Retention rates examined
FSEC panel finds that high school GPA still best predictor
By
DONNA LONGENECKER
Reporter Assistant Editor
The
Faculty Senate Committee on Admissions and Retention has found that
freshman retention has increased only slightly in the past four years,
despite university-wide efforts to increase the rates.
Committee
Chair Troy Wood, professor of chemistry, told the Faculty Senate Executive
Committee at its April 24 meeting that 79.69 percent of freshman students
who enrolled at UB in the fall of 1999 remained at the university until
the spring of their sophomore year, compared to 77.92 percent of those
who entered the university in the fall of 1995.
Wood
also reported that while about 5 percent of freshmen drop out during
their first semester, that number more than doubles by the end of the
second semester.
The
committee, which is looking at ways to increase retention, tracked freshmen
classes from 1995-99 through the sophomore year.
Committee
members also looked at the relationship between performance on the New
York State Regents exams and success at UB, Wood said. The purpose of
the study was to determine whether data other than high school grade-point
average, including math SAT scores, performance on math Regents exams,
the number of activities students are engaged in, leadership activities,
honors and employment history, could provide additional insight into
predicting success at UB. The main predictor of success, Wood reported,
remains students' high school GPA.
In
other business, Carole Smith Petro, associate vice president for university
communications, and Kevin Eye, Web applications developer for the UB
Web Team, gave a presentation on UB's online directory, accessible from
eUB, the university's home page, at www.buffalo.edu.
Petro
and Eye addressed frustrations senators expressed about LDAP, the email
directory managed by CIT, and the latest edition of the paper telephone
directory, which features departmental listingsthe blue sectionthat
have been significantly scaled back from previous years. They also demonstrated
the online directory's ease of use, its functionality and a much improved
(over LDAP) search engine. Petro noted it should be possible to add
a link to Human Resource Services so that users can make changes in
their personal profile. Senators had complained that the information
on LDAP often is outdated or inaccurate.
Petro
said LDAP's existing data structure has been reformatted into a more
user-friendly interface for individuals who want to find people via
eUB and MyUB. The Web Team also has developed a searchable UB departmental
index that is independent of LDAP data and is drawn from the data in
the print directory's blue pages.
Petro
reported that trimming back the departmental portion of the directory
was a necessary cost-saving measure. However, she acknowledged that
the online directory should have been up and running before the phone
directory's blue pages were scaled back.
Petro
said she hopes that CIT-Wings will fold LDAP into eUB, adding that "more
and more people are using the online directory rather than the paper
directory."
In
other business, Robert Shibley, professor of urban design and chair
of the senate's Public Service Committee, reported that while engaged
scholarship, in the context of public service, has become a dead issue
at UB, many institutions across the country are taking the lead in what
appears to be a national movement that Shibley described as "a revolution."
The
idea of public service being tied to tenure and promotion has only brought
a "hostile reaction" from faculty members, Shibley said, but UB "will
be left behind in the national movement if we don't take engaged scholarship
seriously."