The Board of Trustees’ academic meeting focused on improving Ohio University’s retention and enrollment rates, while addressing other academic changes made by the Board.
To improve retention, OU will target students’ transition from their first to second years.
OU’s current first-year retention rate is 79.2%. The goal of the retention program is to increase the rate one percent each year, to reach a rate of 84% by 2016.
Executive Vice President and Provost Pam Benoit described several strategies to increase retention, such as improving student involvement within learning communities.
OU has been accepting students on the brink of admission in order to increase enrollment, Benoit said.
“If we take those students that are in that sweet spot, we can with some effort … graduate those students and retain those students,” Benoit said.
The meeting also addressed the need to improve enrollment rates.
Craig Cornell, vice provost for enrollment management, said he hopes to increase the amount of enrolled students by facilitating community college transfers, reevaluating the Gateway automatic scholarship and targeting admissions to specific programs.
Trustees also discussed an update to the parental leave program, allowing university employees 12 weeks total of parental leave, immediately following childbirth or child adoption.
The employee will receive six weeks paid and unpaid leave, then the employee could use sick leave or paid vacation time.
The program applies to the most recent parent employees, but those who give birth or adopt by December 31, 2012 will also be included.
Benoit explained the changes to OU’s Peer Institution Report, which compares OU to similar Tier I and II public universities that are academically comparable, such as the University of Missouri and Iowa State University, as similar to OU in academic terms.
The recent Peer Institution Report focused on six academic variables, including six year graduation rate and average freshmen ACT score, to choose the schools are most similar to OU.
Trustees also discussed a program which would offer more information about completing undergraduate degrees in three years. Each bachelor’s degree program would have to offer and outline a way in which students could complete the same accredited degree in three years.
To complete bachelor’s degrees in three years, each major will offer options, such as more summer credits and waiving foreign language requirements, to shorten required credit hours.
dk123111@ohiou.edu
