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ey = Published by the National Institute for Staff and Organizational Development
With support fram the W. kK. Kellogg Foundation and Sid W. Richardson Foundation

 

 

 

OFF TO A GOOD "START"

Retention—the watchword of the eighties! How to keep the students we have is a major concern of
colleges and universities these days. We know that three of ten students who begin college never finish and
that the greatest number of those who drop out do so during the first year. Faced with these kinds of
statistics, combined with a shrinking population base from which to attract students, we've all become
increasingly concerned with retention.

Jefferson Community College has been involved with an extensive retention effort since 1978, when our
first major enrollment drop occurred. Our successes in that area have been many and varied; but like
everyone else, we continue to look for better ways to serve our students.

We discovered that during the calendar year of 1985 at least 2500 students who applied to the college did
not come to register. While this represents about 30% of our application total (just at the national average),
it is nevertheless an appalling figure. It seemed that these applicants represented a perfect group for some
extra effort. After all, they had already expressed interest in JCC by applying.

We turned to an investigation of our own admissions procedure and discovered that it was not to our
liking. It did not lead toward closure in the admission/registration process. After the student's application
was filed, she/he received some information from the admissions office and then a letter from an academic
program—if the applicant’s major was housed within one of the programs which routinely contacted their

@ potential students.

We have been admonished again and again by experts in developmental studies and by authors in the
advising literature for failing to establish human contact with our students. Our guilt was obvious! We had
a need to correct this behavior, and out of this need came our newest program, START (Success through
Attrition/Retention Techniques).

The plan for START is very simple. We make a personal contact with every student who applies—either
in person, by phone, or by mail. If the student applies in person, he/she sees a START advisor immediately.
If the request comes by telephone, the student is connected with a START advisor. If the application is
mailed to the college, the START advisors contact the applicant by phone. If, after several tries, we are
unable to contact the applicants, we send them letters asking them to contact us.

What do the START advisors do? The most important thing they do is to give our prospective students a
name and a face which are representative of Jefferson Community College. Then no longer are we a logo or
an ad; we have become human beings. The START advisor, in addition to welcoming the applicants to JCC,
supplies necessary admission/registration information, including an orientation time, general financial aid
information, ACT or CPP test and schedule information, the student guide, parking options, choice of an
academic major, and so on. Students who indicate a choice of major are then referred to the appropriate
office to make an appointment for specific academic advisement.

Does it work? The START program began in August. During the first two weeks of operation, the
START advisors made over 1100 contacts with prospective students, either in person or by phone. As a
result, our new student enrollment rose by 4.8% this fall! In addition, START advisors contacted prospective
students who applied for the fall semester but did not register. We found many reasons for their change in
plans, but the exciting news was that 51% of those contacted were so impressed by our taking the trouble to
follow up that they indicated they will be registering this spring. Personal contact is the key!

Nancy L. Hoover
C Academic Advising Services

~ For further information, contact the author at Jefferson Community College, 109 East Broadway, Louisville,
KY 40202.

 

 

 

oP Community College Leadership Program, The University of Texas at Austin, EDB 348, Austin, Texas 78712

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