important to focus the mentoring
effort on those who will most benefit. This calls for some realistic
recognitions that can be guided by grades. Students who earn A’s have
likely either already found an engagement in the school or will survive
on their own. Students who are failing will likely have a long road
back and may not be “savable”. Thus the effort should focus first on
students falling between the B- to D+ range for greatest retention
payoff.
LEARN MORE FROM THE POWER OF RETENTION AND FROM ADMISSIONS TO GRADUATION BY DR. NEAL RAISMAN. AND UNTIL MAY1, GET A COPY OF CUSTOMER SERVICE FACTORS AND THE COST OF ATTRITION FREE.
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