From the Chancellor
SIU is a member of the Student Success Collaborative, a service provided by the Education Advisory Board that uses data and predictive analytics to help institutions identify and prioritize students who may be at risk. Intervention with at-risk students is key to student retention and a focus of our new retention plan.
I’m pleased to let you know that a June report from the collaborative shows significant improvement in fall-to-spring retention rates for the fall 2013 freshman class (+3.7 percent). The fall 2013 class achieved a higher average GPA and higher completion percentages, and fewer members of the class were considered to be at-risk. The proportion of “A" grades also increased by 3.7 percent and the proportion of “C," “D" and “F" grades dropped by 4.5 percent. While we knew much of this based on our internal analysis, the Education Advisory Board’s data confirms that we are headed in the right direction in terms of reframing our student profile and retaining more students. Thank you for your help making this happen.
Rita Cheng
Chancellor