Student retention is critical to the community college environment. To understand student retention issues in community colleges, it is necessary to identify the retention goal of the institution, the criteria, deünitions, and data needed to monitor progress toward the retention goal. Only then can a retention program be designed and implemented. A plan to establish a college-wide retention program is included. An overview of past and present research pertaining to student retention is provided.Student retention is an important consideration in the life of community colleges today. Whoever references it -internal administrators, faculty, taxpayers, legislators, state policy makers, and so forth -student retention is signi cant for measuring institutional effectiveness in the prevailing environment of accountability and budgetary constraints. As faculty and administrators struggle with an escalating barrage of questions from public and governmental agencies about the effectiveness of the educational enterprise, they also are being challenged by legislative constraints on budgets. Understanding these forces and being able to take action pertaining to student retention may spell success or failure for state systems, as well as individual community colleges.The nancial exigencies in operations that are facing community colleges also make retention a critical matter. For example, what college can ignore the potential revenue of several hundred thousand dollars to be gained by retaining students from year one to year two of their postsecondary education career.Although there are costs in retaining these additional students, such costs should not change materially the overall cost factor used by
A survey instrument requesting demographic and background information mailed to a population of 975 presidents of public two-year college elicited 718 responses. Based on peer selection, 622 respondents were classified as normative and 96 as outstanding. The authors compare responses from both groups, create a profile of an outstanding president, and discuss recommendations for practice and future research in light of that profile.
Although much has been written about preparing community college leaders, little is known about how presidents believe they might have better prepared for the role. Using presidential narratives from a national study, this article describes how presidents perceive gaps in prior preparation and offers recommendations to support the professional development of future leaders.
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