Julianna Keiter
Staff Writer
An extensive discussion focused on retention rates was triggered at the February ESU Senate meeting. Other discussions included: a message to the students, staff and faculty about parking, an upcoming informational session on the executive orders from Trump, and other information and upcoming events.
Frank Gay, manager of parking, security and transportation, was not able to attend the meeting, but ESU President Kenneth Long spoke on the issue.
“I do want everyone just to be reminded that the first two, three weeks of every semester is always chaotic when it comes to parking on campus. Everyone, particularly our students, is still getting acclimated to their class schedules.”
“I would not be overreactive on what happens in the first two weeks. Those of us that were here four years ago remember when we had all the parking spaces in the world. I welcome the situation we have right now compared to the situation we had four years ago.”
He continued by stating that the construction of the new student center and the large number of employees and faculty that have been relocated from the Innovation Center largely impacts parking.
ESU’s Student Government then covered a future event that will occur on campus sometime in the middle of February.
Danny Schmidt, a member of the SGA, disclosed information about an informational event about, “the recent executive orders from President Trump. There’s a lot of information and a lot of students are feeling overwhelmed. So, one of the things that we’re trying to pull together is an information session to help inform students in a more accessible way and a way that is accurate because there’s a lot of misinformation, especially on social media. So that’s something that we’re working to pull together for mid February.”
Schmidt also announced a new Dancing with the Stars: Warrior Edition that will have faculty and staff paired up with a member of the Contemporary Dance Team. This event was announced to be on Feb. 20.
Dr Susan Dillmuth-Miller, Associate Professor of Communication Sciences & Disorders, Licensed Clinical Audiologist, raised the proposal to delay the add-drop and withdrawal window by two days, that was brought up in a previous Senate meeting. This proposal was not passed as students are required to have a certain amount of class time to count as taking the course.
As Dr. Robert Smith, Chief Information and Technology Officer, explained it, “So if you say [a course is] three credits, then the assumption is that you are meeting 2230 minutes of their classes, structured that way.”
The central topic of discussion was the retention rates that the Gardner report showcased. In a presentation, presented by Dr. Kizzy Morris, Registrar/Director of Student Enrollment Center, she discussed the Retention Action Team and their findings.
Through the statistics gathered by the Retention Action Team, they were able to present An Overview of University Support Services and Programs for Retention. Dr. Morris described it as, “If we were to imagine that first year students, the population is 100, what we have been seeing from our data is that by the time those 100 students, that started in that first year, are moving towards a second year, we only have 75 of them still with us. As they are moving to the third year, then we only have 60 and so on and so on.”
Dr. Morris continues to say that, through these findings, it causes them to look at what students need to persist in to graduate.
Dr. Margaret Ball, the Vice President of Academic Affairs, later commented that, since the Fall of 2023, “We had 80% of our students with a C or better in spring of 2024. We had 81% of students with a C or better. And in fall 2024, we had 84% of our students with a C or better. So, this may seem like small numbers, but that is what retention is about. It’s about improving one thing here, another thing over here, another thing over here.”
Other upcoming events were discussed as the musical, “Ride the Cyclone” will be running from Feb. 15 to 16.
The next Senate meeting will be March 3.