A 15-member committee has worked since February 2009 on a strategy to ensure SAIT students continue and complete their studies at the institution.
Cole Bowen, a student volunteer, gives a SAIT student directions at the information booth set up in the Heart Building on Monday, Jan. 18. The booth is one of the pilot projects set up by SAIT administration for student retention.
“We’ve surveyed students to see what their needs are and what services they would support,” said Stephen Case, academic chair of student retention.
“What do they think is important in services? And lo and behold, they think financial services are important and they think that academic services are important.”
The stakes are high for SAIT, and for students, when drop-outs occur.
SAIT loses potential alumni when students drop out. As a business, alumni are important to SAIT because if they are highly successful individuals they often will donate to the institution.
Not only that, alumni are important to the promotion of SAIT by word of mouth, according to Case. If potential students are aware of successful people that have graduated from SAIT, it is more likely they will want to attend the school.
When drop-outs occur it also costs the student who did not complete the program. Case says these students go from enrolling in a program so they are able to better their career and life path, to realizing their academic experience is not going the direction they intended. This realization can be depressing and possibly demoralizing to a student trying to get a better paying job.
“There are demands academically put on young people today, in order to get those well paying jobs,” Case said. “Diplomas, degrees and so on are really key things to have in your portfolio.”
When the population at SAIT is not retained it can also be a blow to current SAIT students.
They will end up paying more money for tuition than was originally intended when they signed up for their course. This is because fewer people are contributing towards the cost of personnel and resources which students need to complete their diploma.
In order to keep students at SAIT, the retention plan has two key parts. The plan suggests that students need to be engaged in the classroom and in campus life and that support needs to be provided for students who need assistance.
According to Case, having good support services available for students is important but it is just as important to make sure students know the support is there for them.
For this reason, much of the retention plan is designed to raise awareness of the services and resources available to SAIT students.
One of the biggest retention strategies underway is the Student Resources Directory that has been created for this school year.
Each first year student was given a directory in their orientation packages, and they are also available in most offices on campus for students to pick up. In each directory, information can be found about academic services, student life, finances, housing and even student well-being.
Virtually all information a new student might ask can be found in the directory. The SRD can also be found online at sait.ca under Student Services.
Other initiatives brought up by the committee were to draw attention to the campus life SAIT has to offer. SAITSA has been working on promoting its events around campus and the Athletics and Recreation department has been promoting the activities it has to offer to students.
Mark Pretzlaff, athletics manager at SAIT, said involvement in athletics and recreation at SAIT has increased this year after promoting the department. Intramural interest has increased to 1,800 students for the semester which exceeded previous enrollment.
“It’s not just about academics, it’s about a holistic approach to being here at SAIT,” Pretzlaff said.
To further educate students, an information booth was set up during the first week of classes this semester to assist new students at SAIT and make their first week successful. Volunteers at the booth fielded questions from everything from classroom locations to information about the health and dental services on campus to questions about SAIT’s wireless internet.
Salena Dhoot, a first-year continuing education student, said the information booth was both helpful and welcoming.
“They were really nice and approachable,” Dhoot said. “They even offered to take me directly to my classes.”
The retention plan also includes initiatives to begin student-to-student mentoring and student-to-student tutoring on campus as well as contacting students who have left SAIT to see what could have been done to help them continue their studies at school.
Although it is hard to say if the retention plan has been effective this year, as there was no bench-mark recorded from previous years, Case is trying to determine what the retention percentage will be for this year and hopes to improve this percentage in upcoming years.
“If the annual effect of our retention efforts retains even one or two students in each of SAIT’s programs, students who otherwise may have withdrawn, then the impact will be significant,” Case said.
