College receives Retention Excellence Award
7/28/2005 1:50:00 PM
July 28, 2005 - College of the North Atlantic is one of only three post-secondary institutions in North America to be named the winner of the Noel-Levitz Retention Excellence Award for 2005. The college won for its Access for Success initiative and will receive the award at the National Conference on Student Recruitment, Marketing and Retention taking place in Washington, D.C. from July 27-30.
Access for Success involves the assessment of students’ strengths and needs, the development of personal career plans, and the use of a student success tracking computer program and structured academic advising to ensure students are well suited to their program of choice, even prior to attending the college. The school developed pre-enrollment inventories to identify at-risk students early, as well as a Student Success Tracking System, a Web-enabled software package that tracks and monitors a student’s progress from pre-entry to post-graduation. During the program’s pilot, the retention rate on one pilot campus improved from 89 percent to 95 percent and from 83 percent to 88 percent on the other campus.
“We are delighted to receive this recognition from Noel-Levitz,” says Pamela Walsh, President of College of the North Atlantic. “We knew when we were developing Access for Success that it would be of great benefit to our students and result in greater retention rates. The results from our pilot projects, and this award are an affirmation of that.”
College of the North Atlantic, Newfoundland and Labrador’s public college, is the only Canadian educational institution to receive the Noel-Levitz award this year. The other two recipients are both US universities - Oklahoma State and Utah State.
The college offers a wide range of programming from its many campus locations throughout the province and still has seats available in some programs for September. For more information about College of the North Atlantic and its programs, visit their website at www.cna.nl.ca.
Noel-Levitz (www.noellevitz.com) is a nationally recognized consulting firm specializing in higher education student recruitment and retention. The Retention Excellence Awards Program was established by Noel-Levitz in 1989 to honor outstanding achievements in student retention by colleges and universities throughout the United States and Canada.
-30-
For more information contact:
Stephen Lee
Manager of Marketing and Communications
College of the North Atlantic
(709) 643-7929