Winthrop's Project REACH for Retention and Achievement

Faculty Guide to Student Success

Why Should We Care?

Almost one-fourth of first-year Winthrop students fail to return for their second year. Should we care? graphic: helping hands

Yes. We want students to succeed; we want to help them succeed. If we do not, quite frankly, we are in the wrong line of work.

No one pretends that every student should be retained. Despite our best efforts, some will prove unable to handle the academic demands of a college environment. Others have the intellectual potential, but will choose not to apply themselves. So be it.

We cannot save them all, but we can save some. We can save those who need only our support and encouragement; those who need only a little extra help in finding the path to success.

Ultimately, what helps our students helps us.

Our Office of Admissions now must recruit four first-year students for every three we want to retain as sophomores. With better retention we could be more selective in whom we admit. With the same pool of applicants we could raise standards and still maintain enrollment.
Higher admission standards, in turn, might attract an even larger and stronger pool of applicants. Potential students want to attend prestigious schools with selective admissions.
College ratings such as those published by U.S. News and World Reports use retention and graduation rates as important criteria in their final rankings. Higher retention and graduation rates translate into stronger ratings and, in many cases, more and better applicants.
Better retention could also help financially. First-year students are the most expensive to educate and take up a disproportionate amount of staff time and energy. Orientation programs, ACAD 101, WRIT 101 and GNED 102 eat up budgets. Better retention would allow us to enroll fewer of these more costly students.

With better retention Winthrop can maintain higher standards,
attract more and better applicants, and save money. Retention matters!

How Are We Doing?

Researchers typically compute the percentage of enrolled first-year students who return for their second year (the one-year retention rate) and the percentage of students who graduate within six years of entering the school (the six-year graduation rate). Winthrop's performance on these measures is quite respectable, but not outstanding.

Highly selective private schools like Davidson or Duke can retain and graduate 90 percent of enrolled students. While we cannot hope to match that record, we compare favorably to other schools of our type. US News and World Report currently ranks Winthrop among the top 50 Southern Universities: Master's. Our retention record places us in the middle of this pack. We also rank favorably with respect to other colleges and universities in our immediate region.

School	One-year Retention	Six-Year Graduation
Winthrop	75%	58%
Furman	90	83
Clemson	90	78
USC - Columbia	87	63
Citadel	81	71
College of Charleston	80	61
UNC-Asheville	81	53
UNC-Charlotte	77	50
UNC-Greensboro	76	52
Queens	74	62
Wingate	72	48
Coastal Carolina	67	42
Garner-Webb	67	42
Francis Marion	67	38
John C. Smith	65	40

How Can Faculty Members Help?

Winthrop University does work hard at retention. The Division of Student Life sponsors a wide variety of programs to help students connect to the university and to each other. Many academic departments run additional programs for their students. However, in the end, the success of these programs depends upon the individual efforts of people across campus. What can an individual faculty or staff member do to help?

First, identify students at risk. You know who they are. You see them every day. You know who is succeeding and who is not. You see them change, and you see them grow.

graphic: helping a student Second, direct at-risk students to the appropriate resources. In an ideal world, at-risk students would recognize their dilemma and seek out assistance. But this is not an ideal world. Students often dig themselves into holes and do not know where to find ladders to help climb out. They do not seek help. They do not even admit they are in a hole. They hunker down, waiting for miracles that never appear.

You can awaken them. You can sound the alarm; make them sound the alarm. Be proactive. Seek them out. Talk with them. Confront at-risk students with their situations. Help them to identify the source of their problems. Help them find strategies they might use to overcome these problems. Winthrop provides many resources to support student success. Familiarize yourself with them. Encourage students to take advantage of them.

Third, be a resource yourself. Many of us owe a great debt to former mentors. They may have been teachers or professors, more experienced colleagues, youth workers, or even neighbors. Whoever they were, they took us under their proverbial wings. They cared about us. They shared, and they encouraged. They provided role models, and they provided vision. Can you do the same for a Winthrop student? Pick out an at-risk student. Maybe one you had or have in class? Maybe one who works in your division or office? Get to know them. Invite them to lunch. Meet with them on a regular basis, just to talk. It will help the student, and it will help you. Is it worth a try?

Find out how you can mentor a student.
Read about Winthrop's Student Mentoring Program.
View the Mentoring Toolkit in pdf format.

[Student Guide to Success][Obstacles to Success]
[Analysis of Poor Course Performance][Checklist of Obstacles]
[Strategies for Success][Resources for Success][Commitment to Success]
[REACH Home Page] [Winthrop Home Page]


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