Student Retention and Success: Treetop Views from Canadian Senior Administrators

In this session, we will investigate senior administrators’ (Vice-Presidents Academic and Services) awareness, engagement, and perception of their institution’s efforts to retain undergraduate students to graduation and credential completion. The relationships between institutional organizational structures and cultures are considered for supporting student success and students’ year-to-year persistence and graduation. There is limited literature in Canadian post-secondary education exploring the roles and responsibilities of senior administrators, especially across academic and student services divides. This research advances our understanding of senior administrators’ intentions, rationales, decisions, and partnerships and collaborations.

Learning Outcomes

• Deliberate Vincent Tinto’s post-COVID reflection in response to his foundational Student Integration Model (1975)
• Review case studies based on senior administrators’ survey responses
• Consider and reflect on the research themes presented from a personal and professional institutional perspective