Loyola’s freshmen retention has dropped 5 percent from its previous retention record, however, deans are developing plans to keep the connection between students and Loyola’s community.

According to Salvadore Liberto, vice president for enrollment management, freshmen retention in fall of 2008 was 73 percent, a drop from 78 percent in fall of 2007. From 495 students that came to Loyola in 2008 only 363 stayed. In 2007, 520 came to Loyola and 405 continued with their studies at Loyola.

Liberto said it was hard to find specific reasons why students leave Loyola because each student was a different case.

He said, the “New Orleans factor” and its fast-paced lifestyle could be one reason. “Sometimes students come here and get caught up in New Orleans. Maybe they don’t focus as hard academically as they could,” Liberto said. 

In a University Senate Meeting on Jan. 22, Liberto also said students may leave Loyola due to financial needs, and lack of connectedness academically and socially. 

“In terms of finding that magic bullet… that one thing that could improve retention,” he said, “is a series of things and it is about relationships and it’s about individual choice.”

“We need to make sure our program focuses on each student’s individual’s choice,” he said.

However, it’s not easy for the administration to pinpoint each student’s individual choices. 
The deans of the different colleges are cooperating with the administration to retain freshmen and overall students.

According to Associate Dean David Luechauer, the College of Business started to get more involved with students a year ago. 

“We started asking freshmen students what is important to them, what is it that influences (their) decision to stay what is it that eases the transition from home to here,” he said.

Luechauer said the college of business develops surveys and creates focus groups to find out how freshmen and others feel connected to Loyola.  The college of business offers freshmen programs from Business Administration 100 and 101 to mentorship programs.

“All students are assigned a mentor who meets with them and talk about relevant things on one on one setting,” Luechauer said.  “It gives them a real life business person to talk to and it gives them a way to do it outside of Loyola but still involved with Loyola.”

For business economics and finance freshmen Denetria Burris, her teachers, adviser and the one-on-one help keeps her in the college of business.

“My teachers know my name so I can have personal relationships so then if I see them in basketball games or walking around campus they know me,” Burris said. “In the college of business definitely, I’m Denetria.”

As part of the plan to retain students, the college of business admits freshmen directly to the program when they choose business as their concentration. 

“That may sound like no big deal to somebody at a school like Loyola, but I come from a place where the vast majority of schools, students don’t get in the business school until they’re juniors,” he said. 

Students “need to feel connected to their major, their college, Loyola, New Orleans and to each other,”   Luechauer said.

The College of Business is not alone in the effort to retain students. The colleges of Social Sciences and Music and Fine Arts are also cooperating.

According to Luis Miron, dean of the College of Social Sciences, the college is trying to have a stronger presence in the common curriculum and make it more interesting and academically rigorous.

Miron is proposing the integration of courses from the college of social science to the curriculum. The proposal courses are Understanding Culture and Society through Social Research and Exploring Issues and Social Justice with the Social Sciences.

Both courses will explore the meanings of social sciences and its connection to society and the concepts of social justices in the social sciences field.

“We need to really make efforts to both strengthening and developing new course offering,” Miron said.

 “If we can engage students in the curriculum and by that I mean a broader definition around civic engagement, around undergraduate research, I think that will be a significant retention strategy,” he said.

Keeping the connection and strengthening the common curriculum are some the strategies the deans of the colleges of Social Sciences and Business are proposing to administration.  The College of Music and Fine Arts has another approach.

According to H. Jac McCracken, assistant dean for assessment and planning for the College of Music and Fine Arts, the college endeavors to help students with financial problems. He said the college “helps students spot scholarships that maybe are out there that they are not aware of.”

“I work with students as much as I can to help them find ways to supplement their income,” he said.  “We have in the College of Music and Fine Arts Local jobs that maybe are available for students.”

The college of Music and Fine Arts also worries about students’ academic progress. “I look at the major GPA report (and) if I see a student struggling academically I advise him to seek help with the center for helping students,” McCracken said.

Students like vocal performance sophomore Amanda Neal feel the worry of deans and faculty garners a closer relationship with students. “My voice teacher and all of the teachers keep an eye out for you and they know what’s going on with you, not just with your school life but they make sure that you’re doing fine in your personal life too,” she said.

The college of Humanities and Natural Sciences is not exempt from retention problems either. According to Jo Ann Moran Cruz, dean of the College of Humanities and Natural Sciences, the college shares the problem of retention between freshman and sophomore years.

Moran said the college is studying retention through surveys. “We want to develop questionnaires and a process of oral interview with students that is consistent from student to student that is specific to HUNS,” Moran said.

However, the questionnaire has not been developed yet she said.

The deans have  until Feb. 20th to come up all together with one proposal or their main priorities.

Andrea Castillo can be reached [email protected].