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Tim Johnson & Michael Miller
19 English Ave.
Huntington, WV 25705
April 15, 2013
Marshall University
1 John Marshall Dr.
Huntington, WV 25705
Dear Dr. Kopp:
There seems to be a problem that is continuing to grow at our university. The retention
rate here at Marshall University is a great concern. There are several reasons
mentioned in the following document that support the fact that there are reasons the
retention rate is weak and facts to support how to improve this matter.
Marshall only graduates 40 % of students who start their academic career at Marshall.
That is only 800 students of a freshman class of 2000 students. There has been a raise
in tuition by 15% and two new buildings are being constructed, but there are better
ways to spend the money. Keeping more students at the university would not only help
the university get more federal funds but also create camaraderie with the students
who get to know people in their respective programs.
Some of the challenges include scheduling, classes not being offered at varying enough
times, advising, culture shock, money, and poor teachers. There are numerous ways to
fix these problems. Action needs to be taken to get the ball rolling to make this
University a better school to attend and retain students at a better rate.
Please take time to consider helping us solve this issue as it continues to grow and
hopefully, one day, make Marshall University retain students in a 80th to 90th percentile
range and out of the 40th percentile.
For any other questions, comments, or concerns please feel free to contact me at:
Johnson696@marshall.edu or (304) 610-1554
Sincerely yours,
Tim Johnson & Michael Miller
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Retention Rate at Marshall University
Tim Johnson & Michael Miller
April 15, 2013
Dr. Kopp with Marshall University
Joni Magnusson
ENG 354
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Table of Contents
List of Visuals ………………………………………………………………………………………………………..Page 4
Abstract…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………Page 5
Introduction…………………………………………………………………………………………………………..Page 6
Poor Teaching………………………………………………………………………………………………………..Page 7
Funding………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….Page 7
Scheduling……………………………………………………………………………………………………………..Page 8
Eliminating Tenure………………………………………………………………………………………………..Page 9
Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………………………………………..Page 10
Recommendations…………………………………………………………………………………………………Page 11
Glossary…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………Page 12
Appendix A…………………………………………………………………………………………………………….Page 13
References…………………………………………………………………………………………………………….Page 17
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List of Visuals
Faculty Compensation and Workload
Faculty Ranking and Demographics
The full-time faculty at Marshall University consists of 201 professors, 118 associate professors,
117 assistant professors, and 70 instructors - 294 men and 212 women:
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Abstract
There seems to be a problem that is continuing to grow at our university. The retention
rate here at Marshall University is a great concern. There are several reasons
mentioned in the following document that support the fact that there are reasons the
retention rate is weak and facts to support how to improve this matter.
Marshall University has a horrible retention rate of obtaining students past their first
year attending this school. There are several factors that come into play such as
scheduling, classes not being offered at varying enough times, advising, culture shock,
money, and poor teachers. There are numerous ways to take corrective action towards
these principles in hope to help this issue overall, if something does not change this
University will continue to suffer from these problems causing our retention rate to get
worse. Our argument is that we need more staff, we need better scheduling
arrangements, more opportunity for financial help, along with better counseling and
guidance from our advisors.
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Help Increase the Retention Rate at Marshall University!
Marshall only graduates 40 % of students who start their academic career at
Marshall University (US News 1). That is only 800 students out of a freshman class of
2000 students. There has been a raise in tuition by 15% and two new buildings are
being constructed, but there are better ways to spend the money. Keeping more
students at the university would not only help the university get more federal funds but
also create a great campus culture with the students who get to know people in their
programs because after sophomore year you see many of the same faces in your
classes. There are a plethora of factors that come into play with parents’ education,
high school attended, teachers, campus life, advisors and many more.
US News rates Marshall as a selective college, but they accept 81% of applicants,
so that means they get about 2500 applicants a year (US News 1). However, 70% of the
accepted applicants remain after their first year, which is about 1300 students (Marshall
PDF). Now if only 40% of those students graduate that’s only 520 students. So what
about those other 780 students? Why do they leave or not graduate? Some factors at
Marshall we believe that are the root cause of this poor graduation rate are high schools
not preparing students well, socioeconomic factors since West Virginia is the poorest
state in the nation, scheduling, classes not being offered at varying enough times,
advising, culture shock, money, and poor teachers.
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Poor Teaching
One problem begins with poor teachers. While rate my professor is not a sound
rating system I think that some information one there is useful, because I have not
signed up for classes with a certain teacher because of the information on
www.ratemyprofessor.com. I know of a teacher who had 16 formal student complaints
filed against him in one semester, and he is still teaching. Marshall needs to take those
complaints more seriously than they do. Teaching should be like any other job, if you
make a mistake, you pay the consequences; no more tenure, where bad teachers
cannot be fired just because they have been there 20 years. If no one else gets that
treatment in corporate America why do we jeopardize the new and upcoming minds
with teachers who feel like they do not have to teach? Just because they have Dr. in
front of their name does not mean they can impart their knowledge on others. Poor
teaching is hard to prove but over a 5-year contract you can look at patterns and
student feedback and get a good idea of the quality of their work.
Funding
Next, let’s discuss issues with funding. Several students who attend college
aren’t able to pay for it up front. Sometimes a student may be very lucky to have his or
her family pay for schooling, but others must apply for FAFSA. The most fortunate kids
are those who get a free ride on a scholarship such as PROMISE. Just the other day I
was sitting in the Financial Aid office when a young man walked in asking to speak to a
counselor. All counselors were currently busy at the time so he continued to explain his
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situation to the receptionist at the front desk. Apparently the young man had PROMISE
scholarship, several grants and other mean of funding to support his education. Well, it
just so happened that this boy did a complete withdrawal from the entire semester,
making him forfeit his scholarships and grants. Somehow he ended up owing the
university $1400. He didn’t understand how this was possible, so on and so forth, the
woman continued to explain to him, for one, this was the Bursar’s responsibility not
theirs, and the fact that all of his left over money went back into the fund which it came
from. Eventually one of the head secretaries of Financial Aid handed the boy their
official policy, and yet still no one explained to him clearly why the problem existed and
how to help the issue. Going in to Old Main on Marshall’s campus is a headache from
the start. Nothing can ever be easily accomplished over there, yet leading to another
reason people may want to leave this university.
Scheduling
So as a freshman you have your schedule basically created for you. If you get
unlucky and happen to get two really bad teachers your first semester, and you have a
scholarship because of your good high school grades, let’s say then since adjusting to a
new environment and on top of that you have two bad teachers you end up with two
B’s two C’s and a D that’s a GPA of 2.2. Now your scholarships are going to be dropped
for the next semester plus you hated some of your teachers why wouldn’t you leave?
Scheduling is a big issue here at Marshall University. As previously mentioned,
your advisor basically creates your first schedule for you during the first semester
freshman year. From there on out, you are to follow the “Marshall plan.” They fail to
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mention this to you at first until most people eventually figure it out on their own. If
you get off track by even one class it can delay your graduation date. For example some
classes here at Marshall are only offered once a year, either in the fall, or in the spring
but not both. If you don’t schedule properly, in some cases it could put you on hold for
an entire year just trying to take one class. Another issue is there are prerequisites that
go along with these classes creating a more complex problem of its own.
It is a huge problem if you start in the spring semester instead of the fall
because of when classes are only offered once a year or only certain semesters and also
require prerequisites for other classes you can end up behind really quickly. This is a
huge dilemma as far as finishing your degree on time. Being able to register for classes
you need, making those classes they do offer agree with the core and other classes you
need agree with each other in a timely matter. With the staff and faculty Marshall
University has one would think there would be classes that are offered more than once
a year. It is an obvious problem and if it were to be fixed there very well may be a
significant change in retention and transfer rates here at Marshall.
Eliminating Tenure
Eliminating tenure would be a great risk if only one University decided that it was
worth the added cost in the short term and reaped the long-term benefits. Although as
in any great change there has to be one ignition point and why not let that be Marshall
University? Let’s face it Huntington is not the top choice for most professors to live, but
by eliminating tenure the University would have to pay more in salary up front. That’s
great for someone who wants to start their career as a professor and may lure them
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away from other colleges. Also it could send a message to the tenured professors that a
huge change is on the way and the worst ones are more likely to find jobs elsewhere
because they know that their days could be limited. Funds also would not be tied up in
tenure research projects and papers and since most of those are self-serving instead of
beneficial to the University the added cost up front will be negligible for cutting these
projects. This paragraph from an article on www.slate.com by Christopher Beam sums
exactly what is wrong with tenure in academia:
Then there's the effect of tenure on students. "Publish or perish" is the
maxim of tenure-track professors. The corollary, of course, would be
"teach and perish." Tenure committees claim to weigh publishing and
teaching equally, but in practice publishing counts most. Taylor recalls a
colleague winning a teaching award early in his career. Mentors urged
him not to put it on his résumé. When the best young teachers focus
their energies on writing rather than teaching, students pay the price
(Beam 1).
As students are asked to pay more and more for their education professors are teaching
less and less.
Conclusion
Marshall is getting like a city that you build in SimCity; it’s getting too big to fast so to
pay the bills you have to raise your taxes or in Marshall’s case tuition. Let’s take care of
the people who are here making an effort to further their education, because if we take
care of those people first it solves many of the problems we have laid out here and
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more that could be discussed at a later time. You must perfect what you have before
expanding the new biotech building and the soccer stadium are great but those funds
can go to funding the student experience. The soccer team could and should play on the
football field. The biotech building eliminated parking which Marshall does not have
enough of already. Having a high tech building is great but if you can’t keep people it will
go to waste. Marshall Students want what they pay for a good education, which most
cannot afford upfront and will have to pay back later through loans. Just remember to
make sure you take care of what is in front of you because that will lead to future gains
and donations to fund projects like the biotech building.
Recommendations
Now there are a few solutions to this problem that we can offer, first of all
tenure has to be eliminated immediately, it was a great thing probably 100 years ago
when it was first used but now with technology and ease of travel I do not see any good
arguments for it. Secondly freshman should have mandatory grade reports sent to
their advisors every 5 so that their advisors can contact those who are struggling to see
what the problem is. Thirdly we need to find a better way to acclimate students to
college life I think that they should start in the summer taking a class so they get into a
routine of getting up and going to class before a full on semester starts. Fourthly
student complaints of a teacher must be taken seriously and swift action needs to take
place because I bet most of the time the problem can be resolved with a simple talk
between an advisor, the teacher and the student.
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Glossary
Tenure: The process of Universities giving professors job security until they retire. The
time it takes for a professor to earn tenure is varied by school, but it’s usually between 5
and 10 years. It is extremely difficult to fire a tenured professor. They are locked into
certain salary grades and raises.
Retention Rate: The Rate at which schools retain their current students for the next
year.
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Top Rated Schools for High Retention Rates
Appendix A
Columbia University
99%
Yale University
99%
Brown University
98%
California Institute of Technology
98%
New York, NY
New Haven, CT
Providence, RI
Pasadena, CA
Dartmouth College
98%
Harvard University
98%
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
98%
Princeton University
98%
Stanford University
98%
University of Chicago
98%
University of Notre Dame
98%
University of Pennsylvania
98%
Cornell University
97%
Duke University
97%
Johns Hopkins University
97%
Northwestern University
97%
Rice University
97%
Tufts University
97%
University of California--Berkeley
97%
Hanover, NH
Cambridge, MA
Cambridge, MA
Princeton, NJ
Stanford, CA
Chicago, IL
Notre Dame, IN
Philadelphia, PA
Ithaca, NY
Durham, NC
Baltimore, MD
Evanston, IL
Houston, TX
Medford, MA
Berkeley, CA
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University of California--Los Angeles
97%
University of North Carolina--Chapel Hill
97%
University of Southern California
97%
Los Angeles, CA
Chapel Hill, NC
Los Angeles, CA
DePaul University
86%
George Mason University
86%
Iowa State University
86%
Missouri University of Science & Technology
86%
Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey--Newark
86%
Texas Christian University
86%
University of California--Riverside
86%
University of Maryland--Baltimore County
86%
University of San Diego
86%
University of Vermont
86%
Azusa Pacific University
85%
Biola University
85%
Brigham Young University--Provo
85%
Illinois State University
85%
Loyola University Chicago
85%
Polytechnic Institute of New York University
85%
St. Louis University
85%
SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry
85%
University at Albany--SUNY
85%
Chicago, IL
Fairfax, VA
Ames, IA
Rolla, MO
Newark, NJ
Fort Worth, TX
Riverside, CA
Baltimore, MD
San Diego, CA
Burlington, VT
Azusa, CA
La Mirada, CA
Provo, UT
Normal, IL
Chicago, IL
Brooklyn, NY
St. Louis, MO
Syracuse, NY
Albany, NY
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University of Alabama
85%
University of Cincinnati
85%
University of Iowa
85%
University of Missouri
85%
University of Oregon
85%
University of Tennessee
85%
University of Utah
85%
Virginia Commonwealth University
85%
Baylor University
84%
Drexel University
84%
Louisiana State University--Baton Rouge
84%
San Diego State University
84%
University of Colorado--Boulder
84%
University of Nebraska--Lincoln
84%
University of San Francisco
84%
University of Texas--Dallas
84%
University of the Pacific
84%
Colorado State University
83%
Georgia State University
83%
Howard University
83%
Mississippi State University
83%
New Jersey Institute of Technology
83%
Tuscaloosa, AL
Cincinnati, OH
Iowa City, IA
Columbia, MO
Eugene, OR
Knoxville, TN
Salt Lake City, UT
Richmond, VA
Waco, TX
Philadelphia, PA
Baton Rouge, LA
San Diego, CA
Boulder, CO
Lincoln, NE
San Francisco, CA
Richardson, TX
Stockton, CA
Fort Collins, CO
Atlanta, GA
Washington, DC
Mississippi State, MS
Newark, NJ
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St. John Fisher College
83%
University of Arkansas
83%
University of Oklahoma
83%
Washington State University
83%
Arizona State University
82%
Florida International University
82%
Maryville University of St. Louis
82%
Michigan Technological University
82%
Oregon State University
82%
Rochester, NY
Fayetteville, AR
Norman, OK
Pullman, WA
Tempe, AZ
Miami, FL
St Louis, MO
Houghton, MI
Corvallis, OR
University of Virginia
97%
Vanderbilt University
97%
Washington University in St. Louis
97%
Charlottesville, VA
Nashville, TN
St. Louis, MO
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Works Cited
Beam, Christopher. "The case for getting rid of tenure." Finishing School (2010): 1-2.
Web. 3 Apr. 2013.
Riley, Naomi S. "Commentary." Smart Ways to End Tenure. Chronical of Higher
Education, 19 June 2011. Web. 16 Apr. 2013.
"Freshman Retention Rates." US News College Compass, Best Colleges : 1-4. Web. 15
Apr. 2013.
"Marshall University." US News Education Colleges (2011). Web. 15 Apr. 2013.
<http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/marshall-university3815>.
Marshall University Office of Institutional Research. Web. 16 Apr 2013.
<http://www.marshall.edu/irp/srk/Retention_SRK_MU.pdf>.