Hvving a career service advisor can help with retention . Students need that extra push .

Student involvement around campus can create great retention of students. Having some type of involvement is a motivataton of accomplishment .

Orentation can also have a impact on student retention. I think orientation should be the basic , on the fisrt day of class the instructor/Program Director talk's more in depth about th expectation of program .

I think student retention atarts at the moment they come on to campus . It's the relationship they build first with the admission rep's. financial rep's, instructors.

Many students have an unrealistic view of their employment opportunities upon graduation. They are quickly brought back to earth once they start working and their expectations are in line with their experience and background. Many don't realize that supervisory employees are in their current positions through hard work and receiving job promotions after working many years for the same organization. Nothing comes easy and there is no recipe for instant success in the work place - just through hard work and dedication!

I found this section particularly interesting and valuable since we just completed our annual graduation ceremony and, as always, it was a wonderful event. I'm fortunate to have a co-worker who has taken ownership of this activity and it is always successful. Not all our graduates are able to return for the ceremony - they may have relocated to another state or perhaps are working and cannot take the day off. To see the faces of the students, their friends, and family members is something that I want to be involved with on a regular basis! It is so rewarding when you have personal knowledge of the struggles and challenges that some have faced before walking across that stage.

My campus has a student leadership team that mentors new and current students in various aspects of their education during their time on campus. They look out for students who are having difficulty in their courses and tutor them in various subjects. They also are our eyes and ears in the classroom and encourage their fellow classmates to become involved in student activities. It is no wonder that they are looked up to by both staff and students!

Effective placement and employment skills training positively impacts retention. Employment skills activities are ways for students to carify goals and values and make self discoveries that impact on their retention.

Successful retention strategies are about early and continuous intervention. Students who are involved with other students as well as faculy and staff tend to persist in school.

I work at a culinary college and a campus tour is certainly a wake up call to those prospective students who are enthralled by the Food Network! You will not be leisurely working in a designer kitchen wearing whatever you have in your closet or desire to wear that particular day! This is a demanding profession and unfortunately many students are not physically or mentally fit to handle the rigors of this career. I know that I couldn't do it! A campus tour brings students back to the reality of this career - they see current students working at stoves/ovens in hot kitchens trying to meet deadlines to have their dishes completed on time. Welcome to the real world!

Mentoring is a way for a school to demonstrate its caring for students, and mentoring are among the many strategies that increase retention.

To increase retention it is important to focus on student social and academic inttegration.

I beleive this is a very important factor in students attrition. I have seen this first hand and it has worked both ways. I had a student come to me in her first MOD ready to withdraw. I asked her to give us one more MOD and if she still felt the sam way we would go from there. I spoke with her instructor and told him some ways to fix it. He went in and asked her to teach some of the newer students a procedure in lab and from that minute forward she did a complete turn around and is now one of our top students. I have also seen the power of making them feel important backfire as well. We have a student who is the leader in her class but not in a positive way. When the attention is put on her she projects that power in a negetive way so we have learned to not give her the attention and she does just fine.

I feel it is important to set high standards in every classroom. Students love to be challenged! When students are engaged and excited about their field, there is nothing more rewarding. Other students who might feel behind in the course still feel this excitement and it feeds off of each other. Now the student body feels as if they are apart of something special. If you can approach the classroom environment with this type of perspective, you will succeed and so will your students.

As an instructor, I feel that making a positive connection with my students really helps with overall retention.

Is it true that the customer is always right? In the event that they are not, how would you approach the situation.

I have had the opportunity of being on both sides...I have been a teacher as well as a School Director and Director of Education and I have learned through my experience that everyone in the school should share the responsibility of retaining students. Admissions has the unique opportunity of being the first person that potential students develop a relationship with and therefore should be an active participant in the student's time at the school because I have found that students tend to trust the admissions reps. Instructors are critical in the role of retention because they are with the students for a significant length of time and can develop rapport and can also observe changes in the student over time. While administration is expected to meet "retention" goals on paper, they should also maintain an active role in helping the students to succeed because it does matter to students that campus leadership cares enough about them to stay involved in their education. The more students believe that people care about them, the more likely they will be to think twice when the possibility of dropping arises.

How do we identify all the students who are posing a risk? I feel like sometimes there is a disconnect between admissions and education. I had one student tell me that he only picked his program b/c the admissions rep told him he would get bored in another program. It's essential to have a strong working relationship with admissions.

I often find that after I have been presenting for a few minutes many of the students start to doze off or look off. I know what I am showing them isn't the most interesting thing in the world, but what do you do when you get that really quiet and non-interactive group?

We have students that speak during our orientation but I love the idea of having the students go around and talk to the new students while they are waiting for orientation to start. This will definitely help with them being nervous.