Summary and Recommendations:

Study of Retention of Rutgers Camden Students

by Ted Goertzel

• Many students are seriously unhappy with the parking situation on campus.   Faculty and administrators tend to minimize this concern because the riverside lot is only a few blocks away and they are healthy young people, after all.  But none of us are willing to park where the students do.  I believe many students feel unappreciated and taken advantage of when they are forced to park a distance away and charged a high price for doing so, adding insult to injury.  Since faculty and staff will never give up their privileged parking status, the only solution I can think of is to charge them less.  It would be worth doing with less revenue from parking to keep from alienating our students.  Even better would be to charge everyone the same for parking and let those who want to park on campus (faculty, staff or student) pay a higher price.  That way, some of us might end up riding the bus with the students.

• Students are also unhappy with the higher prices in the new dining facility.  The old dining facility was less attractive, but the food was good and inexpensive.  It was one of the strong points of Rutgers Camden.  It also offered table service which appealed mostly to faculty and staff, but also to student groups.  It would be wonderful if we could bring back the old menu (especially the barbeque beef wrap) and prices.  If that isn't possible, we should cut the prices to offer items competitive with fast food chains such as McDonald's and Subway.  This might increase the number of students spending leisure time on campus. 

• We could retain more students if we offered more late afternoon and evening classes.  Many students leave because they cannot get the courses they need at the times they can take them.  They move to a campus with a more convenient schedule, most often Camden County College.

• The advising process is frustrating for many students who have trouble figuring out what they need to take and how their transfer courses will be counted.  Many students find the bureaucracy impersonal and unsupportive.

• Many of the students who drop out do so because they find the academic work too difficult.  My hunch is that many of the former students who declined to be interviewed are in this category.  The ideal solution is to recruit students who have stronger preparation and more time to devote to their studies.  Stronger support services in the evening might help to retain more of those that we are losing.
  

• Students would like to have more courses avaliable online, although many have doubts about having the discipline to succeed in them.  They want online courses because their work and family obligations make it difficult for them to get to campus and because it is often hard to get into required courses. They would especially like to be able to get required general education courses this way.  I believe we need to move in this direction if we are to compete effectively in today's higher education marketplace, but that we should probably emphasize hybrid courses that combine online and face-to-face components.  If students want a completely online experience, they can enroll at any number of schools around the country.

• There is surprisingly little concern about safety on campus, or about the Camden environment (other than not having enough parking).  We have done a good job of making the campus safe and pleasant.  What is lacking is stores, restaurants, bars, and so on.  Anything that can be done to accelerate progress in this area would be helpful.
  

• Most students seem reasonably pleased with the quality of the faculty, although some would like more small classes and closer contact with professors.  Very few students leave because they want a stronger academic program, although many leave because we cannot admit them to a professional program such as nursing, pharmacy or engineering.