To leave or to stay – Committee presents list on why students leave UI

Students decide to leave college for many reasons.

Some don”t stay because of financial issues, some drop out due to internal struggles or problems with their family or other loved ones. Other students simply don”t feel they are adequately prepared for higher education.

After a semester of research, Jeffrey Dodge, Jesse Martinez and the Student Enrollment and Retention Committee compiled a list of the top reasons why students want to leave the University of Idaho. The committee developed the list into a guide for university faculty and presented it at a Faculty Senate meeting Tuesday.

The guide is meant to help faculty better understand the resources available on campus. The guide lists all of the resources in one document, so when a faculty member  meets students in need of certain resources they get directed to the correct place, Dodge said.

“Many of us (on the committee) consider ourselves involved and engaged,” Dodge said. “And we didn”t even know about certain services on campus.”

Each reason for why students want to leave the university was matched with a separate list of resources that are available to UI students.

If a student expressed they were struggling with physical or mental health problems, the guide would direct them to a number of resources to fit their needs, including the Counseling and Testing Center and the Student Health Center.

The guide features various statistics about UI”s retention rates, which Dodge said has caught people”s attention.

The guide will be made available on the UI website shortly, and hard copies are available in the Human Resources Office and the Office of Multicultural Affairs, directed by Martinez.

Dodge said the committee plans to consistently update the list every two years or so, as the information is ever-changing.

Faculty Senate Chair Randall Teal suggested the guide be made available on VandalWeb as well as on the university website. Dodge said that wasn”t something the committee had thought of, but now they plan to consider it.

The student enrollment and retention committee is not just concerned about retention rates – Dodge said the mission of the committee also includes increasing enrollment through recruitment.

Retaining students does not come down to simply providing them with resources to help them with their struggles, Martinez said. He said faculty also need to work on building relationships with their students.

“We”re working on creating more open communication between faculty and students,” Martinez said. “We need to make students feel that they”re supported.”

Martinez admitted that the retention guide the committee is just one step in a much longer process. He said the committee has started to discuss multiple different issues pertaining to enrollment, and they have an ambitious timeline for their future goals.

The Student Enrollment and Retention Committee held their first meeting of the academic year on Thursday in the Idaho Commons.

Erin Bamer can be reached at  [email protected]  or on Twitter  @ErinBamer

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