VCU news

By Gary Robertson

On any given day, wave upon wave of new students press through the doors of Virginia Commonwealth University’s University College, an experiment in learning now celebrating its fourth full year, and remaking itself hour by hour.

While the concept of a “university college” intended to serve first-year students is not unique, VCU’s commitment and approach may be unique among large public research universities.

And without doubt, the rising tide of students at the UC is matched by a rising tide of student success.

Provost Stephen Gottfredson breathes a little easier these days, now that University College – offering “a small college experience at a large research university” — has come so far in so short a time, eclipsing expectations at every turn.

“I think people who cared about me thought it was taking a pretty big risk – throwing resources at first-year undergraduates. But it would be difficult now for anyone to look at what we’ve done and say that it hasn’t been a success,” Gottfredson said.

That success is mirrored in impressive statistical gains in first-year retention, graduation, and in the percentage of students in good standing at the end of their first year, among other stellar performance measures.

An intensive and, yes, intrusive new advising system means that when a first-year student misses a class, she’ll usually receive a phone call, e-mail or tweet asking, “Everything okay? Can we help? Come by and see me.”

The help can include tutoring, supplemental instruction or counseling, especially if personal or family problems are the issue.

The advising system is at the heart of a matrix of University College programs, with built-in redundancies, that minimize the prospect that a first-year student will “get lost” in the often uneasy, and sometimes overwhelming, transition from high school.
Gottfredson and other administrators often relate their own stories of freshman jitters to incoming first-year classes, telling them that the University College team is there to help them find their way.

All first-year students are assured that they will be in at least one class, no larger than 22 students, where everybody in the room knows their name, including the teacher.

That’s typical in a small college with a first-year class of a few hundred students, but it’s virtually unheard of in institution such as VCU where the first-year class tops 3,700 students, and whose research emphasis generates more than $220 million in sponsorship yearly.

Making its mark

University College is making its mark in all the ways that are important for a university to ensure academic progress.

Over the past decade, for example, the number of new students returning from the prior fall semester has jumped 10 full percentage points (73 percent in fall of 1998 to 83 percent in fall of 2009), and the new students in good standing at the end of the year has risen from 67 percent (in 2000-01) to 80 percent (in 2008-09).

This year, projections suggest that the graduation rate will top 50 percent for the first time, rising from 39 percent in 1999-2000.

“Clearly, we’ve made some good progress – but much more remains to be done,” Gottfredson said.

Still, for a university with a mission of opportunity and access, for a university with the most diverse student body and freshman class in Virginia – almost 60 percent will be the first in their families to graduate from college – and for a university that has grown 39 percent since the opening of the 21st century — 23,000 in 1999 to 33,000 in 2008 — Gottfredson said such a rapid climb in achievement is nothing short of remarkable.

University College, he said, deserves much of the credit. But it didn’t happen overnight. 

Before being named provost in 2005, Gottfredson urgently began adding and transforming academic resources that led to University College’s creation while he was dean of the College of Humanities and Sciences, which enrolls nearly 60 percent of VCU’s undergraduates.

The urgency stemmed from a letter he received from a member of the university’s Board of Visitors who was thoroughly unimpressed by a job request, enclosed in another letter that the Board member had received from a VCU graduate.

In a word, the graduate’s writing was haphazard, his grammar poor, his skills of critical thinking in need of development. Of course, Gottfredson knew many students who possessed all the qualities this poorly prepared applicant lacked – but he wondered how many VCU students were not receiving the help and guidance they needed.

“It was a seminal moment,” Gottfredson said. “We had to improve, and we had to improve quickly.”

Homing in on writing

The provost (then dean) first homed in on writing instruction, and found that the one course that every student at VCU took, the first-year composition course, did not have a single full-time faculty member as the instructor in the more than 100 sections in which VCU’s students were enrolled.

University College now employs full-time faculty members to teach the newly developed successor to that composition course, and next year the UC will have full-time faculty teaching the re-tuned successor to the sophomore-level writing courses. 

The UC also is home to VCU’s fully staffed Writing Center, where students are encouraged to plan, organize and write their papers, along with learning the mechanics of grammar and syntax.

One result is that the number of students who received either a “D” or an “F” in the university’s former introductory writing and composition course, or who withdrew, has dipped dramatically – from an average of 22 percent annually, to no more than 10 percent, since University College opened its doors.

And, importantly, the students’ writing, critical thinking, and skills of expression have demonstrably improved.

“Clearly, we’re pleased,” Gottfredson said. “Writing is a foundational skill.”    

But more was needed.

So, Gottfredson pulled together the deans of the various schools in the College of Humanities and Sciences, and — drawing on his own experience and the deans’ ideas — the “more” became what is now the VCU Compact.

The Compact is a pledge to parents, and to students themselves, that VCU will create a shared undergraduate experience that enhances student engagement and learning, fosters a sense of community and emphasizes six areas of competency.

Those areas of competency track what employers almost invariably say they are looking for in new hires with a college degree: writing proficiency, critical thinking, good oral communication, the ability to understand and use numbers, ethical and civic responsibility, the importance of teamwork and an ability to assemble and assess information needed to solve a problem.

Learning from failure

Joseph Marolla, vice provost for instruction and dean of University College, spends much of his time looking for problems and solutions to those problems in University College’s own organization, fostering an atmosphere of continuous improvement.

“We are assessing this program and holding it to the highest standard,” Marolla said. “We fail at times. But we learn from our failures.”

That’s also a message drilled into first-year students, especially those who believed that college was about partying, sleeping-in instead of going to class, or who sailed through high school without too much studying and thought they could sail through VCU the same way.

“I didn’t handle the freedom too well,” said Eric Ralls, a 19-year-old sophomore from Front Royal. When he started failing his courses during his first year, he didn’t handle that too well, either.

“I actually didn’t tell anybody. I was kind of afraid to tell my parents that I wasn’t doing well in school – they were helping me pay for college,” he said.

Ralls finally overcame his fears and told a trusted teacher about his problems. He soon was connected with the Campus Learning Center at University College, where there is help for students in academic trouble, as well as for high-performing students who want to learn more.

By the end of second semester, Ralls had pulled himself out of trouble, and was earning “B’s."

“If I were talking to a freshman, the main thing I would tell them is not to be afraid to ask for help. It’s that first step you have to overcome. Once you take that step and go to your first tutor or your first Writing Center class, everything will turn around,” Ralls said.

Undeclared majors

The largest major at VCU is “undeclared.” For many students, the longer they remain undeclared the more difficult university life becomes.

Undeclared majors can’t graduate. They are at high risk for academic failure, and for losing interest and dropping out.

“Those things fly in the face of why universities exist, especially VCU. We want students to succeed; we want them to make this a truly transformative experience,” said Art Esposito, director of University College’s Discovery Advising program, which focuses attention on undeclared majors.

Seth Sykes, Ph.D., assistant dean of University College, said that advisers such as Esposito help undeclared students, as well as other first-year students, establish a connection with VCU, and that can be the deciding factor in whether they remain at the university.

Between 2004 and the end of the 2007-2008 school year, the Discovery Advising program helped raise the first-year retention for undeclared students from 74 percent to 83 percent.

“We are one of the largest universities in the state, but in terms of the services we provide to freshmen, I think we can match up with any small liberal arts college – that’s the VCU difference,” Sykes said.

Christina Dick of Gloucester, a 21-year-old VCU senior, is grateful for that difference.

She was an undeclared major through the end of her sophomore year, but she said Esposito and other members of the University College team supported her, without forcing her to rush into something she wasn’t sure of.

“Mr. Esposito kept telling me that I was as good as any other student. He kept telling me to stay engaged,” Dick said.
With new confidence, she blossomed.

Dick is now majoring in Strategic Advertising in the School of Mass Communications. And like most VCU students, she is carrying a heavy workload outside of class.

She has an internship with a national advertising agency, she is director of advertising sales for the college newspaper and, on the weekends, she works in sales at a local shopping mall.

“I’m 100 percent happy with where my life is going,” Dick said.

And for Provost Stephen Gottfredson, the sting of a letter from a member of the Board of Visitors complaining about the writing in a job application from a VCU graduate has evolved into the university’s first-ever core curriculum.

That curriculum empowers VCU students not only with the skills for academic success but for lifelong learning.

University College, Gottfredson said, is about caring for young adults at a time in their lives when they are highly vulnerable.

“I’ve never forgotten that if I hadn’t had people who took care of me [as a student], I would probably be in a very different place right now,” Gottfredson said.