mortiz0010

A new report from Complete College America has some really great points in it that need to be considered. The report, Guided Pathways to Success: Boosting College Completion, focuses on ways to increase college and university completion rates from less than 30% for two-year schools and just about 50% for universities. And that is in three years for two-year schools and six years for four-year schools. Not a very good rate. One that has put America in a quite desperate position against the rest of the world. Some of the problems they see include Credits earned that don’t count toward the major Courses not being available when students need them Students taking more credits than they need to graduate Too many courses that do not transfer from one school to another and Programs requiring too many credits to graduate. These are all valid issues, many of which have been discussed in this blog and elsewhere many times. But they do not hit one of the most important reasons student...

While at a university last week I overheard a conversation. One staff member turned to another after a student left and she said “If I hear that question one more time I am going to scream. They should know that stuff.” I was quite bothered by this comment because it indicated a lack of understanding that would negatively affect the service that staff member would provide. The basic rule is this. You might have heard that question 25 times that day but it is the first time that the student is asking it. It is a new question for him or her and deserves full and hospitable assistance.   It does not matter if that issue is one that you deal with over and over. Yes that can get aggravating and bothersome but you need to realize that for the student asking it, it is a new experience. So patience with the question and the student is absolutely necessary. Each and every experience has to be treated with kindness and full assistance even if you are sick of going over the same inform...