Sasha Dymant

From this section, I have learned that credibility and connection to the institution is extremely important. You want students to feel connected as that they belong immediately and have those feelings continue throughout the program. If students feel connected, knowledgable, and as if they belong, they will be able to reference that through difficult or uncertain times to keep them at the university.

I have learned that to manage processes and student care to match student expectations, an institution needs to regularly evaluate and understand how students perceive the institution. Students must be cared for and provided an experience where they feel the value is greater than the cost.

It is important to build a thorough retention program by using strategies to support students, hear their experiences and build on them, trained professionals, knowledge of learners and how to bring them together, etc.

In the Dynamics of Intervention I learned two ways to intervene. The surveying way and the vertical approach. I see the necesity for both as you want to find the initial way into learning about the problem; survfey then vertically probe. That way you can get to the heart of the problem.

I have learned about the general adaptation syndrome and, how as higher education staff and personel, we can intervene early on to support students. As students feel they are falling behind their peers or that there education isn't going to place them in a better spot, students lose hope and belief in the institution and their education. This leads them to stop studying and leave the institution. If we focus on preventing attrition before it happens and remediating before the downward part of the general adaptation syndrome then we can keep students aligned with and working towards their academic and… >>>

I learned that retention must be a focus of school culture that way responsibility is distributed among all people and departments. Tracking students by cohorts or programs and creating a culture of support will help increase unnecesary attrition. Attrition is, "a by-product of doing the right thing the right way". So, a University can't look at retention as a number, but as a process and campus culture that supports students so that retention is a by-product of University actions.