Freshmen not pulling the grade

One hundred and eighty of Georgia College & State University’s 900 first year students earned lower than a 2.0 grade point average last fall, university officials said.

Of the 900 freshmen enrolled fall semester 2002, 81 of those 180 students did not return this spring semester.

According to data provided by Jim Purcell, director of Institutional Planning & Policy Analysis, 775 freshmen had HOPE fall semester, while 125 did not. Of those students who came to GC&SU without the HOPE scholarship, 33 percent now have under a 2.0 GPA. Sixteen percent of students who came to GC&SU with HOPE, received under a 2.0 at the break.

Purcell said the criminal justice program had the highest number of freshmen students to make a 2.0 or lower in their fall semester. Out of the 19 freshmen criminal justice majors, 30 percent or higher made less than 2.0. The other departments with low fall freshmen GPAs are English (21 freshmen majors), math (11), accounting (20), computer science (20), arts (18), theater (12) and music (10).

Dr. Michael Digby, chair of the government and sociology department, attributes the criminal justice majors’ low GPAs to a statistical quirk.

“I don’t think that one semester is a clear indication of a pattern,” Digby said. “You need to have more long term data to compare. It just so happened that this year a larger number of criminal justice students didn’t do well.”

“This discovery is especially helpful for future planning because we may be able to target new students in these majors with additional support mechanisms during their first semester,” Purcell said.

Pre-early childhood education and history seemed to escape the curve. Pre-early childhood education had 47 freshmen majors and eight percent of those students had a 2.0 or lower. History had 8.7 percent of its 23 freshmen students end the semester with a 2.0 or lower.

Only 15.6 percent of freshmen with an undecided major finished the semester with a GPA below 2.0.

The data can also be broken down according to gender. Male freshmen were twice as likely to have under a 2.0 than females. Out of 900 full-time, first time freshmen, 338 of them were men. Even though the men made up about one third of the freshmen class, they were counted as 53 percent of the total students under a 2.0.

“The transition to college seems to be more difficult for men than women. I think men have a greater difficulty with adapting to the new found freedom of college,” Purcell said.

Shaina Brown, director of the Center for Student Success said the university sent letters over Christmas break to the homes of freshmen making a 2.0 or below fall semester from the office of the Dean of Arts & Sciences. These students were offered the opportunity to attend two special learning strategy classes taught by Dr. Georgia Newman, temporary associate professor of English.

Brown, Newman and Purcell held focus groups with the students that didn’t do well.

“The number one reason students aren’t succeeding is a complete lack of time management skills,” Brown said. “Their high school experience is very routine, classes Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. through 3 p.m. They had the same classes everyday with the same students. In college; however, there are so many personal choices a student has to make with class times and schedules. Students must learn to establish their own work ethic. The second reason students aren’t succeeding is because they don’t know how to use the student support center. They don’t really know what is offered to them in Lanier Hall.”

Follow up studies were conducted earlier this semester in English 1102 classes on what things students thought impacted their first semester grades the most.

“Students under a 2.0 identified ‘poor study skills,’ ‘time management,’ ‘poor eating habits’ and ‘poor class attendance’ as factors that negatively influenced their academic success,” Purcell said.

Several student services are offered in Lanier Hall that are most beneficial to students which include the Center of Student Success, Counseling Services, the Learning Center and the Writing Center. The counseling services provide personal counseling as well as personal career counseling, personality tests and study skills. The Learning Center has computer lab tutorials, drop in tutors for core classes and four study rooms with blackboards. Graduate students pursuing Masters degrees staff the Writing Center and are available to help students with theme development and paper analysis. It doesn’t have to be an English paper either; it can be for any class. The Career Center helps students with interviewing skills, resume writing and issues career tests.

“All of these services are paid for by your student activity fees so students should take advantage,” Brown said. “Please come take advantage of the services. It doesn’t matter what your major is or how far along you are, I will get you the help you need.”

To help students achieve academic success, Brown wrote an academic classes planner. It was required text in the 2001 freshmen seminar classes. The planner includes a list of services offered by the Office of Student Success, an academic calendar, sports calendar and a page that tells students the correct way to calculate a GPA.

“I think we have a tremendous responsibility to help students find and use the resources available to them,” Brown said.

Posted by Colonnade Archives on Feb 21 2003. Filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry