The Campus Retention Committee provides free services including peer counseling, one-on-one mentoring, internship classes and writing tutorials in order to increase graduation rates among minority students.
Fourth-year history student Nneka Egbuniwe, for example, has been supported academically and emotionally by the same peer counselor over the last three years through the committee’s services. Egbuniwe is now the chairwoman of the student-run committee and is hoping that funds from the upcoming student fee referendum will allow the group to expand its staff in order to meet increasing student demand.
“The goal is 100 percent retention,” she said of the committee’s programs.
Of the $12.75 quarterly fee increase proposed by the referendum ““ called “Practicing Leadership and Empowerment to Develop Growth Thru Education” ““ $1.30 would go the Campus Retention Committee in order to expand its services.
Many of the services target students whose GPAs are below 2.0 or who are subject to dismissal or have been dismissed, said Layhearn Tep, a second-year political science student and retention coordinator for the committee.
However, Tep also said that students do not need to be facing academic difficulty to benefit from the committee’s services.
“We also want to help students be proactive in terms of planning and thinking about their academics and future,” he said. Tep said that, as students find success through the committee, they refer its services to their peers, causing increased interest in the group’s programs.
Increased university enrollment further increases the need for student retention services, Egbuniwe said.
Despite increased demand, funding for the committee’s services has remained stagnant, she added. The resulting shortage of funds is compounded by the effects of recent budget cuts.
First, the impending closure of academic services such as Covel Composition, which has been a source of one-on-one writing help for students, will divert students to programs offered by the committee.
Already, the committee’s Writing Success Program, which also gives students one-on-one help with writing assignments, has experienced an influx of student need, said Atzinba Reyes, a third-year history and Chicana and Chicano studies student and the program’s chair.
There are many days when the program must turn students away because it does not have the resources to meet demand, Reyes said.
Egbuniwe said that the suspension of Covel Composition in the upcoming school year and the elimination of many discussion sections and teaching assistants would place further stress on the committee’s current resources.
Without any personal interaction with their teaching assistants, he added, more students might struggle academically and turn to the support programs offered by the committee.
Egbuniwe said the main use of additional funds provided by the referendum would be to increase the number of staff members serving as peer counselors, mentors and tutors for students in need of the committee’s services.
“If the amount of students are increasing and the staff isn’t, we are doing a disservice. The last thing we want to do is turn students away,” she said.
Already, many staff members are volunteering hours beyond what they are paid to help with retention programs, Reyes said.
“We can’t really ask more of them than they are already giving,” she added.