Team Leaders and the Honors Freshman-Year Experience (1) (Student Recruitment and Retention) (Statistical Data‪)‬

In this article, we report on an effective means to enhance the honors freshman- year experience and thereby reduce the high rates of attrition commonly associated with the first year in college. Research by Tinto (1975; 1987) has shown that academic as well as social integration contributes to student persistence and success in college. Consequently, the successful transition from high school to college requires that freshmen make adjustments both academically and socially. The lack of integration in either of these domains will reduce student persistence and increase the likelihood that students will be college dropouts. The effects of academic and social integration are particularly acute during the first year of college, as borne out by statistics indicating that student attrition is greatest during the freshman year. For instance, Levitz and Noel (1989) report that there is a 50% decrease in student attrition rates per year in college. Moreover, among all freshman drop-outs, half occur during the first six weeks of the first semester (Myers, 1981). Fostering a successful freshman year is the most significant intervention that can increase student persistence (Levitz and Noel, 1989). At many large campuses, some students, particularly freshmen, will develop a sense of isolation and social alienation. The consequence is that these students will be less engaged in their studies and campus activities. Results from the National Survey of Student Engagement (Kuh, 2003) suggest that, while there is a great deal of variability, smaller schools generally engage students more effectively than larger schools. Because of our large campus, we wanted to minimize possible feelings of isolation and social alienation in our Honors freshmen. Therefore, the Team Leader program that we describe here was designed to increase the academic and social integration of these students. In developing this program, we considered the following goals for the freshmanyear experience as outlined by Upcraft and Gardner (1989):