First Week Retention efforts
Does anyone have a formal plan in place too have admission involved in the transition of students too faculty?
There were some previous discussions in some of the threads regarding institutions that have faculty involved to some extent in the actual admissions process--introductions and/or meetings.
The key here is to share the wealth of information that admissions naturally collects on students and have faculty utilize this data. Opportunities for students to interact with faculty and begin building that bond--ideally before classes begin--is important. After all, admissions will be on to recruiting the next class and students need to know they have another resource for support as quickly as possible.
Realistically, it doesn't take much to facilitate this hand-off as long as the roles are clear. Faculty need to know they need to pick up the support role and create a relationship as quickly as possible.
If admissions is not very busy I could see them calling students who have missed classes etc, but I would hope that admissions wouldn't have enough free time for this.
We have hired someone just to call our students when they miss class and try to find solutions on how to not miss more class. Attendance is the number one reason for poor performance and usually eventually dropping, so if they are showing up to class then more than likely they will complete the quarter or semester.
Kane--
Having someone focused entirely on follow up is very important, as is having all the appropriate information at their fingertips. I couldn't agree more that attendance is a major signal that something is very wrong. I'm assuming your retention person also has a list of resources available to address the issues.
Susan
In our institutions we have admissions advisor to keep track all new students' attendance. And would call the students initially and later on we would have instructor keep track of student's attendance. Usually the attendance is good indicator of how the student is performing in school.
The best plan is to make sure that all of the faculty and staff have a good background in what students require and answer their questions promptly. If they are not sure where to go and what to do, then ensure that someone will guide them through the process and do a little hand holding. Most students any more are a bit older and not sure that they can go back to school. They need some reassurance that what they are doing is the best thing that will help them in the future. Treat them with top notch customer service and it will ensure everyone's success.
At our campus we retrieve student info at the beginning of each course and give it to our student services dept. so they can update their records and contact students who have missed class in an attempt to keep them from failing due to poor attendance.
