“Retention Matters!” emphasizes friendly interaction, importance of students

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Getting students to enroll at Central Michigan University is only half the battle.

“Retention Matters,” a work shop which focused on bringing the issue of student retention to the attention of different university departments, was held at 2 p.m. Wednesday in the Education and Human Services Building.

The workshop emphasized the message that retention is everyone’s job and a bit more friendly interaction with students can do as much as any formal program.

“It’s that personal connection that makes a huge difference in keeping students here,” said Amy McGinnis, directory of strategy and resource development of Human Resources.

The presentation, which is held regularly as a non-mandatory but recommended educational session, attracted about eight attendants on Wednesday from several departments including Campus Dining and Information Technology.

Several statistics were presented to the attendees who were invited to guess anonymously about retention figures beforehand.

Central Michigan University had a 57 percent graduation rate from 2003 to 2009, a figure which was higher than the national average of about 53 percent, said Shawn Wilson, director of student retention.

The only Michigan schools which beat out CMU were the University of Michigan, Michigan State University and Michigan Technological University, all schools with much more selective admission policies, which are shown to significantly boost graduation rates, Wilson said.

He noted these were six-year graduation figures, not four-year. The average student typically cannot graduate in four years at CMU because of the structure of its programs, he said.

Wilson said CMU must change along with its students who focus on non-educational activities like work in order to stay relevant and be where the students are.

If students had to spend $20,000 dollars on a car, about the cost of a year of education at CMU, Wilson said they would be very likely to pick up and head to the next dealership if required to jump through as many hoops as they are at CMU.

“We have to do a better job of responding to what students say they want,” Wilson said.

Eric Bellmore, lead web developer for Information Technology said one concrete way to keep services provided in line with what students want would be to use data on the class selection process.

He brought up the example of a class with only 50 slots that fills within moments of registration opening.

“Does the department know that 100 kids are waiting to get into that section,” Bellmore asked. “How do they know?”

He said information like this and other new, student-centered technological approaches can greatly enhance their general experiences as well as their chances of staying at CMU.