Baltimore — In the battle to boost retention and graduation rates, it pays to invest institutional resources for the cause and to dedicate specific staff people to do the job.
Those were some of the key points made Tuesday at a “completion forum” held at Morgan State University.
Dr. Weldon Jackson, Provost at Bowie State University, said it’s wrong-headed for institutions to assume that retention is “everybody’s business,” because then nobody will do it.
“What we’ve come to realize is that most postsecondary institutions have not really organized themselves appropriately to improve persistence and graduation,” Jackson said.
Jackson made his comments during a “best practices” session on college access and success. The session was part of the 2013 Statewide Completion Forum conducted by the Maryland Higher Education Commission. The theme of the forum was “Readiness, Innovation and Success.”
To help turn things around at Bowie, Jackson said, the institution dedicated a “retention coordinator” at each college within the university, as well as within the student affairs division.
“The notion of having a retention coach in each college and now student affairs, that’s a tremendous resource,” Jackson said. “It’s not an inexpensive resource.”
