There are a number of students that move to this city completely unprepared to even live and support themselves, much less go to school for 25 hours a week. It seems that they are taking less personal responsability for getting jobs and for saving money and doing all of the things necessary to live well enough to attend school. I know that they are counsled on what they need to do, but when they don't listen, they are always one tank of gas...or one financial set back away from wanting to quit and go home.
student need retention advise from their instructor an school faculty staff.student always need positive feed back from someone they look up to.
Being available to listen to students with issues and needs, directing them, when possible, to areas they can receive assistance and help is on ongoing process for many students. Sometimes, just being there every day is the only commitment they have every known and is an unexpected or added value from the instructor.
Well done, John. I hope others are as successful.
Our Academic Advisors are the leaders in this effort, and they provide initial and ongoing training to faculty on an as needed basis. There was a fair amount of resistance initially, but the leadership team let it be known that as full-time faculty members, there were certain expectations (office hours, new student orientation efforts, and retention efforts as necessary). It took time to make it as successful as it is today. The advisors always do their best to make it a team effort. They provide lunch, the training for those that need it, and it is also built into our performance appraisals too now. They also send email recaps to the campus president, and everybody else in the management ranks, letting everyone know who participated.
I look at it as giving an hour or two of my time to help the students that may have given up another opportunity!
John Maloney
What sort of training do you give faculty who participate in the telethon? How much resistence did you have to overcome and how did you make it happen?
You're right Loren,
At our college, it was difficult to get many faculty to participate in any "ownership" related to students in years gone by! Over the past few years though, the campus president and executive leadership team have done a good job of ensuring that we participate by emphasizing the "bottom line". The approach has been of inclusion. We want every faculty member to participate. One example is that we have a student re-entry telethon every term. This program involves having each full-time faculty member to contact x number of students each that have stopped coming to class, or actually quit the program to encourage them to come back.
Thanks!
John Maloney
The notion of ownership often is a contentious one. Not every faculty member agrees that they have responsibility for their students. How do you develop this concept at your college, John?
Hi Loren,
I would suggest that the teacher needs to take some "ownership" over their students. If a student seems to be a potential drop for whatever reason, our job is to work with them to prevent that from happening. Some ways to do this are to talk to the student about what you see that is not happening in the class for him/her, and ask how you can help. You should also ensure that you are communicating effectively with each student about their performance.
Thanks!
John Maloney
What techniques do you use to make students feel welcome, Allen?
I just try to make them feel welcome and tell them how to find help for thier problems.
Is this something that you address in your class, David? How should this problem be handled? Are the parents ever engaged?
