In This Issue Current Issue Archives

September 2004

Recruitment & Retention September 2004 full issue PDF
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University Targets Prospective Latino Students in Middle School
According to several measures, the University of Nevada-Reno has had success recruiting and retaining Latino students. In the past 10 years, the number of Latino students attending the university has doubled to about 1,000, and enrollment is expected to continue growing at a rate of 10 percent to 15 percent a year. Still, the student body at UNR doesn’t reflect the diversity of the state’s population, a key measure of diversity success for a land-grant institution. The university is tackling this problem by reaching out early to prospective Latino students.

Fraternity Recruitment Delay Doesn’t Affect Academic Success
Delaying fraternity recruitment until the spring semester doesn’t appear to increase the GPAs of first-year students who join Greek-letter groups, according to a recent study.

Cellphones, E-mail Can Hamper New Student Adjustment
As new students arrive on campus, speak with them and their parents about how much communication is too much, says Illinois Wesleyan counseling service director Connie Horton.

Legislators Try to Shore Up Campus Data Security Holes
Weber State University officials have sent letters to more than 5,600 students notifying them of a July 2 incident in which hackers believed to be in Europe accessed financial aid applications. In June, a Cal Poly employee threw away a password-protected hard drive containing the names and Social Security numbers of about 13,000 students, faculty, and staff.

Social Security Numbers and FERPA
The Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act does not prohibit colleges and universities from requiring students to provide their Social Security numbers as a condition of enrollment, a July 1 U.S. Department of Education letter states.

Program Increases Athletes’ Study Time, Decreases Drug Use
A multi-campus study of student-athletes suggests that social norms programming helps increase their academic engagement and decrease their use of alcohol and other drugs.

Individualized Attention Spurs High African-American Graduation Rate
Personal attention and high student-faculty interaction is responsible for the high six-year graduate rate among African-American students at Elizabeth City State University in North Carolina. Elizabeth City is one of only a handful of historically black colleges that have consistently been able to graduate more than 50 percent of its students. Its four-year average graduation rate is currently 54 percent, 15 percentage points higher than the national average for African-American students. The Education Trust, an independent, non-profit organization based in Washington, D.C., recently recognized the school for its student graduation rate.

Online Test Prep Students Ignore Math, Science
A study of students using the Internet to prepare for the SAT, ACT, or GRE shows that they start shortly before the test, neglect math and science, and prefer vocabulary drills and analogies to practicing questions on reading passages.

College Takes a New Approach to Orientation
In past years’ orientations, first-year students at Davidson College worked in small groups on community service projects at a variety of sites around town. But the two- or three-hour experience sometimes left students asking, “Where are the people we’re serving?”