Albert B. Smith

Early, Regular, and Late Registration and Community College Student Success: A Case Study.

This study had two purposes. The first purpose was to determine t he differences between students enrolling during the three phases of registration (early, regular, and late) in a two-year college. The second purpose was to suggest late registration policy and practices that might improve student success. Registration time, academic records, and demographic information were collected from a stratified random sample of students at one community college in the fall of 1998. Students were grouped according to type (new and returning) and registration time (early, regular, and late). The sample consisted of 86 new students (55 regular and 31 late registrants) and 165 returning students (55 from each phase of registration). Analysis of 2covariance and chi-square tests were used to analyze the data. The major findings were as follows. For both new and returning students, late registrants were shown to be much less likely to persist to the spring semester than were early (returning students only) or regular registrants. Of the new students, 80% of regular and 35% of late registrants were retained to the next semester. For returning students, 80% of early, 64% of regular, and 42% of late registrants were retained. Differences in withdrawal rates were also significant for both new and returning students. New students who registered on time (regular) withdrew from 10% of their course hours while those who registered late withdrew from 21%. For returning students, early registrants withdrew from 5% of their course hours, regular registrants withdrew from 4%, and late registrants withdrew from 13%. Returning students also differed in their semester grade point average (GPA) and their successful completion rate based on their time of registration.

Effective Strategies for Enhancing Minority Faculty Recruitment.

Two‐year colleges reportedly have enrolled a disproportionately large number of minority students, but minority representation among full‐time faculty members in these colleges is low. In this study institutional data on the numbers of minority full‐time 2‐year college faculty are provided, and the type of strategies presently being used by 2‐year institutions to recruit minority faculty members are discussed in detail. Strategies that are found to be particularly successful in facilitating the recruitment of minority faculty include hiring minorities to serve as chief academic administrators, hiring minority faculty for ethnic studies departments, having minorities serve on the board of trustees, recruiting minorities in private industry to teach part‐time, and canceling positions without minority applicants.

Chief Academic Officers and Support for Instructional Effectiveness.

This study focused on the level of perceived commitment for instructional improvement among 2‐year college chief academic officers (CAOs). A second aspect of the research was to determine if the level of perceived commitment to instructional effectiveness differed between 2‐year and 4‐year CAOs and, if so, in what ways. Data were collected through mail surveys to 1,243 2‐year college CAOs. Survey data from 712 community college CAOs confirmed limited support and commitment among these respondents for instructional effectiveness in their institutions. A comparison of these data with data collected from an earlier study of 1,328 4‐year college chief academic officers showed that both types of administrators reported a relatively low level of perceived commitment to activities designed to improve the teaching/learning process. In a number of instances, 4‐year college and university CAOs reported higher levels of support for specific instructional improvement activities than their 2‐year college counterparts.