"More Four Year College Grads a Must"

The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette has performed valuable public service of late in focusing attention on student retention and graduation rates in higher education. Your articles gave visibility to the recent study of the Arkansas Department of Higher Education linking economic prosperity and educational attainment. Your editorial advocated a better performance from Arkansas’ public universities in producing college graduates; it also cited the need to change a culture from favoring spending on consumer goods (depreciating assets) to one favoring investing in a college education (an appreciating asset).

Arkansas cannot compete in the new global economy without a higher proportion of four-year college graduates, plus many more with master's and doctorates. The new economy demands it.

For the past four years, I have spoken out repeatedly on the need for improvement in retention and graduation at the University of Arkansas. Last fall, in my state-of-the-University address, I said this "may well be the most important issue ever to confront this state and this University." I cited two major reasons: moral and competitive.

How can the University of Arkansas claim to be a student-centered university when less than half our students graduate within six years? With such a low graduation rate, how can we claim to be effectively serving Arkansas, which needs greater numbers of baccalaureate (four-year) degree holders?

As we seek to attract excellent students from Arkansas and the nation, our graduation rate--in contrast to those of other public research universities--becomes our Achilles' heel. It keeps us submerged in the third tier of national universities, negatively influencing our academic reputation--which lags significantly behind our true academic quality.

That said, it should be noted we are making progress. In 1997, the UA six-year graduation rate was 41.8 percent. Last year, it was 45.3 percent. Nonetheless, we have a long way to go to meet our goal of a 66 percent graduation rate by the year 2010.

We have taken steps to reach the goal. When we discovered we were the quickest to suspend and the slowest to readmit students, the Faculty Senate revised the academic probation and suspension policy to align it with policies at the nation’s major public research universities. Without changing requirements for admittance to the junior year and for graduation, we enhanced the prospect for students to succeed academically. Previously, they had only their freshman year to succeed or fail. Now, they have until the beginning of their junior year.

Nevertheless, as the article by Tracie Dungan showed, academic dismissals increased last year, rising from 16 to 62, as did academic suspensions and warnings. Although we provided more time to succeed, we did not relax the academic standards required for graduation.

Last fall, we put in place a "First-Year Experience" program to bond entering students more closely to the University and the surrounding community. We expect the strengthened bonds to improve graduation rates.

With a grant from the Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation, last fall the University of Arkansas sponsored the first statewide conference on student retention, inviting representatives from the state's public and private institutions. We are committed to providing leadership on this issue and will continue to bring the state's colleges and universities together to discuss solutions to this complex issue.

Also, we have increased dramatically the quality of entering freshmen classes. Between 1997 and 2000, freshmen average ACT scores increased from 23.5 to 24.8. High school grade point averages rose from 3.40 to 3.52. The proportion of freshmen from the top 10 percent of their high school classes increased from 28 to 32 percent.

As these classes move through the University toward graduation, we expect to see higher qualifications translate into higher graduation rates. The qualifications of entering freshmen put us in the "middle of the pack" of a benchmark set of 54 national public research universities. Yet, our six-year graduation rate continues to rank at the bottom.

We will continue to stress increased academic standards and improved student retention and graduation rates at the University of Arkansas. But, we will not lower standards to increase retention and graduation.

Our message seems to be taking hold among policy makers and legislators, as evidenced by feedback from the University of Arkansas Board of Trustees, the University of Arkansas 2010 Commission, Governor Huckabee, legislators, members of the executive branch, and countless alumni and Arkansans.

But some factors are beyond our control. Others need to do their part.

Faculty are not reluctant to tell me of students who arrive unprepared to do college work-although they did well in high school and on standardized tests. Too few know how to study. One eminent history professor reports that students in his Western Civilization course receiving Ds and Fs are not incapable of doing much better. Their performance is the result of too many missed classes and a failure to seek help, despite his pleas that they meet with him.

This is a cultural issue. To overcome it, all of us--parents, grandparents, educators, religious leaders, business people--must ingrain in young people a deeper respect for learning and education. It won’t be easy, particularly given the distractions and mixed messages society offers young people, but we must insist upon it.

Arkansas cannot move forward until we do a better job of preparing young people for college and producing greater numbers of four-year college graduates.

Again, I applaud the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette for its attention to this issue. I encourage you to continue reporting on the progress Arkansas’ colleges and universities make. Our future depends on it.