ASCEND Podcast

In most instances, colleges spend a significant amount of time, energy, and resources on recruiting a new student to campus. But how many colleges spend similar time, energy, and resources on recruiting students back each semester? By launching strategic, well-timed, broad recruit-back campaigns, you can remind your students why your university is best suited for them, why you need them, and also...

In addition to demographic data that institutions capture on  students through the application process, we were interested in learning more about students before they arrived on campus each semester. So, we instituted a pre-arrival survey that all incoming students fill out as part of the orientation process. It is important to note that we only ask questions that provide us with actionable data w...

Students are often not the best at placing things in their calendars.  As a result, we implemented a text and email reminder system for all our student appointments.  As a result, we experienced much better attendance and engagement.  Additionally, these we learned it was important to pay attention to those students who do not show up for their appointments. This is often a red flag for other issu...

To further help students prepare for the transition between high school and college, and to be ready to fully engage with our campus culture, schools often prepare and distribute a new student handbook written by students for students.  It often provides a welcome letter from the President, an explanation of  history and traditions, and the essentials to make a smooth transition (i.e. campus map,...

We have received a number of emails from our listeners asking us why we end our podcast with the phrase, "Keep on raging!"  Well, this podcast answers that question.  And, keep on raging!

We have found that institutions that have the greatest success typically have a single person who spends the majority of their job thinking about, worrying about, and holding the campus accountable to the vision, goals, and metrics related to increasing retention and completion rates. Many campuses will add this title or responsibility to someone's existing job without giving them a release o...

In recent years there has been a movement in higher education to shift the role and responsibilities of academic advisors. Gone are the days of a singular focus on serving as course schedulers. Advisors are now being asked to serve as academic advisors, life coaches, career counselors, and so much more. Shifting the roles of our “academic advisors” to “student success advisors” was one of the most...

Because finances are a major barrier for so many students to stay enrolled in college, we recommend that institutions hire a full-time Financial Literacy Specialist whose entire job it is to help students better understand their finances and to help as many students as possible meet the financial demands of higher education. Tune in to Jared and Eric talk about the benefit of starting a Financial...

Because campuses are limited in their resources (time, energy, human capital, etc.) it is important to focus on those students who need us most, when they need us most.  An important strategy for increasing retention rates is to focus on subpopulations of students who historically do not retain at the same rates.  In this episode we talk about which data points could be explored and how this simpl...

How do you get students who do not want to meet with you, or who do not want to get involved, to actually meet with you or get involved? You make them feel needed! In fact, the Dalai Lama recently stated that he "believes man’s biggest need today is the 'need to be needed.' He says the biggest reason for so much misery in the world is a growing number of people feel they are no long...

One of the obstacles we have found with students engaging on campus is that Generation Z students often do not know how to socially interact with their peers in person, break the ice, or even start conversations. After realizing that a significant majority of our incoming students struggle with networking and making friends, we decided to help our incoming students transition from an online world...

As we discussed in a previous episode, it is so important for a campus to all be on the same page when it comes to working toward a retention or completion goal. One of the key aspects of this task is helping everyone understand the “why” of what we are doing and setting proper expectations, for the campus collectively and each employee individually. These expectations (or goals) must be quantifia...

Too often we overcomplicate retention efforts. In many instances, we feel that we need a large, expensive, and complicated program before we will ever see an increase in retention. Sometimes, the most effective retention efforts are a simple hello, a friendly smile, or perhaps a faculty member or administrator remembering a small thing about our lives (our hometown, name of our high school, etc.)....

Many college students are concerned about finances, debt, and jobs. Notwithstanding this concern, college students often lack the knowledge, experience, and training needed to manage their finances, establish a budget, apply for scholarships or Pell grants, or understand the nuances of loans. Therefore, out of necessity, increasing financial literacy has become one of the most critical steps in he...

We all have hunches as to why students withdraw based on our own experiences and conversations, but do we have actual data to back our beliefs?  We wanted to know exactly why students were leaving our institution and so we decided the best way to find out was simply to ask. We got on the phone and started calling every single student who left our campus over a two-year period of time. We were not...

The research is very clear when it comes to the short window colleges and universities have to “seal the deal” with new students. Typically, students will decide whether or not they plan on continuing at your institution within the first six weeks. Our personal experience is that we have up until Thanksgiving break to help students get connected, feel at home, and decide they want to stay. In this...

In many situations students arrive on campus without knowing another student. This can be a real challenge for many, and if not given opportunities to engage and connect with other students, it will be difficult to retain these newcomers. Given the significant research conducted by Alexander Astin, Vincent Tinto, and others, helping students develop a sense of belonging, providing means for them t...

Changing the culture of a campus to be more student-centered can be a monumental task. But, it is absolutely essential if you are hoping to make significant progress toward your goals of increasing retention rates. The challenge is, shifting the culture can be very hard, will take a tremendous amount of effort, and will take a few years to fully accomplish. In this episode, we talk about the chang...

A significant pressure for many new students comes from having to maintain a high-enough GPA in order to keep their scholarships.  Most new students are not only wrestling with the increased academic demands of college, but many are also learning for the first time how to live on their own and be independent.  In response, we adjusted our scholarship policy to ensure that each student on scholarsh...

One of the first (and most important) things you must do to improve retention and completion on your campus is to assemble a Student Success Team.  This team should discuss what student success looks like on your campus, establish expectations and uniform goals and metrics, and  disseminate your student success vision across campus. Who should be on this Student Success Team?  In this podcast we d...

After years of trying everything outlined in the literature and still experiencing many years of stagnant retention rates at our institution, it was clear that we had to try something different. We decided to go back to the drawing board, throw out everything we were doing and start over from scratch.  After countless hours brainstorming, strategizing, and rethinking our approach we developed our...

Many colleges and universities have spent countless time, energy, and resources trying to increase their retention and graduation rates. Unfortunately, in many instances, the outcomes and results have not matched the effort in their minds. In this episode, we talk about three reasons why the retention efforts being executed may not be working on many campuses. New episodes will be released every M...

There are a number of good reasons why colleges and universities must focus a significant amount of time, energy, effort, and resources on retention, completion, and overall student success efforts. In this episode, we discuss four main reasons: (1) a declining national pool of high school graduates from which to draw on to maintain enrollments; (2) increased pressures to grow (or at least maintai...

Introducing the ASCEND podcast, where Dr. Jared Tippets and Dr. Eric Kirby share practical and proven strategies for increasing student retention, completion, and student success.  New episodes will be released every Monday.