A very small number of African-American students crossed the podium to shake President Nancy Dye's hand at the 1995 Commencement exercises. This both startled and concerned the new president, who expected to find a larger number of black students stepping up to receive their degrees.
That summer Dye and presidential assistant Diana Roose discussed this problem with faculty and students. They asked themselves why Oberlin's African-American students weren't graduating at the same rate they were enrolling, and more important-what could be done to solve this problem.
Together administrators, students, and faculty members of the sociology department designed a black student retention survey to attempt to unravel the answers. It proved to be the most ambitious survey on the topic ever undertaken by the College.
A committee of students and faculty spent the fall of 1995 designing survey questions about academics, activities, support systems, and the overall Oberlin experience. The questions were tested on current students for clarity and refined for several months. Finally a clear, comprehensive, 30-minute survey was ready.
Malaika Silcott, a 1995 December graduate, was hired to coordinate the data-gathering, to begin in the spring of 1996. Silcott oversaw a group of students who participated in the project as a private reading course. They developed a system to find and interview alumni and studied national trends in college retention rates.
A bank of phones was installed on the third floor of the Cox Administration Building and the interviewing began. Students worked nights and weekends to track down alumni who worked or attended school during the day. An attempt was made to contact and survey all black students who enrolled between 1987 and 1991, regardless of whether they had graduated. Through a combination of detective work and networking, about 50 percent of the targeted alumni were found and interviewed, for a total of 133 graduates and 37 non-graduates.
During the summer and fall of 1996, students began the laborious process of data entry. Then the data was refined and the numbers crunched.
The results were something of a surprise.
No single issue or cause was found to be a determining factor for students who did not graduate. But several strong factors were common to those who did. The single greatest influence on graduation was an involvement in community service.
Students who made their place at Oberlin through volunteer work, student government, or multicultural activities, both on- and off-campus, were more likely to graduate than those students who limited their participation.
This didn't surprise Andrea Hargrave, a junior who helped compile qualitative data from the survey. "If you are involved in something, you're more devoted to it. It keeps you here."
Daniel Gardner, director of the three-year-old Center for Service and Learning, notes that the largest per capita rate of volunteering at Oberlin is among African-American students. He credits this in part to established service projects that bring in a large number of black students, such as Shule, a children's Saturday school and the longest-running community-service program on campus, and the Bonner Scholars Program, which allows low-income students to substitute community service for the work-study portion of their financial aid packages.
The second deciding factor for persistence to graduation was the amount of contact a student had with the Office of Student Support Services. The more a student took part in the services provided-counseling, tutoring, workshops, etc.-the more likely was graduation. It was very gratifying, said Roose, to see that the initiatives of this office were working and helping students.
A third determining factor had to do with finances, but not necessarily with financial aid. Students who had financial problems of any sort and who received help in tangible or intangible ways were more likely to graduate. This information prompted the creation of a new position in the Student Accounts Office. Todd Rasmussen, a financial counselor, will be on hand in the fall to meet all incoming students and their parents. He will answer questions, assist with budget planning, and generally help keep students from getting into financial trouble.
President Dye and her staff intend to continue to review retention rates and policies during the coming year. But things are beginning to look brighter. According to Director of Institutional Research Ross Peacock, the number of students who returned to Oberlin for their second year in 1996 was 87 percent overall, but 91.4 percent for black students, the highest percentage of all groups. With the knowledge gained from this survey and the policy changes and improvements that result, Oberlin will be working hard to ensure that these students-and black students who enroll in future years-shake the president's hand at Commencement.
--Anita Buckmaster '95
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