What is Success?

Photo by Emily Ranquist from Pexels

Success – it’s one of those words we all know and use. On campus we talk about student success quite a bit. But when I ask people to define it, the question often that question seems to stump them. I think because they assume we all have a common understanding. Surely it means that students are successful, doesn’t it? However, after working for many years in Texas when the definition of student success was ‘graduation in four years’, I know better. Graduation in four years is one definition of student success, but there are others.

When I was at UTSA, the provost and I were trying to solve a math problem. We were graduating about 5,000 students every year, but we weren’t moving the needle on retention. This conversation took place in 2012, so I asked the registrar to give me data on the starting semester for everyone who had received an undergraduate degree in calendar year 2011, spring, summer, and fall. It was a very interesting chart. There was a bump of graduates at two years prior (transfer students) and four years prior (first-year students) and then there was this really long trail stretching back into the 1980s. Yes, you read that right, the 1980s. We had students who graduated in 2011 who were first enrolled in 1985.

I then asked the registrar to pull the transcripts for the 20 ‘oldest’. And those transcripts were not pretty. These students had failed, withdrawn, changed majors multiple times, had long gaps, and generally done everything we know hinders graduation. And yet, they had walked across the stage and gotten their diploma sometime in that year. That’s persistence and perseverance. I’m sure it’s not what any of them had planned for their college experience, but they kept coming back. They found a way to complete their degrees. And to me that’s student success.

This week’s quote comes from an article in The Chronicle of Higher Education about the success of a six-time drop-out, Freddie Shegog. It’s a long article, (see the link below) but worth the time to read. It is a good reminder of all that our students carry with them onto campus and into the classroom.

Just what is success and are we able to recognize it when we see it? How do we help other recognize success in its many forms. And then, how do we create campuses that support student success in all shapes and sizes, not simply the ones for which we get credit? Important questions for us all to consider.

Take care,

Gage