Are these same services available to staff and faculty who may be struggling but would be reluctant to talk with their peers?
Presumably, instructors are meeting with each student. How is this scheduled? How long do the counseling sessions take? How many students does an instructor have each academic period?
I agree with what Susan Kane wrote in her reply. After we do the student counseling we have another resource that we can use as a method of intervention. Our school prepays a service that gives students immediate access to expert counselors and information. The service can help with financial issues, health, relationships, stress, legal concerns, child care or dependent care, emotional or psychological difficulties and just balancing school, work and life in general. So if the reason for the academic problems stems from something like those suggested above the faculty or student services can direct them to this service.
It sounds like the drug screening is a requirement for enrollment, but do you actually let students start training before you have the results? If so, why?
At our school there are two areas of concern that need to be addressed in order to increase retention. One is the pre-enrollment drug test, the other is a state admistrated exam that all applicants must pass before they are allowed to continue with their program.
We addresse the first issue with every driver by letting them know that a drug test is required and that the equipment is very sensative. Are their any concerns we need to addresse before sending you to the clinic? This helps capture those students who would not be able to pass and there fore avoiding a drop during the first 3- days.
When we meet with most students I would say we are able to save most of them. There are some students that just can not be helped but for most as long as we catch it early enough we are able to save them.
Are you able to meet with most students before they disappear? How many of the students are "saved" by this procedure?
Are your students exclusively online or are they also enrolled in classes at a land based campus? If so, how do you coordinate services? Do you have a data base to record contacts?
All students that want to withdrawl from our school must meet with the registrar to talk about what is causing them to think about leaving, if they issues can not be resolved the studen then talks with the education mangaer. Students are asked to really think about what is causing them to withdrawl and what is going to happen if they do. We do try to get them to come back as soon as they feel they are ready.
Our Online instructors complete an "At Risk" report each week that is then disseminated to all campuses, Online Student Services Coordinators, and Academics teams for review and follow up with individual students. Instructors also continue mentoring students via email and phone calls to address shrinking roles in individual student participation and/or individual students who may be "lost".
Immediately after mid-terms each quarter, instructors counsel their students telling what their current mark is, what they need to improve and finally ask what about the class do they like or what would they like to see happen in the the remainder of the quarter. This does 2 things. It first provides the student with the necessary information to go forward in a positive manner with direction, and secondly,it creates an active opportunity for the student to have some measure of ownership of their own education. The counseling forms with commnets are turned in and reveiwed. Noteworthy comments are documented in our electronic database but all are filed in the student's paper files. Teaching or helping students see how to accept personal accountability while allowing students to actively own what they are learning are two viable methods for maintaining some consistency in enrollment. They become less passive consumers of the product we're delivering and more active in the receiving.
I will deal with an intervention on the Academic Erosion front.
Like probably everybody else taking this class, my school's goal is to graduate 100% of our students and to get them great jobs. After all, that is why they enrolled in the first place. To ensure that students don't fall prey to Academic Erosion, we added a bus (van) with our logo on it. Basically, it's a big bulletin board. You might ask what that does to prevent "Academic Erosion"? Well, our school is in a corporate park in a well to do part of town, and many of our students have to take buses...in some cases 2 or even 3 buses to get to school. We don't have dormitories and we don't have lots of things that traditional colleges have so we have to think outside the box. One thing we noticed was that a big percentage of students dropping out of our program did so because of transportation issues. After deliberating over our options for a long time, we finally decided to buy a school van. It only accommodates 12 students I believe, but we now run it four times a day, and the students that use it love it!
Thanks!
John Maloney
At our school each student desiring to withdraw must be with the Dean or Associate Dean prior to withdrawl. This can be a phone conversation. I feel that we don't ever want to give students the feeling that this is just an automatic easy process while at the same time trying to give them a reason to stay in school. We have an excellent relationship with our Student Services Coordinator. A relationship where we can discuss student issues. I appreciate the SSC relationship as she doesn't necessarily volunteer information to me regarding a student but she will answer questions that I ask regarding a student. I respect that she has a different type of relationship with students and I feel that Academics should not diminish that unique, trust/relationship they establish with students. I do worry sometimes that because our student services coordinators are not licensed counselors, I wonder about their liability, responsbility to report, etc. This is an issue wwe intend to address in the near future at our school.
Management by walking around works best when managers keep walking around ... and that's not easy. Temperment and pressures of the the job often get in the way. Furthermore, students are pretty savvy. They seem to divinve when something is the idea du jour and come up with ways to take advantage of them. It will be far more effective when the people in charge are consistently seen as people who care.
That's very generous. Many schools wouldn't be willing to make that kind of commitment even though there is a clear benefit. Do many students take advantage of this option?
The counselors come in every week and its free to the students. We want students to use them to assist wherever they can in keeping the students on the path to graduate and get that job.
We have seen retention really drop and we believe its a lack of connectedness so we want to show everyone we really mean business and we're in the business of education to which the Campus Presidents have the greatest impact overall. It will scale back but I feel we need to walk the walk and get the culture moved in the right direction. Management by walking around. Your thoughts?
Before you retire ... can't you make your point to your Department Head or the Director of Education? Most colleges have some sort of professional development program. Wouldn't your needs qualify?
50%! Wow! Where do the campus directors find the time? Have they delegated some duties to other staff members?
Have you been doing this long enough to get a sense of the impact?
Is there a cost to the student for the outside counseling? What if continued counseling is recommended? How often do you use this service?
