Retention and Why it Matters

Every fall at St. Norbert College, the freshmen class participates in convocation which welcomes and wishes them luck for the next four years. The question on many administrators' minds is how many students at convocation are at graduation?

The current retention rate of SNC is 82–85 percent annually. This percentage varies every year. The goal of the school is to increase the current retention rate to 90 percent annually. 

            The school currently has two committees working on increasing retention. The President's Cabinet has recently appointed a new committee called Retention Action Committee (RAC) that includes the chair of the committee, Dr. Corday Goddard, assistant dean for student development, Dr. Kevin G. Quinn, professor of economics, and Edward Lamm, executive director of enrollment and marketing.

Why is retention important?

 "Student retention is an important measure in which to gauge how a college is doing," said Quinn.

"Retention is important because if we admit a student to this school then we are saying they can be successful here," said Goddard.

"Sometimes when a student isn't successful here, it isn't necessarily the student's fault and there are things we should be doing to help the student," Goddard said, "Some students work very hard but still struggle, and with a little bit of support they can become successful here."

"What is another reason that retention is important?" said Quinn, "US News rankings. Everybody pays attention to them."

The resource issue is another reason that retention is important. It is less expensive to keep a student at St. Norbert College for four years rather than recruit transfer students.

"We are concerned with the freshmen to sophomore year transition," said Quinn. "Students all of a sudden have more unstructured time, there is drama in their living arrangement, financial stress and other factors which cause the transition that students go through that first year to be difficult."

The committee has two tasks in improving retention.

The first is to identify students who are at risk and determine the best way to reach out and give them support.

The second task is to use data more effectively.

"An example is what do we know about students who aren't successful and what do we know about the students who are successful?" said Goddard.

The committee's approach to retention is systematic and comprehensive. "This small committee has an approach we hope is able to be active and very quick," said Goddard.

            "Retention is in the top two or three things we care about," said Quinn.

"Retention connects to the mission of this place. We always talk about communio here and one of the ways that it's real is by saying that admitted students can be successful here," said Goddard.