HBCUs Tackle The Knotty Problem Of Retention

Black Issues in Higher Education, Feb 18, 1999 by Karin Chenoweth

They leave because their money runs out or their grandparents need some help at home. They leave because they never made any friends and didn't feel like part of the college. They leave because their sweetheart attends a different institution and they transfer there. They leave because they are overwhelmed by a level of work they were never prepared to do.

Students leave college for all kinds of reasons. Although only some of the reasons are in the control of the colleges, the institutions look bad when only about three out of four freshmen return for their sophomore year.

The retention of students is widely acknowledged to be one of the knottiest problems in higher education. It is of particular concern for Black students. The national average retention rate of African American students is 45 percent within five years, as compared to 57 percent for White students, according to the Frederick D. Patterson Institute.

The problem has the potential of dividing campuses, with faculty members blaming admissions offices for admitting the wrong kind of student, admissions officers blaming student-life people for not providing a supportive social environment, and everybody blaming the high schools for sending students unprepared for college work.

Although retention is a problem which has emerged throughout higher education in the last few years, it is one with which historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs), where five-year graduation rates vary from 30 percent to about 70 percent, have long grappled. It is that very experience, argue some, that offers valuable lessons to the rest of higher education.

According to Dr. Ursula Wagener and Dr. Michael T. Nettles in an article in the March/April issue of Change magazine, HBCUs have a lot to say to colleges and universities across the nation. Wagener and Nettles were reporting on a retention project undertaken by 10 private HBCUs funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts.

In an interview, Wagener, an adjunct professor of higher education at the University of Pennsylvania, says, "The Black colleges have a whole tradition and culture of dealing with kids who have a poor secondary education. Most of the ... Black colleges are teaching colleges, not research institutions. So you get many, many faculty who are willing to spend time with kids.

"I believe that HBCUs are doing a very good job with retention," says Dr. Antoine Garibaldi, provost of Howard University and a widely acknowledged expert on the issue of retention. In 1998, 83 percent of Howard's freshman returned for their sophomore year, up 2 percent from the previous year. Howard's five-year retention rate, or graduation rate, is 42 percent.

Garibaldi adds that in the last three to five years HBCUs have become much more focused on the importance of not only admitting students but of having them graduate.

Howard University and Garibaldi's former institution, Xavier University, have been part of the Pew Charitable Trust's five-year retention program. Says Wagener of the program: "What we learned and our experience might be relevant particularly to small institutions. So we're hoping that the experience and lessons will be relevant to small, liberal arts colleges and small state colleges. For that reason, Pew Charitable' Trusts is now preparing a report that will detail the programs that HBCUs have devised to retain their students."

According to the article in Change, each of the campuses approached the problem of retention slightly differently. For example, Hampton University faculty members are recruited to be faculty development advisors, meeting with between five and 15 freshmen on academic probation, helping students organize their work, and socializing with them.

At Xavier, science and mathematics faculty have coordinated their courses to move forward at the same pace so that they reinforce each other, as well as organized study groups with students. Each faculty member counsels 35 students and monitors them closely, which requires a weekly meeting to report grades.

At Spelman -- which graduated 72 percent of its 1987 freshman class within six years, making it one of the most successful colleges in graduating African Americans -- incoming freshmen are assigned a Big Sister, and the Learning Resources Center offers academic advice, peer tutoring, and instruction in study techniques. Students are tutored by peers and faculty members. The tutors are told that tutoring is not just for those who are behind academically, but for anyone who wants to improve.

All the campuses considered the issue of retention to be a key one integral to their mission. As long as they recruit and enroll disadvantaged students, says the article in Change, they will never achieve the 90-percent-plus graduation rates of the very selective private institutions. And yet Hampton, Xavier, and Spelman have dearly been doing something special to graduate students.

"What I learned about retention is it's one of the most complex topics imaginable," Wagener adds. "Financial problems are the most prevalent. But the financial, academic, and personal are intertwined. Kids who fall behind academically lose their scholarships and then they lose focus."