Retention & Student Success

Articles and Documents

The articles and documents are sorted into the following categories. Highly recommended articles appear at the beginning of each section:

• Retention & Graduate Rate Information
• Engaged Learning
• Student Success & Outcomes

RETENTION & GRADUATION RATE INFORMATION

Highly Recommended Articles:

• A Report of the Graduation Rate Outcomes Study ~ Student Success: A Matter of Culture and Leadership (AASCU)
• Minnesota Measures: 2008 Report on Higher Education Performance (MN Office of Higher Ed)
• Barriers to Student Retention and Success on College Campuses (Educational Policy Institute)
• Choosing To Improve: Voices from Colleges and Universities with Better Graduation Rates (The Education Trust)
• Decided, Undecided, and In Transition: Implications for Academic Advisement, Career Counseling, & Student Retention (Joe Cuseo)
• Piecing Together the Student Success Puzzle (ASHE Higher Education Report) Can be accessed for free through the UMD Library

Other Valuable Articles:

• Raising the Graduate Rates of Low-Income College Students (Pell Institute)
• Unexpected First Generation Path (Inside Higher Ed)
• The Role of Academic and Non-Academic Factors in Improving College Retention (ACT, Inc.)
• A Matter of Degrees: Improving Graduation Rates in Four-Year Colleges and Universities (Education Trust)
• One Step From The Finish Line: Higher College Graduation Rates Are Within Our Reach (Education Trust)
• Why Do They Leave? A study of student departure from the University of Minnesota
• Estimating Student Retention and Degree-Completion Time (New Directions for Institutional Research)
• Retaining Minority Students in Higher Education (ASHE)
• First-Year Seminars Increase Persistence and Retention: A Summary of the Evidence from How College Affects Students (AACU)
• Retention 101 A summation of major findings in retention research literature (studentretention.org)
• The Art of Student Retention: A Handbook For Practioners and Administrators (Educational Policy Institute)
• Taking Student Retention Seriously: Rethinking The First Year of College (Speech by Vincent Tinto)
• Student Retention and Graduation: Facing the Truth, Living With The Consequences (The Pell Institute)
• Relative Success? Determinants of College Graduation Rates in Public and Private Colleges in the U.S. (Research in Higher Education)
• Improving Our Graduation Rates: University of Minnesota
• Instruments to Identify Withdrawal Prone Students (Joe Cuseo)
• Red Flags: Behavioral Indicators of Potential Student Attrition (Joe Cuseo)
• Promoting Student Retention Through Classroom Practice (Vincent Tinto)
• The BIG PICTURE: Key Causes of Student Attrition & Key Components of a Comprehensive Student Retention Plan (Joe Cuseo)
• On-Campus Employment as a Factor of Student Retention and Graduation (DePaul University)
• Demography Is Not Destiny (The Pell Institute)
• Action Analytics: Measuring and Improving Performance That Matters in Higher Education (Educause)

ENGAGED LEARNING

• Does Your College Really Support Teaching and Learning? (AACU)
• Promoting Student Success: What Faculty Members Can Do (NSSE)
• Teaching Tips Index (University of Hawaii)
• Wikis and Podcasts and Blogs Oh My! What Is A Faculty Member Supposed To Do? (Educause)
• From Teaching To Learning: A New Paradigm For Undergraduate Education (robert Barr and John Tagg)
• Engaged Learning and Core Principles of Liberal Education (AACU)
• Student Success Strategies: Ideas for empowering students to become active, responsible learners (On Course resources)
• What If Faculty Really Do Assume Responsibility For The Educational Program? (AACU)
• Learning to Learn (Karl Wirth and Dexter Perkins)
• Faculty Do Matter: The Role of College Faculty in Student Learning and Engagement (Research in Higher Education)

STUDENT SUCCESS AND OUTCOMES

Highly Recommended Articles:

• Connecting The Dots (Multi-facted analyses of the relationships between student engagement results from the NSSE, and the institutional practices and conditions that foster student success.) Slides from the 2007 AAC&U Meeting
• Greater Expectations: A new vision of learning as a nation goes to college (AACU)
• Learning Reconsidered (ACPA)
• What Matters To Student Success: Full Report (National Postsecondary Education Cooperative)
• College Learning for the New Global Century (AACU)
• Double Loop Learning In Higher Education (John Tagg)

Other Valuable Articles:

• Wandering and Wondering: Traversing the Uneven Terrain of the Second College Year (Molly Schaller)
• How Should Colleges Prepare Students To Succeed In Today's Global Economy? Based on surveys among employers and recent college graduates (AACU)
• Practicing Liberal Education:Formative Themes in the Re-invention of Liberal Learning (AACU)
• Understanding and Valuing Knowing as Developmental Goals Cognition and Student Learning (AACU)
• Making Diversity Work On Campus: A Research-Based Perspective (AACU)
• How Large Scale Change Really Happens: Working With Emergence (Margaret Wheatley and Deborah Frieze)
• What Do We Measure and Why? (Margaret Wheatley and Myron Kellner-Rogers)
• The American Freshman (Higher Education Research Institute - home of the CIRP)
• Graduation Rates as a Measure of College Accountability (American Academic)
• Rethinking Graduation Rates as Accountability Measures (NEA Higher Education Research Center)
• Graduation Rates and Student Success: Squaring Means and Ends (AASCU)
• Diversity Web Digest Focused on Higher Education
• Seven Guiding Questions For Student Retention (Education Policy Institute)
• What Student Engagement Data Tell Us about College Readiness (AACU)
• Motivating Today's College Students (AACU)
• Fostering Student Learning and Success through First-Year Programs (AACU)
• Student Retreat Focuses Attention on the Value of the Liberal Arts (AACU)
• First Generation Students in Postsecondary Education: A Look at their College Transcripts (National Center for Education Statistics)
• Student Success and the Construction of Inclusive Educational Communities (Vincent Tinto)
• Taking Stock of What Matters to Student Success (George Kuh)
• Making Excellence Inclusive (AACU)
• Achieving Equitable Educational Outcomes With All Students (AACU)