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February 1, 1996

Committee recommends to provost ways to improve enrollment, retention of students

By the 1998-99 academic year, Pitt should guarantee freshmen that they can get University housing for four undergraduate years, if they want. Transfer students should be guaranteed up to two years of housing.

That's one of the recommendations contained in a report, "An Action Agenda for Enhancing Undergraduate Retention," submitted to Provost James Maher by Pitt's Enrollment Management Committee.

Maher appointed EMC last year to advise him on enrollment issues. The group, which is chaired by Vice Provost for Academic Affairs Jack L. Daniel, includes 20 administrators and faculty members representing various schools and offices.

Maher asked EMC to make undergraduate retention its highest priority this year. After reviewing several reports and student opinion surveys, conferring with University Senate committees and holding hearings on retention issues, EMC issued its report to the provost.

Besides recommending guaranteed student housing, the group recommends dozens of other long- and short-term actions, including the following:

* Pitt should establish a formal "tuition discount policy" for giving financial aid to out-of-state students, based on financial need and academic merit. By helping to offset the University's high out-of-state tuition rates, the aid would help Pitt meet its goal of recruiting more non-Pennsylvania students.

* The provost should encourage all academic units to make follow-up phone calls to students in good academic standing who have not registered. "By Nov. 15, students not registered for the upcoming spring term should be contacted to determine whether they plan to return to the University; if they do not, appropriate intervention steps should be taken," committee members wrote. Similar calls should be made by July 15 to students who haven't registered for the upcoming fall term, they said.

* To help determine the quality of students' experiences here, schools and departments should do formal exit interviews with graduating students and those who withdraw from Pitt in good academic standing.

* Just as students and alumni are served by offices of Student Affairs and Alumni Affairs, Pitt should establish an office to serve parents of students. Parents "are a valued constituency of the University whose involvement can contribute significantly to student retention," EMC wrote.

* "Over the past several years, efforts have been made to provide students with required courses on a timely basis," the report states. "During the next academic year, the Provost's office should make sure that 1) all courses required for graduation are offered frequently enough for students to graduate in four years, and 2) the requisite skills courses are offered in sufficient numbers to permit students to take them before the end of the first term of the sophomore year." * Pitt's chancellor should push for the permanent closing of Bigelow Boulevard between Forbes and Fifth avenues "in order to generate the feeling of a campus and the resulting public safety benefits." The University also should continue to improve campus lighting and escort services, and strengthen the working relationship between Pitt and Carnegie Mellon University police.

* "Because of the fundamental importance of the freshman year experience, the EMC recommends that the Provost's office and the Office of Vice Chancellor for Student and Public Affairs coordinate the implementation of a comprehensive freshman year program that extends from the pre-freshman year academic programs to end-of-freshman year academic programs." * Academic units should implement a University-wide fall and spring midterm evaluation system for all freshmen to provide timely feedback on their academic performance.

* "Positive staff-student interactions are known to enhance retention. Hence, the University should develop an orientation program for new employees and in-service workshops for current employees about the nature of their roles in the University. Emphasis should be placed on the fact that the University is a service institution whose primary customers are its students." The report also makes a number of recommendations regarding student opinion surveys. For example, EMC recommends that academic units work with the Office of Institutional Research to conduct student satisfaction studies focused on specific service areas, such as registration, advising and financial aid.

The committee also recommends that Institutional Research staff work with the Greensburg campus to develop surveys of student satisfaction and withdrawing/nonreturning students; the campus currently lacks such surveys.

To promote student diversity, EMC recommends such short-term actions as providing diversity training for all faculty teaching in the College of Arts and Sciences freshman studies program, and recruiting more African American and Hispanic students as undergraduate teaching assistants for the program.

Among the long-term recommendations for promoting diversity are: creating a fund in the Office of Student and Public Affairs to support a lecture series in African American and Hispanic arts and sciences, and establishing a research center to be called "The K. Leroy Irvis Center for the Study of the History and Influence of African Americans in Pennsylvania Politics." Provost Maher pronounced the EMC report "excellent" and "very inclusive." "At this point, I'm not endorsing or rejecting any of the specific recommendations until I've had a chance to share the report with the Deans' Council and the UPBC [University Planning and Budgeting Committee, which Maher chairs].

"We need to assess the costs of these initiatives," Maher said. "In the meantime, though, I think it's fair to say that many of the recommendations appear to be affordable and cost-effective, especially the short-term recommendations. Hopefully, we can implement many of these [recommendations] in time for the next academic year." Faculty Assembly is expected to discuss the EMC report at its Feb. 6 meeting. Thomas Zullo, who is chairperson of the University Senate admissions and financial aid committee, said he will ask the Assembly to approve a motion thanking EMC for its efforts.

"It's a pretty good report," Zullo said. "It's very comprehensive, and includes a number of things that may need some additional discussion, such as the matter of establishing a formal policy on discounting tuition for out-of-state students." Zullo said his committee may ask Faculty Assembly to endorse that idea specifically. "Our committee believes it's a good idea. The University wants to recruit more out-of-state students to increase diversity and so forth, but it's gotten to the point that our out-of-state tuition is so high that we're almost forced to provide financial aid" to non-Pennsylvania students.

— Bruce Steele


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