Closing the Gap: A First Year Student Retention Strategy for Historically Black Colleges and Universities in South Carolina

It is anticipated that South Carolina will experience an employment crisis within the next decade. To address this impending crisis, the Lumina Foundation has instituted Goal 2025 and South Carolina has set a goal of becoming one of the nation’s most educated states by the year of 2030. One way South Carolina can achieve these two goals is to close the gap that currently exists between majority and minority populations with college degrees. African Americans are the largest minority population with college degrees and the largest minority population currently enrolled in baccalaureate degree programs in the state. Forty-four percent of these African American college students are attending Historically Black Colleges and Universities, but first year retention numbers are low at these institutions as more students are entering academically underprepared. Research has identified the importance of effective academic advising to first year student retention. There are three main approaches to academic advising: prescriptive, developmental, and proactive. Of these three approaches, proactive advising has been shown to be the most effective approach for academically underprepared students. But, little is known about the academic advising approach being used by advisors at HBCUs. This quantitative study identified the most prevalent academic advising approach used at HBCUs in South Carolina. The Academic Advising Inventory was administered to 85 first year students attending HBCUs in South Carolina. The results showed that the most prevalent advising approach used was developmental advising. Also, participants were shown to be more satisfied and preferred developmental advising more than prescriptive advising.

Grantor dc:publisher

Creighton University

Year dc:date.issued

2014

Author dc:creator

• Harris, Twaina

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Ecklund, Joseph

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright is retained by the Author. A non-exclusive distribution right is granted to Creighton University and to ProQuest following the publishing model selected above.

Language dc:language.iso

en_US

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/10504/65292

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:cdr.creighton.edu:10504/65292