The National Resource Center for the First-Year Experience and Students in Transition awarded Lance Vanderberg, assistant director of the Academic Enrichment Center at Taylor, the Outstanding First-Year Student Advocate award.
The University of South Carolina created the Center, which “serves education professionals by supporting and advancing efforts to improve student learning and transitions into and through higher education,” according to their website.
In pursuit of this goal, the center runs conferences, publishes the Journal of The First-Year Experience & Students in Transition and awards those excelling in their field.
As part of receiving the award, Vanderberg represented Taylor at the 44th Annual Conference on the First Year Experience in New Orleans, Louisiana. The conference included sessions on first-year courses, best practices for the first-year experience and listening to other professionals regarding their experiences in the field.
According to a Taylor press release, Taylor President Michael Lindsay nominated Vanderberg for his multifaceted approach to student success. Vanderberg seeks to integrate a focus on student retention which is the percentage of students who re-enroll at a university year to year.
“We have much higher retention rates than most institutions and high retention rates even compared to our historical highs.” Vanderberg says. “We’ve recently been hitting above 90% retention — and that was very rare in the past.”
The retention rate across American higher education institutions during the 2023-24 school year was 77.5 percent, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.
One of Vanderberg’s main roles is the oversight of Taylor’s Transition to College Program, designed for students in need to reach their full potential. As part of the program, students receive one-on-one advising with academic coaches, including Vanderberg. Students also take classes to learn skills necessary for university life, such as deep learning and time management.
Vanderberg graduated from Indiana University with a Ph.D. in higher education and wrote his dissertation on the application of data to higher education. Since arriving at Taylor, Vanderberg has continued his focus on collecting attendance data.
“Whenever students leave the institution, I do an interview with them and gather feedback from them about their experience at Taylor and why they’re withdrawing,” Vanderberg said. “So we have a lot of qualitative data, but we’ve also gathered quantitative data in areas like cost of attendance and withdrawal trends. And so we compare those things together and really show trends and retention at Taylor.”
Vanderberg’s approach has had a positive effect on the retention rate of the freshman class.
While the official numbers won’t be out until the start of the next school year, 98% of freshmen have chosen to return for the spring semester.
Despite his success, Vanderberg remains humble amidst his accolades.
“Retention is the job of everyone at the university,” he said, “and I’m only one piece of that.”
