William Dindy

Students who decide to attend a career college often miss out on the tradtional college experience. Career college should look for ways to include student life activitiesto give them that experience. The sense of school pride will help rentention efforts.

Just like safety, retention is everyone's responsibility. Getting students is easy, keeping them is the hard part. Unless everyone at all levels in the school do their part, the school will probably fail, and we can't blame admissions for that. 

Your first week activities should be somewhat of an extension of your orientation. This is also the time to assess your students potential to be successful in their program. Faculty and staff should identify any administrative, personal, or academic issues and help resolve them. 

All faculty should attend orientation. Too often we see just program directors at orientation. Having students meet their instructors and learn a few things about their background will make students feel more comfortable when they come to the first day of class. 

Students should leave their orientation feeling like they are already a student. What we started doing recently was to give each new student at orientation a college t-shirt at the end of the orientation and let them wear it home. This gives them a sense of belonging to the the school and is definitely a conversation starter when they get home or when they see their friends after orientation. 

Retention depends on us meeting or exceeding student expectations. If we don't know what these expectations are, we can't very well address them. In this process, we need the ensure that our policies, procedures and processes are developed and examined from a student's perspective, as they are the customers being served. 

A new instructor should not be simply thrown into the classroom with a copy of the textbook and a slide deck. They should receive a well-planned onboarding that begins on their first day of employment. The onboarding should not be overwhelming. Be able to judge when the new instructor has had enough and save the rest for tomorrow. 

Providing an honest realistic job preview will probably reduce your pool of eligible applicants. However, those that do accept the position will likely be better suited for the position, more likely to accept a reasonable offer, and retention will not be a major concern. 

All applicants should be treated in a positive way. If they have a positive experience with your organization, whether they are hired or not, they have the power of word-of-mouth. An applicant who had a positive experience is likely to refer others for the position and possibly refer prospective students. You may also end up calling them back down the road if other candidates decline your offer.

Your entire staff should participate in the job analysis process. Those that are doing the job on a daily basis has the best information on what/who would make an effective instructor. By observing them and interviewing them, you can develop a job description to guide you in the hiring process. In a sense, we are all HR reps.