Report #4 on Theme I, Issue No. 1: What Encourages and Supports Learning Both In and Outside of the Classroom?

Many of our most important and systematic learning support systems are operated under the Office of the Dean of Undergraduate Studies. http://ug3.csusb.edu/ug3/index.html
These include:

In recent years Undergraduate Studies has realized that early outreach and providing academic support and preparation is vital component of college success and Undergraduate Studies has developed a number of related projects, including I'm going to College, Pre-collegiate Academic Development program, http://ug3.csusb.edu/PAD/PAD%20Home.htm the Alliance for Academic Preparation http://ug3.csusb.edu/AAP/aap_home.htm, and a Gear-Up grant project. The payoffs for these pre-college programs may be long-term, but clearly are central to our mission, strategic plan, and role as a educational service provider to the Inland Empire region.

One of the central functions of the Undergraduate Studies area is to provide encouragement and support to students to enable learning to take place. Some of the departments in Undergraduate Studies provide programs that are designed to encourage students; other programs are designed to provide more direct learning support. This report will discuss both kinds of programs. Two programs provide both kinds of service: the Educational Opportunity Program and the SAIL program.

Educational Opportunity Program (EOP)

Description and Analysis of Program. The Educational Opportunity Program (EOP) was established in 1969 via the Harmer Bill, Senate Bill 1072. EOP adheres to specific guidelines established in the chancellor's office, which incorporates the legislative requirements contained in the Harmer Bill. The Educational Opportunity Program is designed to improve access and retention of low-income and educationally disadvantaged students. EOP students have the potential to perform satisfactorily in CSU but have not been able to realize their potential because of their economic or educational background. EOP at CSU San Bernardino processes approximately 1,000 applications for freshmen and transfer students annually; admits approximately 450 - 500 freshmen and transfer students per year and enrolls approximately 300 freshmen and transfer students. The total EOP campus head count is approximately 1,100 students at any given time. The plethora of EOP Alumni includes college and university professors, elementary and secondary teachers, corporate executives, college administrators, clinical psychologists, criminal and corporate lawyers and corporate partners and associates.

The program provides admission, academic, and financial assistance to EOP-eligible undergraduate students. EOP admits low-income and educationally disadvantaged undergraduate students who require admission assistance and support services to succeed at the university. Students must demonstrate academic potential and motivation, must be California residents, and all EOP students must meet the income criteria established by the CSU chancellor's office. EOP applicants may access information and download both the Campus and EOP application forms from the campus website at http://ug3.csusb.edu/eop/index.htm, or from the Internet at www.csumentor.edu/planning/eop.asp.

The array of EOP support services provided to all first-year and probationary students includes academic and probationary counseling and advising. These supportive services confirm the widespread theoretical notion of affirming the successes and persistent efforts of first-generation college students early and deliberately during the first-year of the matriculation process-thereby supporting the goal of increasing retention and reducing attrition for these traditionally "at-risk" student populations. This EOP approach to academic advising, promulgated by the National Academic Advising Association (NACADA) at www.ksu.edu/nacada, continues to demonstrate a continual and marked improvement in the retention and persistence of this highly diverse population of first-year admitted EOP students at CSUSB.

Individual, group, career and financial aid counseling are provided to foster personal, social and academic adjustment and success. Probation counseling includes needs assessment, scheduled intervention services and development of a recovery action plan to reduce attrition and improve student retention.

In order to facilitate a positive transitional experience into the university environment, EOP provides all first-year students with summer and fall orientation sessions. These sessions include information regarding campus policies and procedures of both the campus and EOP program, as well as an overview of the university curriculum.

Ongoing evaluation of student progress is conducted using an EOP developed mid-quarter evaluation tool. Feedback provided by the faculty assists EOP in increasing overall student performance through mid-term intervention and adjustment. Another method by which EOP promotes student academic success for all first-year students is through mandatory tutorial services provided by the campus-tutoring center.

Supplemental financial assistance is available to all EOP students in order to offset educational-related expenses and improve student retention.

Ongoing encouragement is promoted to assist undergraduate EOP students wishing to continue through the baccalaureate degree into graduate school. Information about graduate entrance requirements, admissions tests, personal statements and overall entrance procedures are provided.

Effectiveness and Outcome. Over a period exceeding three decades, the EOP admissions and support services staff served more than 6,500 CSUSB students, with nearly 30,000 applications processed since the 1969 statewide inception of the program.

On average, 300 new freshmen and transfer students matriculate through the EOP program at CSUSB annually. These newly matriculated students represent 11% of the total number of full-time equivalent undergraduate new students admitted to the university. Data derived from the Fall 2002 census report list 2,783 FTES new undergraduate students admitted as of October 9.

To promote a positive transition experience, EOP advises all first-year freshmen students into courses, that will enhance success during the critical first year of student retention. One such example is the CSUSB Freshmen Seminar Course, entitled USTD 100a. On average, EOP admitted freshmen students comprise greater than 70% of the total enrolled students in the USTD 100A course sections.

Annually, EOP graduates more than 200 CSUSB students. This percentage of graduating EOP students is commensurate with the same proportion of non-EOP students graduating each year from the university (Office of Research & Policy Analysis, Undergraduate Studies, December 2002).

Data derived from long-term tracking demonstrate that EOP consistently maintains comparable retention rates from year to year with non-EOP admitted freshmen. First-time freshmen persistence rates, over a seven year tracking, show EOP freshmen students graduating at levels parallel to those of the university's persistence rates, when compared to the same proportion of first-year freshmen considered non-EOP admitted (Office of Research & Policy Analysis, Undergraduate Studies, December 2002). To achieve this level of parity is a testament to the effectiveness of EOP because approximately one-third of EOP students are special admits and come to the campus with greater needs, academically, than do regularly admissible students.

Each term, mid-quarter evaluations are distributed to the CSUSB faculty requesting an update and information about the EOP students enrolled in their respective courses. This EOP progress report process is strongly supported by the CSUSB faculty, as evidenced by a mean average of 66.27% rate-of-return of completed evaluations returned to EOP each term.

Another measure of success with services to EOP students lies with the EOP graduate information sessions and is reflected in the number of EOP McNair scholars at CSUSB. The McNair scholars program provides faculty and student support to a selective number of students who will likely pursue doctoral level education when they graduate from CSUSB. Over the past four years (1998-2002), EOP students comprised 18%, 12%, 33% and 18% respectively of the 1998 through 2002 summer McNair scholars program (Data provided by the McNair Scholars Program, CSUSB).

Over the years, EOP evidence of student success is also reflected through the number of scholarship awards provided to EOP students. Such awards include the Taft T. Newman Memorial Scholarship; Inland Valley Professionals Scholarship; EOP Graduate Scholarship; Rosa Brown Scholarship; The Academic Merit Award Scholarship; The CSUSB Alumni Association Scholars Program; The Associated Students, Incorporated; Association of Latino Faculty/Staff/Students Scholarship; Black Faculty/Staff Scholarship, and many others. One major endowment held exclusively for EOP students is the JoAnn Vance Memorial Scholarship. This annual award assists EOP students, through the generosity of the Vance Corporation and Foundation - one of the largest female-owned highway construction firms in the State of California. The endowment, established by former EOP student, graduate, and founding corporation president, JoAnn Vance, continues to award scholarships exclusively to CSUSB EOP students every year at the EOP graduate reception ceremony in the spring.

Ongoing improvement of EOP program services and operations are reflected in the following areas. EOP counselors have been assigned to serve as liaisons with campus departments and colleges. These partnerships allow for a constant flow in the dissemination of current, up-to-date information from the counselors' respective liaison assignment area to other professional staff at CSUSB, as well as with the EOP Director. CSUSB EOP staff also serve on community college advisory committees such as the Extended Opportunity Programs and Services/Cooperative Agencies Resources for Education (EOP&S/CARE) at both the San Bernardino Community College and Riverside Community College Districts. EOP staff members serve on county advisory committees such as the CalWORKS advisory committee for both San Bernardino and Riverside counties, the Indian Child Welfare Group and the High Desert Native American Community Group - as well as serving as executive board member of the Inland Area Native American Association (IANAA). EOP professionals also serve as active participants in the California Placement Association, which is a coalition of employment professionals in business, education and government, which promotes building linkages among working professionals involved in job development and placement programs-established in 1969. EOP Counselors also serve as adjunct faculty in both undergraduate and graduate programs, both at CSUSB and within the local community college area.

Continuous recruitment and outreach efforts as well as professional staff training on EOP program and services at CSUSB are provided as part of EOP's ongoing efforts to improve and augment CSUSB's recruitment and outreach effort in areas that are deficient in freshmen student representation. EOP outreach and recruitment include high school and middle school recruitment activities in the Coachella Valley, Palm Springs, Cathedral City, Indio and Imperial Valley. These efforts include student and parent presentations, as well as counselor in-service training on EOP services to high school counselors, administrators and students. Also targeted as potential EOP freshmen students are those high school students participating in the Advancement through Individual Determination (AVID) programs - all of whom are identified as historically economically disadvantaged students with strong potential and determination to succeed beyond high school.

Additional outreach and recruitment efforts will include targeting the high-risk Native American populations underserved at this university. Plans are in development to host an on-campus EOP tour and luncheon for 50 Native American students from the Torres-Martinez Tribal Reservation in Thermal, California. This is an especially important activity given the very low matriculation and graduation rates of Native American students on our campus.

Most recently, EOP conducted several on-campus visitations and tours of CSUSB campus facilities and PowerPoint® orientation workshops throughout the fall, winter and spring terms, in order to augment the outreach and recruitment efforts to local area high school seniors interested in admission to CSUSB through EOP.

Other outreach and partnership activities conducted by EOP included outreach to local community college Extended Opportunity Programs and Services (EOPS) staff, administrators, faculty and students. Past successes include a first "EOP Round Table" event. These events included selected community college EOPS Directors and Counseling Faculty along with the EOP professional staff whereby the two factions developed strategies to strengthen the already strong collaboration efforts in assisting EOP-eligible EOPS students at their respective colleges.

Future activities and events at augmenting the strong partnership between EOP and the community college EOPS programs include the development and planning of an "EOP/EOPS Day." This event will include 100 potential EOP-eligible transferring students from five of the local community college EOPS programs. Orientation to the EOP program and requirements at CSUSB, a transfer student specific tour of the entire university campus, as well as visits and orientation to other services available to students at CSUSB will be provided to those student participants.

Recently, EOP sponsored a 4-part series for all incoming transfer students entitled "Transfer-Success Workshops." Plans for future workshops are under development and the turnout for such events appears very promising.

The foregoing activities provide strong and active encouragement for students as they plan their educational futures to include CSUSB.

EOP Evaluation and Implementation

Annual EOP admissions and recruitment reports are provided to the EOP Director from the EOP staff to assess, analyze and improve the continued delivery of admission and support services to all current and incoming EOP students. Also, an annual Summer Transition and Enrichment Program (STEP) report is provided to the EOP Director from the STEP coordinator to assess, analyze, and improve the continued delivery of supportive services to all current and prospective summer bridge students.

The EOP program conducts an annual student satisfaction survey of all first-year freshmen and transfer students, with the rationale being to determine the level and usefulness of the support services provided and to augment, adjust, and improve the utility and effectiveness of these services. Six consecutive years of assessment yielded both criterion and anecdotal evidence that strongly support that EOP students are highly satisfied with the array of supportive services they receive. Furthermore, EOP students rate high levels of satisfaction in areas of services such as EOP admissions, range and use of counseling services, EOP program hours of operation, students' perceptions of counselor effectiveness and impressions of EOP physical facilities.

Annual and regular updates and changes to the EOP survey instrument occur each testing cycle-e.g., the original 1997 EOP Student Satisfaction Survey consisted of eight pages and seventy questions. The current 2002 survey instrument is seven pages in length, with 58 questions, with greater and more usable data derived-data which aids EOP in improving the delivery of more efficient and useful support services to the EOP student community at CSUSB.

The EOP website is updated to ensure that accurate information and appropriate links are available to individuals perusing the Internet. The site is available at the following link: http://ug3.csusb.edu/eop/index.htm.

Student Assistance in Learning Program

The second program which provides both encouragement and direct support is the Student Assistance in Learning (SAIL) program. SAIL is the University's federally funded Student Support Services (SSS) project, and it serves 325 students each year. Eligible participants are students from low-income families, students whose parents have not earned a bachelor's degree, and/or students with a learning or physical disability. The goal of SAIL is to provide supportive services to students to ensure their success at the university and their eventual graduation, and in some cases, to assist students in gaining admission to graduate school.

In a 1997 Department of Education study of the "best practices" of SSS projects, it was noted that the most successful ones have several things in common: extensive student contacts, academic support for developmental and popular freshman courses, a "home base delivery model," and participation incentives. SAIL continues to shape its services to meet the needs of CSUSB students while keeping in mind those retention strategies that have proven effective nationally. SAIL Project services include, but are not limited to:

SAIL Academic Advising: Assistance with course selection, choosing a major, goal setting, study skills, etc. Advising may include personal and career counseling as well as assistance with financial aid materials. Academic progress is monitored quarterly. Students earning a 3.0 and higher GPA are placed on the SAIL Honor Roll published in the quarterly newsletter. Students with a GPA lower than a 2.0 are sent a letter encouraging them to seek assistance.

During AY 2001-02, SAIL provided 2301 hours of academic and financial advising, as well as personal, career and transfer counseling to over 278 participants. Ninety (90) percent of project participants completed the year with a cumulative GPA of at least 2.0. In addition, there was a 97% fall to spring retention rate for participants.

Adjunct Instruction: 2-unit supplemental classes taught in conjunction with many general education courses. Although the obvious goal of the adjunct is to help students earn the best grade possible in the course for which the adjunct is offered, emphasis is placed on teaching study skills that can be applied to all courses.

During AY 2001-02, 158 students were enrolled in adjunct courses. Typically, students who complete an adjunct course earn grades of "C" or better in higher percentages than students in the same "content" course who do not take the accompanying SAIL adjunct course. Statistics for the fall quarter 2002 follow:

The Percentage of Students Earning Grades of "C" or Better in the Content* 1 Versus the Accompanying Adjunct Course
Course	Regular Course Content Only	Course Plus Adjunct Instruction
COMM 120	NA**	100%
HIST 146	53%	59%
MATH 90 (Sec 5)	14%	11%
MATH 90 (Sec 8)	47%	75%
MATH 110 (Sec 2)	74%	83%
MATH 110 (Sec 11)	56%	67%
PSCI 203	70%	78%
PSYC 100	66%	80%

 

COMM 120 (All Sections)
	Regular Course Only	Course Plus Adjunct Instruction
Grades of "C" or better	NA**	100%
Course GPA	NA**	3.07

HIST 146 (Ponce)
	Regular Course Only	Course Plus Adjunct Instruction
Grades of "C" or better	53%	59%
Course GPA	2.03	3.09

MATH 90 (Sec 5)
	Regular Course Only	Course Plus Adjunct Instruction
Grades of "C" or better	14%	11%
Course GPA***	2.4	2.0

MATH 90 (Sec 8)
	Regular Course Only	Course Plus Adjunct Instruction
Grades of "C" or better	47%	75%
Course GPA***	2.29	3.0

MATH 110 (Sec 2)
	Regular Course Only	Course Plus Adjunct Instruction
Grades of "C" or better	74%	83%
Course GPA***	3.0	3.02

MATH 110 (Sec 11)
	Regular Course Only	Course Plus Adjunct Instruction
Grades of "C" or better	56%	67%
Course GPA***	2.87	2.5

PSCI 203 (LeMay)
	Regular Course Only	Course Plus Adjunct Instruction
Grades of "C" or better	70%	78%
Course GPA	2.26	2.52

PSYC 100 (Agars)
	Regular Course Only	Course Plus Adjunct Instruction
Grades of "C" or better	66%	80%
Course GPA	2.13	2.52

*The content course is defined as the class for which the adjunct course is offered.

**Because students enrolled in the COMM 120 adjunct course may be enrolled in any COMM content course, the stats from the content courses are not calculated.

***Grades for the math courses include only those students earning grades of "C" or better since "NC" (No Credit) can be any grade below a "C". Because of this, these numbers may not reflect an accurate comparison.

Enrichment Activities: Events include student leadership conferences, the SAIL Recognition Reception, cultural celebrations, Movie Days, and other informal gatherings. Such activities provide another way for students to gain a sense of belonging to the project and to the campus.

Over the past two years the Project has experimented with a variety of new enrichment activities. Acknowledging that, 1) over 70% of SAIL participants are women, and 2) it is difficult to know for certain what types of activities will appeal to students, the staff set out to plan many different events. What we discovered was that anything goes! Activities that have drawn large numbers of happy students have included: Make Overs, Craft Days, Decorate a Pumpkin, Create a Valentine and a presentation entitled "Healthy Relationships," and Movie Days during finals week complete with popcorn, soda and candy. Further events include a Mardi Gras celebration and the commemoration of Black History month in February and Women's History month in March. Having fun is, of course, one of the objectives, but more importantly, these activities provide students with an opportunity to connect with staff and with one another. During a typical hectic week, our students regularly comment on how nice it is to have a place to take a break. During these times we have an informal chance to catch up with students who we might not see otherwise. Monitoring of student progress is necessary, but SAIL unobtrusive methods make it enjoyable for everyone.

Quarter KickOffs: Workshops offered in a mini-conference format the first or second Saturday of each quarter. The day typically begins with a general session conducted by a campus faculty or staff member, followed by two breakout sessions. Workshop topics have included "Overcoming Math Anxiety," "Learning Styles," and "Job Interview Skills." The purpose of the KickOff is to provide tips that will be useful to students throughout the quarter, expose students to other campus personnel and resources, have campus faculty and staff get to know SAIL, and provide an opportunity for staff and students to interact outside of the traditional office setting.

This activity was established after it was obvious that getting students to attend noontime workshops would be difficult. These Saturday sessions give students a needed boost early in the quarter and give the project an opportunity to present several workshop topics in one morning-so everyone gets the most "bang for their buck." Bringing in campus faculty and staff as presenters helps to familiarize students with other staff and services available on campus. In addition, this activity helps to showcase the SAIL Project to University personnel who may not be familiar with SAIL. What we have found is that our students benefit from becoming better connected to the campus and we are better able to advocate for our students when the campus community it familiar with our staff, our students, and our services.

Reading Assistance: Offered for two-units of credit, the College Reading course is designed to help students improve reading speed, vocabulary, and comprehension. The Advanced Reading class is a more challenging course that includes assistance with the reading sections of standardized tests such as the CBEST and GRE.

Continued analysis of the College Reading course (USTD 045) indicates that students who complete this two-unit course show improvement in at least one area (vocabulary, comprehension, reading rate). More importantly, all students indicated in an exit survey that they felt that they gained tools that would benefit their overall academic performance.

Study Marathons: Held from 9 am to 4 pm the Saturday before final exams each quarter, the marathon provides academic and moral support. The SAIL, Learning Center and Writing Center areas are used for quiet study, adjunct course reviews session, one-on-one math and writing assistance, and group study sessions. The SAIL computer lab is available, test taking strategies workshops may be offered, and lunch is provided. The obvious perk is a place to study other than the library, but the true value may be in the camaraderie developed through getting through stressful times with other students, in a supportive and informal setting.

The Educational Opportunity Program and the SAIL program provide services to a targeted population. Other programs in Undergraduate Studies provide services to any student who wishes to avail him or herself of those service. Two programs which directly support student learning are the Writing Center and the Learning Center.

The Writing Center

The Writing Center is a joint project of Undergraduate Studies and the College of Arts and Letters. The Writing Center works to support both specific writing projects and writing as a mode of learning by:

An essential feature of the Writing Center's work is that consultants write WITH writers, never FOR them. They work to preserve the integrity of writers' ideas and plans, even as they challenge writers to interrogate and contextualize these ideas within existing scholarship and discourse conventions.

The Writing Center has taken on two major projects during the last five years:

The Writing Center also creates important learning communities. Student writers connect with consultants and begin to see themselves as writers supported by an ongoing network of other writers. Consultants, many of them prospective teachers or professional writers, create a second learning community in which they can situate the composition theory they are studying in class within live writing locations. Faculty members, consultants, and students who meet both formally and informally to discuss writing and composition issues constitute a third community. These include both campus and off-campus groups, such as a monthly gathering of writing center directors from area community colleges. Finally, faculty, consultants, and students involved in online consulting create a fourth learning community.

The director is a tenured English Department faculty member; many of the 25-30 writing consultants are graduate students in the University's MA in English Composition program, while others are graduate and undergraduate students from disciplines across campus. Collectively they conduct roughly 10,000 face-to-face and online writing conferences each year in addition to the class workshops, ESL conversation groups, and WAC activities.

Writing Center Contributions

Writing consultants work with students and faculty in all disciplines at all stages of their composing processes. They help students interpret assignments, discover topics, expand ideas, clarify organization, incorporate counter-arguments, cite references, edit, and proofread. Most commonly, student writers make appointments to work on essays, research papers, abstracts, lab reports, creative writing (poetry, short stories, and novels), speeches and presentations, essay test preparation, resumes, and application essays for scholarships, grants, and graduate schools.

Consultants also help ESL students negotiate linguistic and cultural differences in oral and written composition. In addition to conferences on specific writing projects, consultants also conduct conversation groups that help students understand American academic discourse structures, cultural contexts, and idiomatic expressions.

As part of the University's writing-across-the-curriculum program, consultants work with faculty members who are designing and evaluating writing components of their courses, and they read and respond to faculty members' manuscripts in preparation. The writing workshops that consultants conduct in classrooms across the disciplines enact and model collaborative writer-to-writer pedagogies for both students and faculty.

In addition to supporting students as writers, the Writing Center creates a learning community for consultants, an intellectual hub for reading current scholarship, analyzing writing conferences, examining theory/practice connections, and connecting all of these activities with their other academic work and career choices. These discussions often lead undergraduate students to move into graduate programs, and they encourage both undergraduates and graduates to become active scholars. For example, during the last five years, 48 Writing Center consultants have been presenters at national and regional conferences such as the Conference on College Composition and Communication, the International Writing Centers Association, the National Writing Across the Curriculum Conference, the Feminism(s) and Rhetoric(s) conference, and the Pacific Coast Writing Centers Association Conference. In addition, eight consultants have coauthored book chapters, and one has co-edited a book. Topics include the intersections of reading and writing, intellectual property and text ownership, collaboration, voice, language and multiculturalism, native and second-language speakers, academic discourse communities, and research methodologies.

The 306/WREE/WAC activities create a third learning community. The 306 program anchors the upper division writing program, and the faculty WAC seminar helps faculty members integrate writing into their coursework as well as prepare to teach the upper-division writing course (306). The Writing Center then follows up with faculty as they request continuing consultation on assignment design and in-class writing workshops to support their expanded uses of writing.

The newest of these learning communities is emerging with the faculty and students who use online writing consultation. After piloting several forms of online consulting with students on the Palm Desert campus, the Writing Center's associate director has expanded this online option to students enrolled in Saturday and late evening classes as well as selected daytime classes. Because the Palm Desert and distance learning students have been particularly pleased with this "live" connection to the San Bernardino campus and because the Saturday and late evening students appreciate this otherwise unavailable access to writing consultants, we have expanded this online availability as rapidly as technological and human resources have allowed.

Evaluation. The attachment shows the last several years of Writing Center activity, illustrating one kind of success: a growing demand for writing conferences. In addition, responses from quarterly student and faculty member questionnaires indicate the various ways the Center enriches academic life.

Student Comments. Students' most frequent comments are that consultants help them see their own writing through the eyes of an intelligent, interested reader, a friendly critic. Students note that even though they often come in hoping consultants will write or edit their papers for them, they discover, even more usefully, that consultants help them figure out how write their own papers. The quarterly student questionnaires demonstrate that students consistently believe Writing Center conferences help them write more fluently. Most left their conferences with clear ideas about what to do next, were satisfied with their conferences, would continue to use the Writing Center whether their instructors required attendance or not, and would recommend the Center to other students.

Faculty Comments. Faculty members characterize the Writing Center as a safe place where interested and engaged readers help students better understand their assignments as well as their own composing processes. Generally, faculty comment that students who use the Writing Center contextualize their assertions more thoughtfully and write better organized, more substantive essays.

Faculty members also comment that the WAC seminars and class workshops let them see how writing helps students learn the subject matter in their courses as well as become better writers. Faculty who ask consultants to read their assignments before they give them to students note that the consultants offer valuable feedback on the difficulties students will encounter with specific assignments and thus help faculty write clearer assignments.

TA coordinators uniformly report that students who have worked as writing consultants are very successful TAs. Because they have looked carefully at the intersections of theory and practice, read many syllabi and writing assignments, and worked alongside students writing those assignments, these TAs are well prepared to teach in their own composition classrooms.

Consultant Comments. Almost without exception, consultants see their Writing Center experiences as pivotal in their development as writers, teachers, and scholars. They note that their extensive exposure to writing assignments, syllabi, composition, faculty and classrooms, and student writers helps them become more capable, confident scholars. Being able to attend and present at national conferences "rocks," says one consultant. "It lets me really see our field and imagine some of the places I want to go in it and figure out how to get there." Graduates of the MA in English Composition program who teach in area high schools and community colleges routinely remark on their Writing Center work as extending their interests in composition and enriching the contributions they are able to make in their professional lives.

A review of Writing Center work supports several conclusions:

Learning Center

The Learning Center provides a variety of free academic support programs for CSUSB students. These include tutoring for many undergraduate courses (except English/writing courses which are supported by the Writing Center), use of computers, and general study aids. In addition, testing is administered for students needing make-up exams, student enrolled in self-paced courses, and for those taking challenge exams.

In AY 2001-2002, the Learning Center did a study of the number of contacts with students (http://ug3/ug3/docs/wasc/LCSUBGRP.doc ). This study provided empirical evidence to support the observation that the Learning Center is a highly utilized resource for students. The Learning Center recorded 24,180 student contacts. At first glance, it would appear that students are primarily coming to the Learning Center to use the computers in the computer lab. Computer Lab use accounts for fifty-nine (59) percent of the student contacts. Sixteen (16) percent of the contacts were for tutoring. The other services provided by the Learning Center account for the remaining twenty-five (25) percent.

While the greatest number of contacts was for use of the Computer Lab, that does not tell the real story of the need in the Learning Center. The Computer Lab is open to nearly anyone. Non-matriculated students occasionally use it after coming in to see the advising video. Graduate students use the Computer lab. Finally, the Computer Lab is open and available for use twelve hours a day. The Learning Center has had a reduction in the number of available tutors and tutoring hours as a result of increases to the minimum wage the university is required to pay student employees. If the Learning Center had additional tutors, there would be additional contacts for those in need of tutoring.

The Learning Center was able to demonstrate that students who make use of its services derive a direct benefit from that use. Clicking on the link below will take you to a table that shows that students who received tutoring from the Learning Center have a higher rate of retention than do those students who have not received tutoring from the Learning Center (http://ug3/ug3/docs/wasc/LCRETNUP.doc ). Their study covered the period from Fall, 1995 through Fall, 1998. The difference in retention was as much as twenty percentage points.

The greatest number of tutor visits is for tutoring in mathematics. Accounting, physics, and biology are also all very popular subjects. There is enough demand for those subjects that the Learning Center usually tries to have someone who can tutor in each of those areas. Tutoring is limited to undergraduate students who are currently matriculated, and that decrease the number of student contacts.

Students from every college and virtually every department benefit from the Learning Center as can be seen on the chart on the spreadsheet at (http://ug3/ug3/docs/wasc/LCUSERS.xls). The greatest number of student contacts come to the Learning Center from the College of Natural Sciences and from the College of Arts and Letters.

In addition to the programs already mentioned, the university regularly offers a First-Year Seminar for freshmen and transfer students. We also have a Faculty Student Mentoring program. Both these programs attempt to help students make a smooth transition from their previous institutions (whether that was a high school or a community college) to CSUSB. The First-Year Seminar is a two-unit course that covers a range of subjects including time management, study skills, and social interaction. Students come away from the course with clear contacts to university personnel and a better understanding of the culture of the university. In short, the course creates a strong connection between the student and the university.

The Faculty Student Mentor program matches experienced students with new students as mentors. The program provides an instant link to someone who cares about that new student. The mentors make, as a minimum, weekly contact with their protégés. Again, the primary purpose is to create a bond between the new student and the institution. The bond helps the new student get through those difficult first days and weeks and settle in to become a part of the university.

Research and Policy Analysis in Undergraduate Studies

All these above programs have led to stronger retention. The Director of Research and Policy Analysis in Undergraduate Studies has done a report that shows the impact of its programs on student retention.

Undergraduate Studies provides a wide range of programs and services to CSUSB students. A primary goal of the units is to have a positive impact on student persistence and graduation. The Research & Policy Analysis Office (RPAO) has been tracking student persistence since its inception in 1991. Prior to that time, the Director developed the Longitudinal Tracking System (LTS) in the spring of 1985 while serving as the director of the Educational Opportunity Program (EOP). As the University has grown, the rates of persistence have increased over time for both First-Time Freshmen (FTF) and transfers. The fall 1985 FTF cohort (442 students) had a one-year continuation rate of 68.55%. The one-year continuation rate peaked at 77.58% with the fall 1998 cohort (1,093 students). Between fall 1995 and fall 1999, the mean one-year continuation rate has been 73.90%. The FTF cohort has increased by 147% while the one-year continuation rate has increased by about eight percent. A reasonable expectation for improvement in our one-year continuation rate would be between .55% and .70% per year.

Methods. The Undergraduate Studies Local Area Network (USLAN) was conceived and implemented for the express purpose of enabling departments in the UGS unit to collect and maintain data on services provided to CSUSB students. This brief report will begin a series of reports on outcomes based on students' participation in services and programs provided by Undergraduate Studies. The initial report will focus on fall-to-spring persistence rates for First-Time Freshmen (FTF) in two groups. The first group is students who participated in any of the services or programs provided by Undergraduate Studies. The second group is students who did not participate in any of our programs. Participation was determined by each department verifying a student ID for their participants during the fall 2000 term. A database for each department was maintained on the USLAN and the RPAO Director aggregated the records to create a single database with one unique student ID for each participant. The fall 2000 ERSS file was used to extract the FTF tracked by this study. The student ID in the USLAN database was compared to the ERSS file to determine the class level of all students served. Persistence was determined by tracking enrollment in the winter and spring terms based on a matched student ID in the ERSS files. The programs and services tracked in the USLAN were: