AIR will be offering the following virtual workshop.

Increasing student retention is one of the most common priorities on an institution’s strategic plan.

Federal compliance reporting requirements focus only on first-time, full-time freshmen in retention calculations and exclude transfer and part-time students. Furthermore, reporting only shines a light on one-year retention and graduation, rather than the experience of the full population along the entire student life cycle. Finally, focusing on overall retention trends obscures the experience of underserved student subgroups.

The National Student Clearinghouse’s Postsecondary Data Partnership (PDP) dashboards can help data professionals better understand which students are leaving and when.

In this interactive session, facilitators will demonstrate how institutions have used the PDP dashboards to answer these questions. Participants in this session will have an opportunity to conduct their own inquiries using their institutional dashboards and will share their findings in a community of practice. Answering these types of questions will help institutions and data professionals to inform strategic planning and achieve institutional priorities.

As a result of this workshop, participants will:

• Understand how to use the Postsecondary Data Partnership dashboards to deeply understand trends in undergraduate retention.
• Practice using PDP dashboards to identify institution-specific findings pertaining to retention.
• Explore reflective questions to help turn insight into action.
• Discuss how to share this information with institutional stakeholders to build buy-in and create change.

This intermediate-level workshop is designed for current PDP users who have experience with basic PDP dashboard navigation. The workshop focuses on the Retention/Persistence and Credit Completion Ratio dashboards, so you must be familiar with their definitions and navigation. Registration closes April 25 or when seating capacity is reached.