Strategic Direction III

Student Development – investing in co- and extra-curricular programs that enable students to persist, fulfill their potential, and graduate in a timely manner.

As research demonstrates, the likelihood that students will persist in college and graduate is strongly correlated with the number and strength of their connections to the institution. Currently, to choose just one indicator, the UNH freshman-to-sophomore retention rate is 77 percent, which represents a five percent increase for the current year. This increasing figure compares favorably with the average one-year retention rate at, for example, the New American Colleges, which is 83 percent. Of course, an even larger objective is to increase UNH’s graduation rate, as against the national average six-year rate of 65 percent.

Strategic Direction III: Commitment

Promote Holistic Student Development

UNH is committed to strengthening and integrating academic programs with student life so that all students at UNH will experience faculty, staff, and services dedicated to educating the whole person.

• Reflect institutional values that are competency-based.
• View a student’s education as a multi-year proposition, with the attendant need to re-recruit, re-orient, and revitalize students each year to meet their evolving needs and to retain them.
  

Strategic Direction III: Major Investments

Student Development

• Faculty lines to ensure that many core courses are taught by full-time faculty and that students can complete their general education requirements in two years.
• Staff lines dedicated to the Freshman Year Experience, Middle Year Initiatives, and Capstone Experience.
• Creation of an Advising and Academic Support Center.
• Honors scholarships and need-based financial aid.
• Funds to support faculty-in-residence program.
• Funds to support programming and renovations needed for additional Living-Learning Communities.
• Funds to support freshman community service program.
• Funds to support sophomore- and junior-year re-orientation programs.
• Funds to support student research and scholarship opportunities.
• Funds to support on-campus work and off-campus internship opportunities.