Does sustainability have any correlation with the retention of college students? It’s a significant and timely question, according to Kevin Adkins, sustainability officer at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville.
Adkins and Dr. Connie Frey Spurlock, SIUE faculty sustainability fellow, presented the topic: “Sustainability: A Solution to Student Retention” at the most recent SIUE Chancellor’s Council. Adkins and Frey Spurlock gave the same lecture last month at the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education’s (AASHE) National Annual Conference in Nashville.
“We wanted to look at the relationship between a school’s sustainability practices and its retention and graduation rates for students,” said Adkins.
The Sustainability Officer compared schools and categories based on AASHE’s Sustainability Tracking Assessment & Rating System (STARS). “STARS is a transparent, self-reporting framework for colleges and universities to measure their sustainability performance,” according to AASHE’s website.
“Looking at all 234 of the schools participating in STARS, of which SIUE is one, we found an average student retention rate of 83 percent and an average graduation rate of 66 percent,” Adkins said.
The student retention rate at SIUE is 70 percent and the graduation rate is 52 percent, he said. Adkins and Spurlock also looked at schools cited in U.S. News & World Report, the Princeton Green Review, a selection of public schools in the Midwest, among others.
“The first thing we saw is that schools that practiced green habits had higher retention rates,” Adkins said. “We see a correlation, but we can’t say there is causation yet.
“This is preliminary research designed to open the door on further discussion. We received a lot of interest at the conference, and several schools wanted to start a discussion with us. We’re glad that SIUE is out front on this topic.”
Also presenting at the conference were two SIUE students: Mark Veverka, president of the Student Organization for Sustainability (SOS), and Shikha Kahlon, vice president of SOS.
“SIUE has the potential to be a university sustainability superstar,” Adkins said.
Southern Illinois University Edwardsville provides students with a high quality, affordable education that prepares them for successful careers and lives of purpose. Built on the foundation of a broad-based liberal education, and enhanced by hands-on research and real-world experiences, the academic preparation SIUE students receive equips them to thrive in the global marketplace and make our communities better places to live. Situated on 2,660 acres of beautiful woodland atop the bluffs overlooking the natural beauty of the Mississippi River’s rich bottom land and only a short drive from downtown St. Louis, the SIUE campus is home to a diverse student body of nearly 14,000.