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Building social connection without the pitfalls of social media by Frank E. Ross III, PhD, Vice President for Student Affairs, Butler University January 24, 2024 Institutions should prioritize opportunities to help students develop healthy social connections and foster meaningful relationships with other students

Webinar invite: Black, transfer, male, first-gen enrollment & retention w/Cal State leaders on Jan 24, 2024

On-demand Replay: Butler University is widely recognized for innovative student support practices and making data-driven decisions. Using Nearpeer to cultivate healthy peer engagement early in the student journey is an example of how Butler continuously evolves their approach to new student transition and first-year experience.

Excerpt: “For those in the know, or who follow the razor’s edge world of college recruitment, boosting enrollment is gold. But also boosting retention, as was shown in this study, is platinum.”

In this groundbreaking study, California State University, Northridge (CSUN) studied how increased belonging & peer connection via Nearpeer impacted enrollment across 12,000 incoming Fall 2022 students from summer 2022, on to the start of their first term (Fall 2022), and first-year persistence into Fall 2023.

Excerpt: “As vital as institutions’ support services are to cultivating student belonging, many miss the mark, especially among Black students and other persons of color. Thanks in part to feeling a lack of belonging, Black students have lower six-year college completion rates, according to the Lumina Foundation. However, a new study out of California State University, Northridge illustrates that minority and underresourced students introduced to a third-party peer connection tool improved their retention and overall enrollment rates.”

Session topic: The untapped power of belonging – Increasing enrollment and retention of priority student populations including Black, Transfer, Male, and First Gen students. https://aacrao.secure-platform.com/a/gallery/rounds/106/details/28517

Wally Boston shares his perspective on Nearpeer as President Emeritus at American Public University System and General Partner of Green Street Impact Partners.

Controlled-Trial Case Study: How Belonging Improved Enrollment and Retention at One of America’s Most Diverse Universities

Dr. Curtis Wright, Vice President of Student Affairs at Xavier University of Louisiana, presents at a U.S. Senate Hearing on Youth Mental Health. In his testimony, he describes how the “prevalence of anxiety and depression is rising across the nation, particularly among young people,” and that, “college students of all ages are more distressed than ever.”

In one of the most popular sessions at AACRAO SEM 2022, the first results of Cal State Northridge’s 12,000 student student on belonging & Nearpeer were revealed. This study is the largest and newest of its kind.