Abstract
It Takes a Campus: 15 Initiatives to Improve Retention, by Kyle Ellis, PhD, takes readers on an in-depth journey through the inception, implementation, and continued assessment of the Center for Student Success and First Year Experience (CSSFYE) at the University of Mississippi. Dr. Ellis, the Director of the Center for Student Success and First-Year Experience at the University of Mississippi, also delves into the history of retention practices at the institution, providing readers a timeline from 2008, when first-year retention at the University of Mississippi was 78.3% to 2015 when the first-year retention rate at the school was 86.5%. Early on, it becomes abundantly clear that the book focuses exclusively on freshmen retention, and the University of Mississippi’s best practices on improving the retention of its first-year students. While first-year retention is very important to overall persistence at any institution, the title of the book is somewhat misleading in that there is no indication of the freshmen focus from the cover or title. Misleading title aside, readers will find a workbook style format with reflection questions at the end of each chapter that allow the reader to review their own institution’s efforts toward improving first-year retention, using each chapter’s focus on retention efforts at the University of Mississippi as a template. The book includes interviews with individuals intimately involved in first-year retention efforts at the institution to provide an insider’s perspective on each initiative. The interviews provide invaluable information on how administrators and “on the ground” professionals feel about first-year retention practices.
After the Introduction, which provides the reader an overview of the book’s focus, Dr. Ellis begins outlining the 15 first-year retention initiatives with a chapter dedicated to each one. Initiative 1 talks about the history of first-year retention at the University of Mississippi by detailing the creation of the Retention Task Force, when the institution’s first-year retention hovered in the upper 70% range (p. 13). The author takes us step-by-step through the inception of the Task Force and provides a table of task force members with their respective titles (p. 14). There is valuable information in this chapter as Dr. Ellis reminds the reader that support from top administrators is essential to the success of any new retention initiative. This first chapter also provides us insight into the inception of the CSSFYE, with the mission of integrating and centralizing first-year retention efforts previously spread across campus in different areas. The Provost and Vice Chancellor of Student Affairs pushed the creation of a center supporting “anything and everything freshmen” (p. 20).
In the chapter detailing Initiative 2, Having a Point Person, Dr. Ellis makes in my opinion the most profound point of the entire book when he states, “When the University’s leadership made the decision to make retention a primary responsibility for several University staff and faculty members, the freshman retention rates rose to the mid-80% range” (p. 33). This chapter is written to make readers consider who is responsible for retention on their campuses and what it means to have primary responsibility for such an important piece of student success.
As the author continues into Initiative 3, the reader may come across some redundancies in information as Dr. Ellis focuses specifically on the Retention Advisory Board, which was the final iteration of the Retention Task Force and Retention Steering Committee, detailed in the chapter on Initiative 1. Dr. Ellis states his desire to intimately detail the Retention Advisory Board as its own retention initiative and provides individual representatives’ university roles and the mission/focus of the Board as a whole. While interesting information, it makes for tedious reading and could have been covered in the first chapter with Initiative 1.
Data-driven decisions are paramount to any best practice and the Retention Advisory Board, along with the CSSFYE at the University of Mississippi, committed themselves to the data as evidenced in Initiative 4, Data Commitment. With the help of the Office of Institutional Research, Effectiveness, and Planning (IREP), and the Associate Director-Retention, all sorts of first-year data are requested, analyzed, and used efficiently to inform and direct decisions in the CSSFYE and across campus. From “No Schedule” reports to low mid-term grade reports, data were distributed across the institution to help freshman succeed.
As a professional academic advisor myself, Initiative 5, Professional Academic Advisors for Freshmen, was incredibly interesting. Having dedicated academic advisors for most freshmen at the University of Mississippi has provided the institution the ability to focus on freshman issues, freshman needs, and freshmen support. Dr. Ellis tells us about the history of academic advising at the institution and the process of going from a decentralized advising model to the current model where about 70% of all freshmen at the University of Mississippi are advised through the CSSFYE. While I completely agree with the statement Dr. Ellis makes “Establishing a trusting relationship with a campus professional is a key component to student persistence” (p. 98), after reading this chapter, I was left wondering what happens to the other 30% of freshmen? More importantly, what happens to the rest of the student body at the institution. Remembering, however, that this book focuses solely on first-year initiatives and first-year retention, I put that disappointment aside to continue reading.
I also found the chapter on Initiative 6, First-Year Experience Course, extremely interesting because in my early years as an academic advisor of exploratory freshmen students, I taught a First-Year Experience Course for several semesters. Reading about the history, improvements, and expansions of these courses at the University of Mississippi was enlightening and I believe that this chapter was one of the most valuable of the entire book. For readers who are interested in transfer student success, there was some information on a transfer student success course as well as a “recovery” course for freshmen who fail academically in their first semester or first year. Considering the University of Mississippi has won several awards for their First-Year Experience Course, EDHE 105, this chapter seems even more valuable.
The next two chapters detail the partnerships Financial Aid and Housing. These initiatives are valuable, and the partnership between the CSSFYE and Financial aid is extraordinary to me. The Bursar’s Office allowed freshmen in certain situations to register for subsequent semesters with a balance due from the previous semester and provided retention funds to help pay off some freshmen debt, in very special circumstances. With monetary issues being one of the top two reasons freshmen do not return to the institution (p. 146), it makes sense to have strong partnerships with the offices that deal with money at the institution. The other top reason students leave in their first year, distance from home (p. 146), provides the impetus to involve Housing in first-year retention initiatives. Freshmen at the University of Mississippi are required to live on campus so programming for these students is built to connect them intimately to campus, raising the likelihood students will stay after their first year. The Office of Housing at the University of Mississippi even uses retention data to help guide their programming and interactions with freshman living on campus.
The chapter on Initiative 10, Utilizing Technology, is in my opinion another redundant chapter in that it details how the institution gathers the data it uses to guide programming and practices for improving freshmen retention. This information is covered in almost every other initiative and both the Offices of Institutional Research and the Office of Information Technology are mentioned in several other places throughout the book. While I truly believe these partnerships are essential to successful retention programs, dedicating an entire chapter to this subject felt repetitive.
Initiatives 11, 12, and 14, Academic Support, Special Cohort Populations, and Connecting Student with Each Other, all focus on connecting freshmen with resources on campus to help them succeed, both academically and socially. Both are important to successful first-year retention (and retention across the board), and the information provided in these chapters was insightful. The chapter on Initiative 13, Contacting Students, again provides some redundancy from previous initiatives. The author takes the communication examples provided throughout the book and divides them into proactive and reactive forms of communication. While a valuable distinction, I was confused as to how this information is an initiative on its own. The only chapter not dedicated to student success in the first year is the last initiative, Professional Development. This chapter focuses on the development of professional staff members in their pursuit of higher freshman retention rates. Examples of the National Academic Advising Association (NACADA), the National Resource Center for the First-Year Experience and Student in Transition (NRC), and others, along with examples of institutional-specific practices (staff meetings, retreats), remind readers that exposure to professional development is essential “to expand knowledge, increase skills, and make connections … ” (p. 279).
I will mirror Dr. Ellis’s conclusion in my own for this review. Dr. Ellis lists the three most important lessons he learned through this endeavor at The University of Mississippi. They are “(a) treat every student as an individual, (b) have faculty, staff, and administrators who care about student success, satisfaction, and persistence; and (c) develop a retention culture on campus” (p. 297). I echo all three of these lessons and strive to abide by them in my own student interactions. I believe Dr. Ellis book provides us important information to help build a retention culture, find and utilize devoted colleagues to help our students succeed, and to treat each student as an individual, not a retention statistic. I hope you enjoy reading the book as much as I did and will take with you the most valuable pieces to use at your own institutions. Happy Reading!