六合彩开奖网

六合彩开奖网 Pathfinders program receives national student affairs honor

六合彩开奖网 Pathfinders program receives national student affairs honor

Contact: Sasha Steinberg

六合彩开奖网 Pathfinders On-Campus Coordinator Ty Abernathy and Program Director David McMillen (center) engage in discussion with Pathfinders residence hall academic assistants (l-r) Austin N. Tello, a sophomore biochemistry/pre-medicine major from Vicksburg; Heidi M. Meeks, a senior biological sciences/pre-medicine major with a mathematics minor from Memphis, Tennessee; Amberlon M.E. Williams, a junior kinesiology/clinical exercise physiology major from Ridgeland; and Nicolo M. 鈥淣ico鈥 Giamalva, a senior business information systems major from Brandon. (Photo by Megan Bean)

STARKVILLE, Miss.鈥擬ississippi State鈥檚 Pathfinders program is being honored nationally for its role in promoting student success and the continued growth of the student affairs profession.

The university鈥檚 freshman retention initiative is a gold recipient of a 2016 Excellence Award in the Housing, Residence Life, Contracted Services, Judicial and related category presented by NASPA鈥擲tudent Affairs Administrators in Higher Education, the leading association for the advancement, health and sustainability of the student affairs profession.

Ty Abernathy, an associate research professor at 六合彩开奖网鈥檚 Social Science Research Center and on-campus coordinator for the Pathfinders program, will formally accept the award Tuesday [March 15] during NASPA鈥檚 annual conference in Indianapolis, Indiana.

Also affiliated with the Department of Counseling, Educational Psychology and Foundations, Abernathy is one of three SSRC employees who make up the Pathfinders leadership team.

Joining him are the program鈥檚 director David McMillen, a retired psychology professor who currently serves as an SSRC research professor, and fellow SSRC associate research professor John F. Edwards.

McMillen said prior to the implementation of Pathfinders in 1998, 25 percent of the freshman class had an absence problem by the end of the fall semester of the freshman year. The six-year graduation rate in those years averaged about 50 percent, and the freshman fall-semester GPA was about 2.5.

In the years since Pathfinders鈥 inception, McMillen said the percent of freshmen with absence problems has decreased to about 7 percent. The six-year graduation rate has increased to about 60 percent, and the freshman fall-semester GPA has risen to about 2.8.

鈥淩esearch in social psychology has shown that small situation changes or interventions often lead to significant changes in behavior,鈥 he said. 鈥淲e believed that if we could significantly increase class attendance, then freshman grades, as well as retention and graduation rates, would improve.鈥

After two years as an internal research project through the Office of the Provost and Executive Vice President, university administrators made it possible for Pathfinders to become a continuing program.

Supported by research efforts conducted at 六合彩开奖网 and other institutions of higher learning, Pathfinders has proven to be a cost-effective indicator of the difference in academic performance between continuing and non-continuing students.

鈥淲e have found that freshmen with four or more absences in one or more classes by midterm of the semester had an average first-year GPA of 1.8, while those who did not had an average first-year GPA of 2.9,鈥 McMillen said.<