The Lumberjack



Students Serving The Cal Poly Humboldt Campus and Community Since 1929

Tag: retention

  • Retention Rate on the Rise at HSU

    Retention Rate on the Rise at HSU

    More Humboldt State students are electing to stick around, but there’s still work to be done

    Corrections: a previous version of this story incorrectly quoted Casey Park as saying “We’re absent as an institution.” The quote should have said “We were absent as an institution.” The story also wrongly included “interim” in Jason Meriwether’s title.

    Humboldt State revealed more students were staying on its campus rather than taking off for other schools or ventures in a Jan. 31 press release.

    Tracy Smith, the director of the HSU Retention through Academic Mentoring Program, said she was proud of the work she and her peer mentors have accomplished over the years.

    “I think Humboldt sincerely believes that whether students decide to stay at Humboldt or not is really a product of our entire campus community and off-campus community,” Smith said. “RAMP really is designed to support incoming students and them finding a place where they feel a connection.”

    “85 percent of new first-year students said if they were given the option to choose a college again, they ‘probably’ or ‘definitely’ would attend HSU again.”

    National Survey of Student Engagement, spring 2019

    A study done in conjunction with HSU by the National Survey of Student Engagement in spring 2019 provided some data on student perceptions of HSU.

    “85 percent of new first-year students said if they were given the option to choose a college again, they ‘probably’ or ‘definitely’ would attend HSU again,” the study said. “And 89 percent of first-year students said their overall experience was ‘good’ or ‘excellent’, compared to an overall CSU system rate of 84 percent.”

    Jason Meriwether, Ph.D., vice president for Enrollment Management, said a few things have contributed to the increased retention rates, including Enrollment Management staff and related faculty streamlining the registration process and connecting students with support services—all in an attempt to create a sense of belonging for students.

    “It’s the experience but it’s also the listening and packaging it into one,” Meriwether said. “So, all of that is about looking at the students and giving them what they’re asking for first, and using the resources that we have to create an experience for the student.”

    Meriwether said his staff’s hard work has paid off by meeting student needs.

    “We have to be aligned with what students are expressing that they need and putting ourselves in a position to support students,” Meriwether said.

    “There wasn’t attention given to the most affected and traumatized students. And those are the students who went back to where we recruit from and said ‘Humboldt is not a place for me,’ and ‘Humboldt is not a place for you.’”

    Casey Park, HSU alumna

    He noted a growing trend at HSU of transfer students outnumbering first-time freshmen. HSU has needed to move around campus resources to accommodate the influx of transfer students.

    “It’s about being nimble and seeing where the student population is going and meeting those needs,” Meriwether said.

    Meriwether added that in recent months, the Student Disability Resource Center and cultural centers have received major face-lifts, which, in turn, have opened up more doors for students.

    Casey Park, an HSU alumna, was glad for the rising number of retained students, but said the campus administration’s past actions around retention shouldn’t be ignored as a new wave of measures are enacted. Park is an Associated Students coordinator, but gave her perspective only as an alumna.

    “We are still going to need to reconcile the years where we were neglectful of students,” Park said. “It’s going to take a lot of really good decisions to hold ourselves accountable for that and kind of be like, ‘We were absent as an institution.’”

    Park said the HSU administration’s inaction regarding the Josiah Lawson case and other events affected previous student perceptions of HSU.

    “There wasn’t attention given to the most affected and traumatized students,” Park said. “And those are the students who went back to where we recruit from and said ‘Humboldt is not a place for me,’ and ‘Humboldt is not a place for you.’”

  • Road to Recruitment and Retention

    Road to Recruitment and Retention

    Scholarships mark first steps toward tackling enrollment decline

    Humboldt State University’s battle against declining enrollment continues.

    In the last month, HSU announced three four-year, $1,000-a-year scholarships for local students (‘Humboldt First’), for Fortuna High graduates and for students living on campus.

    “‘Humboldt First’ reflects a direct investment in our local service area,” Interim Vice President of Enrollment Management Jason Meriwether said. “As part of our strategy to grow enrollment, we need to dramatically increase the number of students from our local area. In fact, our goal is to triple the number of local students in the next four years.”

    The Humboldt First scholarship will be provided to all new HSU students graduating from high schools in Humboldt, Del Norte, Mendocino and Trinity counties. The Dan and Cindy Phillips Fortuna Scholarship will be available to all Fortuna High graduates, even those transferring from the College of the Redwoods. HSU’s scholarship for on-campus residents will be awarded to students as long as they live on campus, up to four years.

    All three scholarships begin in Fall 2020.

    Meriwether said HSU is in the process of implementing multiple strategies to recruit local students, including educating locals about the programs offered at HSU and introducing ceremonies for Humboldt-area high school students who qualify to attend HSU.

    “We sincerely want to compete for students who want to leave Humboldt or don’t want to go to college,” Meriwether said. “So we are working harder to make sure they know that HSU is a real option for them.”

    Interim Vice President of Enrollment Jason Meriwether in his office on Oct. 25. Meriwether said the Humboldt First scholarship is one effort among many by HSU to attract more local students. | Photo by James Wilde

    Paul Hilton, an HSU political science major, journalism minor and McKinleyville High School graduate, said he liked the sound of the scholarship.

    “Contrary to what maybe a lot of people think, there is a want—there is a desire—to go straight to HSU from some of the local schools,” Hilton said.

    Hilton went to College of the Redwoods after graduating high school to avoid the higher costs of HSU. Hilton said he probably would’ve gone straight to HSU had the scholarship existed previously.

    However, Hilton acknowledged that many local students don’t want to go to HSU regardless of cost.

    “I think a lot of it just has to do with opportunities,” Hilton said. “A lot of locals dislike growing up here, and a large part of that is because of a lack of opportunities. But there are a lot of locals, myself included, who love Humboldt but still hate the lack of opportunities.”

    After CR, Hilton nearly attended Southern Oregon University, where he thought he saw more certainty in finding a future career path. Yet, in the end, he opted for HSU.

    “I came here because of proximity,” Hilton said. “Some people might just call that laziness, but because of the costs and everything I just decided that it would be easiest for me to stay here.”

    Hilton attributed HSU’s enrollment decline mainly to a lack of opportunities in the area, but he also noted a lack of support for minorities.

    “I think the main common factor between years and semesters has been opportunity in the area,” Hilton said. “But now it’s even more and maybe even a little overlapped by the lack of sense of security for minorities.”

    Meriwether said he believes HSU does offer opportunities, but the university doesn’t do enough to let people know they exist.

    “I think local students think they know Humboldt, but I don’t think we’ve done the job we need to do of reintroducing them to Humboldt,” Meriwether said.

    Eureka High School Principal Jennifer Johnson shared Meriwether’s excitement for the new scholarships. Johnson said she has already seen four to five times the usual number of EHS students going to HSU’s preview day. Johnson said only one EHS student went to HSU in 2018. For context, EHS has 1,230 enrolled students this year.

    “We have to also re-recruit our current students. We can’t just take for granted that they’re going to be here. We also have to give them a positive campus experience.”

    Jason Meriwether

    “We only had one last year,” Johnson said over the phone. “I think it was a real wake-up call for HSU administration when they actually ran the numbers on our school.”

    Johnson said local students that want to stay in Humboldt often opt for CR instead of HSU due to the costs—although Johnson said she thinks many students and parents just don’t understand how cheap HSU can be with financial aid.

    As for the local students that want to leave Humboldt, Johnson echoed Meriwether by saying that HSU is not like the rest of Humboldt.

    “I tell them, ‘Move to Arcata, it’s a whole different world,’” Johnson said.

    Meriwether said HSU is currently restructuring its recruitment strategies to include more social media targeting along with more visits to schools. Meriwether also pointed to recent recruitment improvements such as an increase in available tour times and the elimination of tour fees.

    Meriwether added that HSU has to not only improve recruitment, but also retention.

    “We have to also re-recruit our current students,” Meriwether said. “We can’t just take for granted that they’re going to be here. We also have to give them a positive campus experience.”

    Ultimately, Meriwether hopes HSU can begin telling a new story for itself that will attract and retain more students.

    “History is important,” Meriwether said. “But we also have to share that there’s a different approach to leadership, there’s a different approach to response and if things happen on campus it’s because we are trying to create a student-first experience. That’s what it’s all about.”