Officials: Retention goals set too low

The university set the bar too low when it came to creating goals for retention and graduation rates in its ten-year strategic plan, said Donna Hamilton, the dean of undergraduate studies.

The five-year goals for retention and graduation rates set were only two or three percentage points higher than the existing rates at the time the plan was created, and the university is ahead of schedule when it comes to meeting those goals.

Students who entered the university in fall 2006 returned to the university after their first year at a rate of just under 93 percent, according to reports the strategic planning committee used while determining an appropriate goal. The committee set the goal at 94 percent within five years, but that goal was met by the fall 2007 freshman class just months after the plan was approved.

Similarly, the university set the goal of raising its six-year graduation rate from 80 percent to 83 percent within five years. This rate has already increased to 81.8 percent for the most recent six-year period that started with students entering college in fall 2002.

"We had underestimated ourselves," Hamilton said.

Ann Wylie, chief of staff to President Mote and soon-to-be interim vice president for administrative affairs, said though she was surprised by the rapid jump, she's not too quick to accept the new number as the norm.

"I don't think we knew we would be able to get that far," she said. "But they do fluctuate. They do vary. We need to make sure 94 percent is the norm."

Wylie said the goal was not purposely set low to ensure it would be reached. Rather, she said, the goal was set to strive toward the graduation and retention rates of the university's five peer institutions: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, University of Michigan, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, UCLA and University of California at Berkeley.

"We look to other top universities to see what their goals are," Wylie said. "Our goal is not perfection - our goal is to be competitive with these top public universities."

Though the university does want to aim high with this goal, rates as high as 100 percent would mean the school is not challenging its students, Wylie said. She said the university is close to catching up with its peer institutions as far as one-year retention rates but is still behind when it comes to six-year graduation rates.

The reason for the sudden boost has to do with several factors, Wylie and Hamilton said. First, the 2005 implementation of a mandatory four-year plan has helped give students direction and benchmarks for their college career.

"It really gave people an advising philosophy," Hamilton said. "It defined the expectations we have for our students."

Wylie also pointed to the President's Promise initiative that helps students gain experience outside the classroom, student involvement in campus groups and activities, and a new focus on academic success at student orientations as reasons for the jump.

"It's across the board, all those things," she said. "It's the fruit of a lot of work."

Both Hamilton and Wylie agree that the goals need to be reevaluated before the next plan is written in 10 years. Wylie suggested a five-year update may be in the works to adjust the long-term goal of increasing the one-year retention rate to 96 percent and the six-year graduation rate to 86 percent within 10 years.

"I would doubt we'd leave a plan in place for 10 years and never touch it," she said.

Hamilton said until administrators know what the university is capable of, they need to aim high with all goals laid out in the plan.

"We don't know yet what we can do," she said. "We have to shoot very, very high."

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