Report of the Task Force on Retention

I am delighted to accept the report of the task force on retention. It is a wonderful document that provides ample evidence of the hard work and thought that have gone into this important issue over the past year.

When I first decided to place an emphasis on retention, shortly after I became provost, the campus was in a much different position. At that point the retention rate for students from the first to the second year had hovered between 75% and 80% for over a decade, and although two earlier reports had addressed issues of retention and the first-year experience, there was little evidence of their implementation on the campus.

A year and a half later we have a retention rate of 84%; we have many initiatives devoted to incoming students as well as students in their first two semesters at Knoxville; and we are convinced that our retention rate will therefore soon be equal to that of our peer institutions in the SEC and in the nation.

I am especially grateful to Dr. Ruth Darling and Dr. Tammy Kahrig for organizing and directing this task force in such an excellent fashion. Both have shown that they are in touch with the latest trends in retention research and able to see how best practices across the country relate to what we are trying to accomplish on the Knoxville campus.

My thanks also goes to all the members of the task force who sacrificed many hours in meeting, research, and writing in order to produce this document. It is an indication of the high quality of the faculty and staff that this report was produced in such an expedient fashion and that it contains such a fine road map for proceeding on retention issues.

I should add only that I pledge that this report will not suffer the same fate as previous reports. Indeed, we have already acted on several of the recommendations in anticipation of the promulgation of the report. Over the next few budget cycles we will see what we can do to fund some of the other recommendations. Although they are all worthy of pursuing, financial constraints will dictate that some will be more difficult to accomplish in the short run.

I want to invite individuals from across the campus to examine this report. Retention is, after all, a matter for the entire campus, not any specific segment. Working together I am certain that we can improve not only our retention rates, but more importantly the education and educational atmosphere for students on the flagship campus of the University of Tennessee.

Posted: February 05, 2007