With the drop in enrollment this semester, retention has been top on the list for the Administrative Council.

University President Julio León has discussed the importance of retention during the previous two Administrative Council meetings, and during the last one on Nov. 4, he asked the different departments what each is doing to improve retention.

Each department has its own way of trying to retain its students.

Dr. Brad Kleindl, dean of the school of business, said each department head in the school of business has ways of getting students involved with their major.

“The more the freshmen buy into the degree, the more likely they are to stay,” Kleindl said.

He said the school of business has a “portal” through Blackboard to contact students in the school of business and inform them of activities, give them job information and keep them in touch with faculty and alumni.

“If they stay with the program, there’s going to be benefits at the end,” Kleindl said.

He said the accounting department has an accounting club set up to get freshmen more involved. Dr. Jack Oakes, department head of computer information science, said CIS also has a club to help students get to know each other.

Courtney Goff, senior CIS major, is the publicity coordinator for the CIS Club. The club has area employers come and speak to the club during the meetings. Goff said it always helps when beginning a CIS college career to get an idea of what professionals in CIS actually do.

“We are going to try to reach out and recognize freshmen and sophomores more and more,” Goff said.

Not only is the club trying to help with retention efforts, but it is also planning to involve high school students by planning a Local Area Network Party. Goff said this is a type of recruitment effort.

Another way the CIS department tries to improve retention is to send the midterm grades out to all the advisers, so advisers can contact any students who may need some help with their studies. Oakes said the department also makes an effort to contact any student who didn’t re-enroll in classes. He thinks his department is doing well with retention.

“When you look at our retention rates from one semester to the next, they’re typically better than the college average,” Oakes said.

Dr. Gwen Murdock, department head of psychology, said the psychology department does its best to make the freshman year as positive as possible.

“We have to do a good job ourselves in the classroom,” Murdock said.

Sometimes an upper division student will help out with lower division students in the classroom and after class. Murdock said this gives the students an extra person to turn to for help.

“It also provides a model who’s interested in the material,” she said.

The psychology department also has a party at the beginning of the spring semester to provide an opportunity for freshmen to meet other psychology majors and faculty.

“We try to keep track of our advisees by e-mail,” said Dr. Blake Wolf, department head of the criminal justice department.

He said when a student hasn’t pre-enrolled or is having trouble academically, advisers will try to contact them by e-mail or counsel with them one-on-one.

“Those are the main efforts,” Wolf said.