On Campus Podcast – Supporting Undergraduate Student Success and Retention

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1. Introduction to the Podcast (00:00:15) The host introduces the podcast and today’s guest, Dr. Lua Hancock, focusing on student success and retention.
2. Dr. Hancock’s Background (00:01:10) Dr. Hancock shares her journey in higher education, from being an RA to founding her consulting firm.
3. Factors Contributing to Student Success (00:03:55) Discussion on access to education, graduation rates, and the importance of social engagement and belonging.
4. Challenges Facing Undergraduates (00:08:47) Dr. Hancock outlines common challenges such as financial issues and the need for academic agency.
5. The Role of Faculty in Student Retention (00:11:12) Emphasizes the importance of faculty relationships and support for enhancing student retention.
6. Financial Challenges and Strategies (00:13:22) Exploration of financial transparency and strategies to assist students in managing costs effectively.
7. Mentorship and Peer Support Programs (00:19:24) The value of mentorship programs in enhancing student retention and providing quality experiences.
8. Mentorship Program Challenges (00:19:47) Discussion on the benefits and challenges of mentorship programs, including coordinator turnover and compensation issues.
9. Support for First-Generation Students (00:21:29) Exploration of strategies to support first-generation students academically and socially, emphasizing communication and community.
10. Academic Struggles and Support (00:22:01) Understanding the academic challenges faced by students transitioning from high school to college, especially in rigorous courses.
11. Faculty Engagement in Student Success (00:25:14) Advice on how faculty can actively support students’ academic journeys through engagement and community-building initiatives.
12. Data-Driven Retention Strategies (00:29:07) Insights on using predictive analytics and early warning systems to identify and support at-risk students effectively.
13. Balancing Academic and Personal Life (00:32:53) Guidance for students on time management and the importance of communication with parents during college transitions.
14. Parental Involvement in Student Success (00:36:33) Discussion on the role of parents in supporting students and the importance of clear communication regarding academic progress.
15. Future Changes in Higher Education (00:38:02) Vision for a more supportive higher education system that is prepared for diverse student needs and challenges.
16. The Threat of Infighting (00:39:27) Dr. Hancock discusses how internal conflicts in institutions threaten student retention due to fear and unhealthy dynamics.
17. Interdisciplinary Approach to Education (00:40:36) Dr. Hancock advocates for a holistic, interdisciplinary educational model to better meet student needs and enhance retention.
18. Closing Remarks (00:42:11) Insights on the importance of hope in higher education.

Ed Butch: Welcome to On Campus with CITI Program, the podcast where we explore the complexities of the campus experience with higher education experts and researchers. I’m your host, Ed Butch, and I’m thrilled to have you with us today. Before we get started, I want to quickly note that this podcast is for educational purposes only and is not designed to provide legal advice or guidance. In addition, the views expressed in this podcast are solely those of our guests. Today’s guest is Dr. Lua Hancock, CEO, and founder of Lua Hancock Coaching and Consulting. Welcome to the podcast.

Dr. Lua Hancock: Hi.

Ed Butch: So our conversation today is going to revolve around the areas of student success and retention and how these play out on our campuses. And before we begin, I always prefer, rather than reading a bio to give you a chance to tell us about yourself in your own words. So can you just tell us a little bit about yourself and your career path?

Dr. Lua Hancock: Sure. I mean, we’ll go back a little ways. When I was 18, I became an RA on a floor, you know the story.

Ed Butch: Res life always the way in.

Dr. Lua Hancock: Yeah. So I’m a res life baby like many of us. Go res life. And learned so much from being an RA about life. I think it’s made me a great employee and also a good mom, honestly. I’ve had to do roommate conflicts in my house, those kind of things. So really thought I wanted to stay in higher ed, worked in res life for a long time, eventually became a Director of Res Life and Housing and really loved it, loved being able to create spaces for community for students. And then eventually I was asked if I would run a Title V grant for Hispanic serving institution to open a student success center. And I thought that was really interesting because I love the holistic support of students, both academic and I’d also been an academic advisor at one point, so doing academic and social. And then I was brought to Stetson University to open up their first student success center as well.

And I was the associate provost there. So I’ve worked on the student affairs and the academic affairs side, so I guess I’m just a higher ed professional overall and did that for a while. And then they asked me if I would be the Vice President for Campus Life and Student Success, like a merged operation. And there I loved that because I got to oversee everything from housing to public safety to career services, health, and wellness. And when I could have that whole holistic operation underneath me with all of those employees and all of those student leaders, we were able to do some awesome stuff.

So I was there for 13 years and then a few years ago I decided to leave and start my own consulting company and I work in higher ed and some other nonprofit and corporate. It’s been interesting. All the things that we learn about in higher ed are so helpful to the community as far as strategic planning, workplace wellness, inclusion and equity. And I do a lot of work on campuses as well about increasing retention. So I love what I do. I’ve learned a lot recently having my own child in college and one about to go. So you learn a lot being on the other side as well.

Ed Butch: That’s great. Fantastic. And it is always interesting when we see that overlap between higher ed and corporate and nonprofit and all that as well. And I love your background, because I was a res lifer to start. I also was an academic advisor, moved into student recruitment and retention and things like that when I worked in higher ed. So it’s fascinating to see how our backgrounds are somewhat similar there as well. So let’s just dive right in. And so in all of these years of experience that you had, what would you say are some of the most important factors contributing to student success at the undergrad level?

Dr. Lua Hancock: Yeah, I would say that I think this is the challenge of our higher ed professional generation is that we have figured out a little bit, although there is still work to do in the last generation how to do better access to education through things like federal grant programs and first generation access programs and some community colleges becoming basically free and some lottery access programs. Now our challenge is how do we make sure that everyone that we admit has the ability to graduate? And from the data that’s shown that that’s still not true. So this gap I think really is such a wonderful place for us to do work and it really has very profound outcomes. I try to think sometimes really deeply with our campuses, if we’re able to, for example, move the graduation rate of first-generation students, we and their family could potentially end multi-generational poverty.

I think we need to really realize the impact that we’re having. Of course there’s an institutional gain in the success measures, the KPIs, the budget, but there’s also a gain for humanity and having people who are out there able to make a living wage, they’re out there to be educated civilians and citizens of the world. And so I find it really, really exciting. I would say that some of the biggest factors, I mean, the retro Astin’s model is still true, like the I-E-O model, if people know this, the inputs the environment equals the output. So of course the factors of who we admit matter a lot, but the environment that we provide does too. And what are those environmental factors that we do? And of course social engagement and belonging is huge. I also think that advising, mentoring guidance is probably one of the biggest pieces that I would mention.

And I would say if we think about ourselves as adults, as employees, there’s a lot of overlap. I worked with a faculty member once who showed me some data on employee retention, and it really helped my thinking on student retention. Because if you think as an employee, how hard would it be for me to leave? Am I friends with the people I work with? Even if I could make a little more money somewhere else, some students could leave and save money. But am I friends with the people I work with? Do I feel like I’m making a difference every day? Is it kind of clear where I fit in this structure? Do I feel valued by the institution? Am I able to do good work? Does it feel like the right amount of work in play? So I think there’s more overlap that we can relate to than we realize.

Ed Butch: Yeah, definitely. I mean, that sense of belonging is huge. And I think the most difficult, that thing that I found in working on student retention was that that means something different, excuse me, for everyone. And so it’s really difficult to pinpoint what is sense of belonging for an entire institution, but that really is what can make a difference from student to student for sure.

Dr. Lua Hancock: Absolutely. And I’ll say that I think a lot of times very unintentionally, we don’t pay enough attention to this, and I don’t think it’s intentional. I think we try really hard to create a sense of belonging in the ways that we know. This is one reason why I really, really fight for the diversity of our mid-level and upper-level staff. Because when you have people who are from different backgrounds where belonging like them look different, they’re able to formulate belonging programs for people in a way that is going to be more coherent and responsive to the population. So I was at an institution once that started football as a goal to kind of a smaller school, have a place where students could have a sense of unity and belonging.

And we worked really hard on what the traditions around that would be. And it was really fun. And then a student who had been brought in as one of the first year students as a football player at graduation, I said, “How was it to be part of this initiating class of football and create this sense of belonging?” And he said, “You know, those are white people football games.” And I said, “Tell me more.” And he said, “My high school football did not feel like this. The band was different, the snacks were different, the crowd was different, the sound was different.”

And I thought we created something that we knew how to create completely unintentionally, and there were lots of students who cared for it. And then when certain populations of students didn’t come, sometimes we unintentionally say, well, they don’t want to engage or they’re too busy as opposed to thinking about ourselves. So yes, we have lots of work to do in the belonging space, and one of the things that we could do is create better pipelines, because we still have this problem in student affairs where there’s the same amount of diversity at the top as there is at the bottom.

Ed Butch: Definitely. Yeah, no, those are some really great insights for sure. So you mentioned a few, but can we talk a little bit about what are some of the common challenges that undergrads really face that impact their retention and their success?

Dr. Lua Hancock: Sure. I think regardless of size, I’ve worked everywhere assisting places from Texas A&M to small to community colleges. There are significant differences, but some of the main factors are the same, same, same wherever you go. The student’s ability to pay. I mean, it just is a factor. The ability to pay is a factor. And the other one that I would say is huge is academic agency. And I don’t like to talk to schools about academic ability because we don’t actually know our students’ academic ability because they haven’t had the equitable agency in the K-12 experience. We know this to be true, and we as college people love to blame high school that loves to blame middle school, loves to blame elementary school loves to blame the parents. The reality is we’ve inherited this inequitable educational system, and so as higher ed people, what do we do about that? So how do we increase the amount of agency? The first step in that is we have to think about it as agency, not ability. We have to think about it in that way. So that’s a huge one for me.

We’ve mentioned the sense of belonging and mattering. To me, it’s also purpose. This is kind of a little bit for some people of a depressing time in can I make an impact? Where is my impact? How can I have hope? So I think about belonging, not just as do I see my people and do I feel like I fit here? But also, do I feel like this is helping me figure out where I fit in the world? That is huge as well. Family opinions are huge. That’s one I’ll mention. Really quality parent and family communications is not a waste of time, I will tell you that much. And a lot of places do not do it well. And then I’ll say many students, regardless of the school say that they go because they want to have a relationship with faculty.

Now, this does not downplay student affairs professionals. They’re educators, they’re amazing educators. But if they say that, then how are we helping faculty to also be community builders, to also be able to know how to teach to this generation? Many, many faculty have been very honest with me and transparent that it’s hard to teach these days. What do I do about AI? What do I do about creating belonging? What do I do about students who seem to be struggling so much with life and they’re just trying to get through my plot? What do I do? So I think giving really, really good faculty support, especially the first term faculty who are teaching first term is something we also need to look at.

Ed Butch: And I love that you of course mentioned AI in there because of course, I think no matter what topic we’re talking about, AI always comes up at this point.

Dr. Lua Hancock: Sure, yeah.

Ed Butch: And I’ve had conversations with former colleagues and things like that about what they’re doing, and it’s not a lot. And I’m like, but it’s not going away. We have to figure out how to help faculty and students to utilize it in the proper way rather than just saying don’t use it. And I think that’s one of the biggest issues that I’m finding from what my former colleagues and what I’m seeing from policies from some of the universities.

Dr. Lua Hancock: Absolutely.

Ed Butch: So yeah, it’s crazy how much that comes up nowadays, right?

Dr. Lua Hancock: Yes. I just learned, I got a lesson from my 17-year-old who’s applying to colleges right now because he wrote this beautiful, hilarious essay for his personal statement about how he fears that he’s becoming, the neighbor used to yell at him all the time for being on his lawn, and now he does the lawn and he feels like he’s become the guy next door about how he feels about his lawn. And it was really funny. And at the end it was about 150 words too long, and he felt like it wasn’t wrapped up well. And I said, “Oh, let me have it. I do this all the time and I’m cutting out word by word.”

And he threw it in AI and said, “Take out 150 words and make a better ending.” And within 30 seconds, AI did better work than I did, to be honest. And it was in his voice. It still sounded like it was in his voice and he could then use it as he wanted. So yes, I think that we can learn a lot about how to better utilize it as a tool, as an assistive technology instead of just a generative technology.

Ed Butch: Definitely, definitely. I do want to go circle back to one other thing you mentioned there in that answer as well and talk a little bit about financial challenges because we had the whole FAFSA fiasco that happened and is still kind of up in the air for the upcoming year. And finances obviously do play a huge role in retention and academic success. Have you seen any sort of strategy that has worked well and effectively in institutions that you’ve worked with in addressing some of those challenges?

Dr. Lua Hancock: I have. And there’s some I’ve done myself and then some I’ve helped other institutions with or learned from other institutions. So one which seems like no duh, but I can’t tell you the amount of campuses where I go where they still don’t do this well, is it does not serve us in the admissions process to not be transparent and help students figure out what it costs to go to school for the entire time they’re in school. It does not serve us. And I think that at one point, I heard somebody call it vampire admissions, and I agree. If you admit students who you know can’t pay and suck the money out of them and drop them, that is really inhumane, honestly. You leave them with debt that they can’t pay. I know students who have not been able to go to another school, because they can’t pay off their balance to get their transcripts.

This to me is an ethical issue. Some schools do it honestly unintentionally because they don’t know their data well enough. To me, that is still ethical issue. Know your data. Who can genuinely pay? And it’s not just Pell. Pell is an okay measure for some schools, but usually it’s even right above Pell is not great. So I call it like Pell plus or depending on the school, you can do the math, but I also think it’s pushing some of our sectors to really define their distinctiveness and ROI in the market. Because if my kid, and one of them did, can go to community college, which was really good and had a lot of student affairs for free because we live in Florida and he had the scholarship from the lottery, you got to really tell me why I want to pay. And I worked at small liberal arts schools.

So first of all, you’ve got to show people transparently how to pay for four and potentially five years of school. You don’t show them how to pay for one. And when a student tells you with their parent who’s a first gen, “Oh, well, we’re going to take out second mortgage on the house and max out the credit cards.” You go, “Hold on a second, stop, stop.” And so first we have to be able to show them what it’s really like to financially plan for four to five years.

Secondly, all these programs, we’ve seen them, but they work if they are managed well, these 15 to finish programs, they call them. These programs where if you get behind, we notice, we reach out to you. “Hey Ed, I saw that you struggled with the course. You dropped one last year. You failed one this semester, so you’re two behind. No problem. We got you. Let’s utilize the summer in this really smart way and we know how to finance it for you.” We’ve thought about it before we call you and you say, “I can’t pay for summer.” We’re like, “Well, you really should, because…” So we call you and we say, “Hey, let’s find a pathway to get you caught up because if you stay on track, you are much more likely to graduate.” And this is everywhere. So we should be much smarter about those programs.

The last one I’ll mention is utilizing mini grants. Schools that have utilized mini grants. Now, this is a very high touch program. You can’t do this just by looking at the data, but if I see that you’re a couple thousand dollars short every semester, but you eventually try to pay it, but you have a hold on your account, so now you’re not getting your first choice classes, I call you and I say, “Hey, Ed, let’s us and your parents talk a little bit. If we were able to cover a little bit extra, do you think you could register today and we could get this all taken care of?” And when you have a person do it, what you see is that you might say, “Well, also I was thinking I could go somewhere cheaper. And also I was thinking…” And that’s about value. That’s not about cost.

If I talk to you though, and you and your parents cry and you’re like, “Oh my God, thank you. The institution cares about me. Now I can make it to graduation.” That’s about cost. So it’s really hard to figure out the difference between what families are thinking about value versus cost. Those are two different conversations. But if we can close the gap on cost, I’ve offered many grants where we have gotten a four to one return on the dollar for distributing the mini grants because those people stay until graduation. And so basically the CFO was like, “I’ll give you whatever you want. You can have whatever money you want to run this program.” I started it with a pilot, “Could you give me like 50,000?” And then eventually he was like, “Open checkbook, come on.” But they take all of these programs, take a mixture of good data analytics with smart human contact. You can’t have just one or the other.

Ed Butch: Definitely. Yeah, that’s great. And I love that differentiation that you made between cost and value. I think that’s something that we often forget about. And I love that the CEO or the CFO also just opened the checkbook, because that’s not something you hear very often.

Dr. Lua Hancock: Well, you got to share your data. I think student affairs people especially, like big heart fine, also big head. Write a one pager that says, here’s the ROI on that. You know what I mean? This is a business. It is a noble business. I love this noble business. It is a business. It is one of the biggest multi-billion dollar industries in the United States. And so my student affairs people know there is a customer and we are… Now, that doesn’t mean the customer is always right, but it means that they’ve paid us. Sort of like I loved this from Randy Pausch’s book, The Last Lecture. He said, “A school is like a trainer.” You would pay a trainer to make you sweat, push a little harder, but you want the gym open the right hours and you want them because you could do better with them than you could by yourself, but they still have lots of choices.

And many of them, even though we say, oh, but we give a huge discount rate, they’re still making the largest financial investment of their lives many of them. So put yourself in the family’s perspective. I feel blessed to have money. I’m still looking at which school could my kids go to for cheaper. I want them to get a great education, but also there’s lots of factors at play. So we need to be a little more business savvy sometimes, I think.

Ed Butch: Agreed, completely agree. That’s great. And you mentioned a few different programs, the mini grants and things like that. So I really think that programs and services are huge, but I want to turn a little bit to mentorship and peer support programs that really impact retention. How have you seen maybe some of these approaches be successful for institutions?

Dr. Lua Hancock: Yeah, I mean, a mentorship program is interesting because it also can create benefit for the mentees, like they’re both and. That person, we can help them to build their resume and get jobs because we are talking about retention. To me, retention is a measure that shows that a student is having a quality experience and wants to continue to be a part of it and can afford to continue to be a part of it. It’s just a measure, just like job placement, ability to pay off loans. So the mentors are also getting a benefit. Obviously in the area of first generation, I’ve seen this work out really well. I would say that part of the problem that I see is that the coordinators of those programs are not paid well at all and they turn over all the time. So the quality of the mentorship program gets complicated because we’re not thinking about the full ROI of the program when we pay somebody $31,000 a year. And where is that program nested? Who’s holding it? So first gen for sure.

I would say also academic mentors, supplemental instructors, TAs in classes. I think student affairs and academic affairs could partner better on training them as campus leaders. Some schools, they do see them in their campus leadership matrix, and then their faculty mentors are their content experts, but we help them with things like leadership development, communication strategies, marketing, outreach hours available, these type of things. The last thing I’ll say is where I found a lot of cool success with mentoring programs is I would encourage a lot of the participants who are encouraged to apply, a lot of times they’re given scholarship. I would much rather it be fellowship.

Now, don’t give them a ton of stuff to do because they’re already financially struggling. They might even need a second job. But if you can say, “Listen, we know that you’re going to be successful if you attend at least four sessions and whatever. So we built that into the program. This is part of a fellowship, and then we would like to move some of you into leadership.” So it’s seen as a scaffolded program from the beginning, not just as a service. So those are the few of the recommendations I have on mentorship.

Ed Butch: Great, great. Thank you. So you mentioned Pell eligibility earlier and first gen there, and I think those are two huge data points when we look at the retention data, where we see struggles as well as underrepresented or minoritized students. So I guess how have you seen better ways to really support those students that we tend to see from the data that do often struggle making it through academically?

Dr. Lua Hancock: Yeah, so I think academically is huge. I mean, the way that we talk to students, so students come in and some of them are even used to being successful in their high school and they might be taking pre-calculus or whatever, and then they get into Cal, Chem, Bio, and a first year seminar and they’re not doing well, and they thought this dream they had to go pre-med… And that’s like a mental hit, an academic hit, a financial hit all at one time, and then we wonder why they leave. So I would say that we have to again, think across the academic and student affairs spectrum about how to support first generation students. First of all, you should normalize it on campus.

One of the things that I suggest to faculty that they really said that they love and have used is just the first day of class, you just say, “Hey, I know, because I know our student data. Some of you are veterans, some of your parents, some of you are for the first in your family to graduate from college. Welcome. We know who you are and there might be challenges that you have, but we’re going to work through those together. We’re used to that. That’s fine. We love who you are.”

I think sometimes we wish we had some different students. Well, we don’t. This is America. This is who we grew. This is who we are. So if we don’t see it as an asset from the beginning, our students can tell, number one. And then there’s tons of our faculty and staff who are first gen. Put their pictures out there, have them talk about their experience, have them ask them if they would mentor a couple of students. Also, parent communication is huge. A lot of the families that come through a first gen or a traditionally underserved population are from cultures that are more used to working in community and then we bring them into a Westernized culture and ask them to be individuals who pull themselves up by their own bootstraps, that’s culturally inappropriate, I think.

So I think we really have to think about what does it look like for the family to be our partners? And then the last thing I would say is obviously we know this, but there’s a ton of diversity in the first generation population. Some of them have a brother or a sister that’s doing really well, who mentors them. Some of them, I mean, it just really depends. But many of them come in, the data shows, with really high strong resilience belief because they’re from cultures that do believe they have a success story. If they then struggle, their resilience during their first semester can actually go down, the number can go down. And that is really dangerous. You have to be careful. How do we talk to them when that happens? “Hey, Ed, not a problem. You’re struggling. You didn’t get into the nursing program, but why do you want to be a nurse? Is it because you care about people? Is it because you want a good degree? Let’s help you find something that still matches what your desire is.” That conversation will retain a student.

Ed Butch: Yeah, fantastic. Thank you. So you’ve mentioned faculty a few times in some of the conversation, and so I am really intrigued, especially having worked with faculty, faculty that are tenure track at an R1. Obviously the research and everything obviously is major. And so though often I see many of them that want to play an active role in supporting students don’t feel like they have the time. And so I guess what have you seen in terms of really getting faculty to play that active role?

Dr. Lua Hancock: Well, I think what we need to do is embed it in what they’re already doing. I think sometimes we have unrealistic expectations that they’re going to come to stuff in the residence halls, and if they have time to advise a club or work or something, that’s awesome. But also I think that we know that they’re key. One of the things, the roles I think faculty can play is how does it feel to be a part of your major? This is a question I ask faculty often, if your student has a bunch of dots of identity, so I’m in this Greek organization or I’m in this clever org or I’m in this major, how big are those dots of identity and how many of them are there? So is the major one of them? Would they list that? Would they list their major? Would they list their college and school?

So I’ve seen some very cool things. For example, I’ve worked with an English department who once a month has an optional pizza and chat about English and they talk. They bring in some alumni who share what they’re doing in writing and different ideas, and it’s a very vibrant, kind of familial space. And they show them these fun new apps. If you want to focus on your writing, you can download this app called Written Kitten and every 100 words you write, it pops up a new cat, just like cute stuff. But it’s like a community of nerding out writers. And so they then say, yes, the English department is part of my identity at this institution.

In a physics department I worked with at Stetson University, I loved that the juniors and seniors, the only place they presented their work, their research was at a seminar that all the physics majors came to. So the first year students saw what it looks like to be a senior. Most places the first year student never meets the seniors. So they don’t have a sense of what does this, we call it fuzzy equals, I don’t know what this equals in a few years. What does that look like? It’s super inspirational not to have a faculty member tell you, but to see it. Oh, and they said, by the way, it upped the quality of the presentation for the juniors and seniors because they have this larger audience. They have this sense of honorable expectation of the way they’re going to present their work.

So that’s the first thing I ask is what does it look like for you to have a sense of major? I would rather you do that really well than come to a program in the residence hall, honestly. But we just don’t think like this. We think in our own silos. There’s also a ton of teaching methodology about this right now. Some of it, if people want to look it up, it’s called TILT. It’s like transparent to where you tell a person, this assignment should take you about this long. This is what I’m asking you to do. And it’s inclusive pedagogy.

So we can teach faculty and faculty are very open to some tips, some easy tips on how to do this. The other thing I would say is that they need to be aware of what are the academic issue areas. If you’re teaching an intro course, you should know your own rate of the amount of students who get a DFW or an incomplete in your course. And if it’s over 25% with no defensiveness, you should be thinking about how you change that and how you make that better. And you should be looking at it with somebody from a student success area and saying, Hey, what do we know about this data? And what could I do? Because that’s not my goal. How could I…

Because still first term GPA is usually people’s biggest retention indicator. First term GPA still is. And the last thing I’ll say is, I know this sounds dumb, but to see students. When we still know that the data shows, if a faculty member says, “Hey, Ed, your last paper was really good. Have you thought about your writing? I noticed that for a first year student, your writing is advanced. And I’d love you to think about how you might be able to apply that.” That you will remember through graduation 20 years later. So when we see them, students notice.

Ed Butch: Definitely, yeah. No, that’s great. I love that. And you talked about DFW rates, and I think that’s huge. And so I really want to kind of change to tuck in a little bit more about that data. So any insights that you have on using predictive analytics or early warning systems that really have helped universities identify these at-risk students?

Dr. Lua Hancock: Yeah, first of all, I would say know your data again. If our students sometimes turned in a retention report that I get from faculty and staff committees, we would fail them. It is not data-driven. It is total opinion. You know what? I think I call it N of 1. “Oh, I knew this one student, Ed, and you know what he told me?” I mean, that’s great. Come on. I really believe we could do better. So one thing is we really, really need to know our data. We probably should pay our IR people more, to be honest. I mean, they’re so key to the institution, IR and IE right now. I mean, we know the college age student population is getting smaller, especially in some of our regions. We know that the college population is getting more diversified, so we should be thinking, how are we nimble? And we don’t use the same IR office we used in 1978.

So that’s first of all, it’s a little soapbox of mine. But it really, again, it’s high tech, high touch. Has to be both. If you just use the data the way that it is, it has also been shown that it can unintentionally perpetuate some of these biases that we have. Part of the reason sometimes students of color academically struggle more in our institutions is because it overlaps with other things like finance and high school quality. So sometimes if you want to just pull high school quality, that will show you. So especially some schools, I work in Florida, so there’s some DEI nonsense in my state, and I like working for myself. I can just say it’s complete insanity, but we can still look at things like high school quality and socioeconomic status and assist students. And by the way, we’ll be assisting students of color.

So we have to know our data. The other thing I would say, and not just that data, but tracker software, who’s going to the cafeteria? Who’s scanning into the residence halls? Who’s not? What are we doing about that when we notice that that’s not happening? And then it matters a ton, again, how we talk to them. So if we say, hey, I know students who go on academic warning or even below a 3.0 their first semester tend to really struggle when I reach out to you, what does that letter say? That letter better say, “We got you. Hey, no problem. We’ve done this. Sorry that you struggled.”

By the way, also the predictive analytics. Tell us also who’s in the middle and who’s at the top. We spent a lot of time retention talking about saving the bottom 10%. But one of the best initiatives is to engage and recognize the students who made above a 3.0 that semester, invite them to a social with the dean, put tables out for them to sign up to be student leaders and multicultural services and tutors. And you know what? Hundreds of them will come. And you know what? Their retention will increase, because they feel like they were noticed because some of your highest students academically are going to go somewhere else. So that’s the other thing I would say is work the whole continuum, not just the bottom 10%.

Ed Butch: Definitely, yeah. That murky middle, the two way to a three, two or whatever. Yeah, I mean, that’s huge because they are, they’re just kind of out there in no man’s land because we focus at the top, we focus at the bottom, and then they’re just left behind. So I think that’s great to really point out for sure. So if we have some students or parents, some students that are heading to college soon listening, what advice would you give for students who might be struggling to balance that academic and personal? Because you talked about veterans and workers, so students have a lot going on. So what advice do you have for them?

Dr. Lua Hancock: Yeah, so I’d say that first of all, the skills that you learn around that will serve your whole life. Today, I’m trying to figure out how to integrate my life today at work, at school. So sometimes I think one of the best things when I did once was I put a picture of myself in my office as an 18-year-old, because I work predominantly with 18-year-old students. I know some of you listening probably work with adult students, and it reminds me that that girl needed a lot of help and support and love. And so yeah, I think that first of all, there are two issues with time management. So when I’m working with a student, I’m trying to identify, do they really not have enough time because they’re working, they’re studying whatever, or they have time and they’re just not using it effectively? These are two different things.

There are only 168 hours in the week. You cannot change it. You cannot. So if you have to work and you have classes and you have whatever, it’s a mathematic thing. We have to sit down and look at. If you feel that to do the grades you want, you have to study 12 hours a week. Where does it fit? And if it doesn’t fit, does that mean you need to take three classes and graduate a little slower because you’re going to be successful? It’s math. It’s math. And sometimes we talk about it like it’s this very squishy and tangible topic. Like, “How do I manage my day?” I’m like, “I don’t know. Write it down.” If it is about motivation, that’s a different issue. If it’s about motivation and procrastination, but you have the time, but you’re playing Xbox for 30 hours, that’s a different issue. And I would say that with those students where you study matters a ton, where you physically sit yourself.

So if you go to school with your backpack filled for the day and you plan on going to class, then to the library or somewhere cool to study on campus for an hour and a half, then to lunch, then to another class, then to study for an hour and a half, you will do better than the student who comes back to their room or drives home or whatever. That is one thing that will help you. So it depends on what one of those two buckets you fall in. And I would say that I would love for parents and students to have very clear expectations with each other before they go to school about when they’re going to communicate with each other.

Because students sometimes, I mean, imagine you were in a very structured environment. Now you go and you’re like, oh, you’re in classes eight, 12 hours a week. Figure out the rest of the week on your own and do well. Yeah, no, that is really challenging. So when a student starts to struggle, the parent should be able to tell the student, if that happens, you first of all are required to tell me and we will figure it out together. Because I work with so many students who right near the end of a semester, are really doing poorly, and they were too embarrassed to ask. They froze. They got stuck, and they really felt devastated, and now they feel horrible about themselves. So there needs to also be, “Hey, we got this together. This is a big transition and we got this.”

Ed Butch: Yeah, yeah, definitely. And I think because I thought about this when you mentioned parents earlier as well, is that I think a lot of times we in student affairs or academic affairs, both, we like to just throw FERPA out there whenever we hear parent. It’s like, “Oh, no, we can’t talk to you because of FERPA.” But really understanding, I think having conversations amongst ourselves of what that really means and what you actually can and cannot share because they do, oftentimes a parent needs to be a part of that conversation. I think that’s a great example you just gave. If they’re struggling, if they’re not doing well, they can help you as a professional have that conversation with their student.

Dr. Lua Hancock: And think about the parent. Some student affairs professionals went to school in a different technological age. As a parent since my children, one who’s a junior in college, one who’s a senior in high school, have been in school K-12, it has been an expectation that I am in their course management system. It has been an expectation. So you wonder why I show up and say, “Why aren’t faculty putting grades in the course management system? Why don’t I have access to the course management system?” Now, I’m trying to be the most un-helicopter-y parent there is, but there still are times and issues where I want to be engaged. I want to be a partner with the parents.

I would ask also, how are you talking to the parents at orientation? Because if the parents come up on stage and they get to role model and play like what would it be if your student doesn’t call you or calls you or then they feel like, oh, we’re together. We’re together. I’m not some other, both of us have a shared goal, which is to get this person to the next stage of their development intellectually, spiritually, socially, academically, whatever it is, and let’s try to do it together because it takes a village honestly, these days.

Ed Butch: Yeah, yeah, definitely. Thanks. So last couple of questions. I really like to always look in the future and think about some things in a fun way. So first, are there any specific changes that you would like to see higher ed make in order to better support our undergrad students and their success?

Dr. Lua Hancock: Yeah, I love this question. So I have just a couple. One I would say is that if you haven’t, I would suggest that you read things like Tia McNair’s work in AAC&U about becoming a student ready college. Yes, of course, students should be ready for college, but we should be ready for them. And that’s academically, socially, et cetera. My youngest child is very, very confident and well-adjusted and fine. But when I went to pick him up from school in middle school and I said, “Hey, they’re going to call you over the intercom for the dentist appointment.” He said to me, “Oh, I’m so glad you told me. Because when the intercom comes on, I always think there’s a shooter in my school.”

Ed Butch: Oh, wow.

Dr. Lua Hancock: Yeah. So that’ll slap you in your face.

Ed Butch: Yeah.

Dr. Lua Hancock: So how are we being wraparound services academically, a genuinely welcoming and gracious student ready college? How do we love our students who they are today? And there’s some great work out there, Sumun Pendakur’s work on empowering agents. There’s just some beautiful new research that people haven’t read. So that’s my first magic wand. I would hope that we would switch the way maybe because if we believe that way, then we’ll act that way. The other is that we have to stop circling the wagons as institutional partners, student government, faculty and staff, and then pointing the guns to the inside. The biggest threat to student retention right now is our own in-fighting. This is my view from being on 20 campuses in the last couple of years or whatever and I think it’s coming from fear. Fear that our major is going to go away, fear that we don’t know how to meet the needs of this current student population. Fear that my position might go away. It’s a big job.

And so our fear about it is turning us against each other in ways that is super unhealthy. And just like a student doesn’t want to go to school somewhere, they don’t belong, I don’t want to work somewhere like that. I want to work somewhere that loves and cares about their employees and each other in respect and civil dialogue. If we bitch at each other and then turn around and tell our students have civic dialogue one more time, my head’s going to explode. So that’s my other, I don’t know how fun it is, but that’s my other magic wand.

Ed Butch: So last thing, let’s take that magic wand and say that you can implement one policy that every university across the United States has to implement today to improve student retention. What would it be?

Dr. Lua Hancock: Okay. I decided to go big.

Ed Butch: Okay, big. I like it.

Dr. Lua Hancock: Okay. Yeah. So obviously we talked about finance, good advising, all that is okay, but we have got to figure out how to be more interdisciplinary and holistic. That’s the one recommendation I would make, is that students’ minds and our world of work these days is super interdisciplinary and in class and out of class strengths and growth that they call these soft skills. And we’re still very disciplinary and we’re still very siloed, student affairs, academic affairs, et cetera. So my magic wand is that if we really, really want to change student retention, we would get out of our own way and we would start to be more creative and nimble and fun. And I actually think lots of educators would love a fun project. We think like, “Oh, we’re going to give them a fun project. They’re going to be tired.” Actually, I found if you facilitate it well and you respect the time that people are using in subcommittees and working groups, a lot of them would love to do this work in a way that’s creative. So that’s my one, I guess.

Ed Butch: I love that. Yeah. I mean, for me, having worked in a College of Arts and sciences for 12 years before I joined CITI and having the liberal arts, the humanities and things like that, interdisciplinary was a talk that we had all the time, and even those departments struggled to do it. So I think that would be a huge thing that would take down some of that stress that you talked about in terms of is our major going to go away? Because you’re going to have those cross-functional classes in different majors. So I think that really would be a great thing to see utilized all across every university. Thank you for that.

Dr. Lua Hancock: Yeah.

Ed Butch: Well, thank you again for the conversation today. This has been fantastic. You gave some great insights, some great ideas, and really enjoy what you’re doing. So thanks so much.

Dr. Lua Hancock: Yeah, I love you higher ed people. Keep hope alive.

Ed Butch: Thanks so much. Take care. I invite all of our listeners to visit citiprogram.org to learn more about our courses and webinars on research, ethics, compliance, and higher education. I look forward to bringing you more expert guests to discuss what’s happening on campus.