1. “What Do You Do If There Is No Silver Bullet?” John N. Gardner Policy Center on the First Year of College gardner@fyfoundations.org Higher Education Conference: Enrollment Management Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education Oklahoma City, February 2, 2006

2. Introductory comments: just what did I learn in Speech 101 that I will apply here?!

3. There is no silver bullet. So what do we do about that?

4. A silver bullet that won’t work for you

5. What is the first-year experience anyway? What I meant vs what people heard me say and saw me do.

6. A need to reframe the retention conversation.

7. Moving away from a minimum standard to something more aspirational: we don’t offer majors and degrees in retention

8. Using Astin’s IEO model to focus on the “E”, the environment (what we control)

9. Taking more responsibility for student learning

10. Focusing on engagement: student behaviors vs our behaviors

11. One of the best kept dirty little secrets: the high risk course

12. Need to focus on the last retention frontier: the introductory course

13. Providing more opportunity for more students to start in the four-year sector? If not, what are the alternatives?

14. More NEED-based aid; and encouraging students to borrow more and work less.

15. Expanding opportunities for more on-campus student employment: should we be reinventing the “work college”?

16. Reducing course loads in the first term: five courses isn’t working for many.

17. Expanding opportunities for Summer Bridge

18. Declaring all out war on math failure

19. A strategy for some, but a minority: providing more opportunities for more students to live on campus.

20. More opportunities for peers to influence peers—but the kind of peers influencing each other in the ways you would want

21. Restructuring the time honored “retention committee”

22. Conducting a self study of the entire first year

23. More attention to the faculty rewards culture

24. Paying more attention to the leadership roles of academic deans and department chairs

25. More intentional integration of academic affairs and student affairs in pursuit of enhanced student learning

26. More opportunities for self-paced learning and open-ended term completion dates

27. Looking beyond the first-year experience to the sophomore year experience

28. My big bet: linking reaccreditation to first-year improvement efforts

29. Focus on raising expectations— the college experience just ain’t what it used to be

30. Redefining the historic purposes of the historic first year

31. Focusing on a grand design for the first year

32. Concentrating on what ALL students need

33. What are you going to take away from this speech for subsequent action?

34. An invitation: please join me for a conversation

35. Thank you ladies and gentlemen