May 2, 2002-Vol33n27: Retention rates examined

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 listings—the blue section—that 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 Senators had complained that the information on LDAP often is outdated or inaccurate.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."