DRAFT, Dec. 13, 2005. Send comments to Mary Parker by Dec. 15.

Ad Hoc Committee on Student Intervention Strategies

Recommendations

December 9, 2005

  1. We recommend that the college allow students to withdraw online using a form with the questions and information from our draft form as soon as it can be conveniently implemented.
  2. We recommend that the information on the withdrawal form be easily available to students on the web at all times, not just when they are asking to withdraw from a course.
  3. We recommend that instructors be allowed to withdraw students online as soon as that can be conveniently implemented.
  4. We recommend that the Student Services Council delegate responsibility for ongoing oversight of the student online withdrawal form to an appropriate committee.
  5. We recommend that online withdrawals be made available to all students and that difficulties encountered be continually monitored and the system be modified to alleviate those difficulties.
  6. We strongly recommend that the College follow up with individual at-risk students who withdraw from courses.
  7. We recommend that the paper withdrawal form be modified so that we collect the same information from students on it as we collect on the online withdrawal form.
  8. We recommend that withdrawals not be allowed using the phone registration system, because it would be too confusing to give the students the same information by phone as we can give in the online withdrawal form.
  9. We recommend that somewhere in explanations (as is included in this draft) students be told that the taxpayers are paying a significant amount of the cost of their education. We believe this will help students better understand the reasons for the rules about excessive withdrawals and will contribute to better decision-making.
  10. We recommend that the College develop more extensive Resources and Consequences lists, with explanations and links to related information, and make those lists available on the web to faculty and staff advising students and to students who wish to know about all the consequences of withdrawals and the resources available to help them succeed in their courses.
  11. In order to effectively promote success, successful intervention must happen at a variety of times as well as at the point of withdrawal from a course. In our brainstorming discussions, we identified many consequences of withdrawals and resources to help students succeed. We also identified many different times and situations in which students could be told about these. Our committee did not have time to fully discuss these, but members of the committee will take these to other relevant committees for further attention and work.

                                                                                                 

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