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This paper aims is to present and discuss the personal and educational underpinnings of undergraduate and graduate students’ persistence decision, identify initiatives and strategies academic libraries are adopting which correlates positively with student retention, identify and discuss the main causes leading to attrition and present James White Library’s experience contributing to student retention efforts at Andrews University.

A bibliographic search using databases in the areas of education and library and information science was conducted to review the literature on the relationship between library use and services and university students’ retention.

The main overall factors which contribute to student retention are: user-centered philosophy; involvement and engagement; student identification and sense of belonging; academic success and achievement; and point grade average (GPA) in the context of libraries, the main factors which contribute (or correlate) to student retention are: library instruction; spaces which provide social interaction and learning; and general materials’ use.

This study does not provide results of actual in-person investigations conducted at libraries, rather, identifies presents, and discusses reported studies in the Education and Library & Information Science (LIS) literature.

A summary and structured presentation of the main issues concerning the library’s role in university student’s retention identifies the main personal, including non-academic and academic problems leading to student’s attrition, as well successful efforts and strategies which libraries are adopting to curtail this pressing problem within academic institutions. The paper can be used as general guidelines which academic library managers and library service providers can adopt to contribute to the university’s overall efforts to increase its graduation rate.

Higher education presupposes large expenditures from providers (Universities) and students. Millions of dollars are spent by both parties each year without yielding the expected results, considering that attrition levels can reach more than 40 per cent at any given university during an academic year in the USA. Also, purposeful or intentional expensive recruitment efforts and programs can be greatly curtailed by high attrition rates. However, these can be greatly diminished by successful retention strategies. Also, society is greatly benefited with the talents, skills, and services rendered by a professional with a higher education degree.

This study organizes and systematizes the many study results, ideas, and considerations concerning academic libraries and student retention which are dispersed in the literature of the field, allowing the reader and practitioner to better understand the theoretical and practical issues concerning this subject. It provides the reader with practical experiences and data which will enhance one’s decision-making process in developing retention policies and strategies at the library level.

The purpose of this study is to determine the extent to which academic libraries participate in and assess initiatives to increase or maintain student enrollment levels at colleges and universities in the US.

An online survey of academic library directors in the US was conducted. The 31 question survey was distributed via email to 321 librarians in the sample population. The survey response rate was 42.7 percent. Quantitative data were analyzed using SPSS 19.0 and qualitative data were coded according to recruitment or retention strategy.

Regardless of institution type or size, libraries in the sample population were just as likely to participate in recruitment and retention initiatives. However, some libraries stood out as particularly active in recruitment and retention initiatives. Indicators of active library participation were identified.

The response rate for the survey did not generate a statistically significant sample size, given the population. However, the data generated here contribute significantly to the relatively scant literature on academic library participation in retention and recruitment activities. The findings also suggest the need for the profession to focus on creating assessment tools to measure library impact on recruitment and retention.

No other studies have surveyed the academic library field to document the extent to which they participate in and assess recruitment and retention initiatives.

This study aims to examine the potentially important effects of academic embeddedness on college of business student retention and performance as well as the mediating effects of self-efficacy on the academic embeddedness student outcomes relationships. Improvements in student retention and performance reduce costs for students and universities and lead to higher incomes for graduates.

Data were gathered from students in an entry-level business course at a public university in a rural western state. Approximately 45% of the students were female, and the average age of participants was 20 years old. A survey was administered midsemester to gather data on academic embeddedness and self-efficacy. Retention was indicated by a student enrolling in a business course in a subsequent semester. Performance was measured using end-of-semester course grades. Logistic and linear regression as well as mediation analysis were used to test the hypotheses.

Academic embeddedness was found to positively predict both retention and performance, while self-efficacy was found to positively mediate the academic embeddedness retention relationship. The direct effect of embeddedness on performance was not found when controlling for self-efficacy.

Student retention and performance are important to both students and academic administrators. The findings of this study suggest that retention and performance can both be improved by focusing on factors that more strongly embed students to their colleges.

Embeddedness has been found to have high predictive validity in the employment context. This is one of the first studies to consider the effects of embeddedness in the academic context.

Purpose – Through a description of changes in institutional approaches to academic advising, this case study provides strategies for improving retention rates of first-year students deemed ‘at-risk’ of leaving university before second-year enrolment.

Methodology/approach – The study targets first-years who have been identified as ‘at-risk’ in the College of Liberal Arts (CLA) at Temple University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Temple is a large public research institution in the United States, home to approximately 35,000 full-time equivalent (FTE) students, of whom, 6,000 are enrolled in the CLA. The current case study focuses on the systematic and intentional processes developed by academic advisors or tutors in CLA to ensure students' progression from their first to second year. Project 2013, named for the intended graduation year of the initial target population, is a proactive retention initiative, and this study delineates the evolution of the innovation, development of the target group, project objectives, implementation of retention strategies, outcomes of the project, successes, limitations and future considerations.

Findings – Through sustained highly personalised interventions with first-year ‘at-risk’ students, the retention rate for this population improved by nearly 7% over the University's average for similar students and met the overall retention rate of the University's general student population.

Practical implications – The outcomes of this project suggest that with careful, strategic planning, clear execution by facilitators and ongoing assessment of such interventions, student retention and, by extension, persistence to graduation should improve significantly enough to warrant strong, ongoing institutional commitment.

This evaluation examines the impact of the academic and social connection efforts of the Multicultural Center for Academic Success (MCAS) Summer Bridge (SB) program on the academic performance and retention of its student participants. Specifically, the SB program incorporates academic and social connection theoretical frameworks provided by Vincent Tinto (1975) and Doug Guiffrida (2006), and this study seeks to ascertain the program’s impact on student performance and retention.

The study used an adaptation of the Pascarella and Terenzini (1980) Institutional Integration Scale Survey and focus-group interviews of past SB participants to provide data. Additionally, the study conducted a comparative analysis between SB participant grade point averages and persistence rates with general population students or students of color, a dominant demographic within the MCAS SB program.

The study finds a correlation between the academic and social connection efforts of the center, and the academic performance and retention percentages of its student participants.

Student achievement and retention are two important components that indicate the quality of a university. This is in line with one of the standards of university accreditations regarding the quality of students and graduates, which are set by BAN-PT, an institution that guarantees the quality of National Education Service delivery at every university in Indonesia. The purpose of this paper is analyzing the internal and external factors that contribute to academic achievement and student retention.

This paper is a causal explanatory-based study, using multiple regression analysis among five independent variables and two dependent variables separately. Several sequential tests are conducted to maintain the proper research results, such as reliability, normality, multi-collinearity and heteroscedasticity.

This paper provides empirical facts that student motivation has a significant positive impact on the level of student academic achievement, and the quality of lecturers has a significant positive impact both on student academic achievement and retention rates.

This study is conducted within the context of a university. The generalization in the study is low. Researchers are encouraged to explore further.

This paper is expected to provide constructive feedback to university management in setting policies that are oriented toward strategic actions to optimize academic achievement and maintain their students.

This paper provides insights of good university governance concerning in higher education management.

To provide insight into the relevant factors for faculty recruitment and retention that can help leadership of business schools to design and implement a tailored policy to recruit and retain academic talent in a highly competitive and international market.

Two surveys were sent out in parallel to deans/directors and faculty of 181 European business schools. A total of 42 important factors were selected and ranked in order of importance for both recruitment and retention of academic talent. In addition the faculty were asked to indicate to what extent they are satisfied with each of the factors in their current situation. Deans/directors were asked to indicate to what extent they felt able to influence each of the factors.

Factors of crucial importance for recruitment and retention were identified, both from the deans and from the faculty perspective. Perception gaps occurred between deans and faculty, as well as satisfaction gaps on important factors: this led to the identification of interesting policy problems and opportunities. Segmentation of the sample facilitated the demonstration of differences in perception between groups of faculty according to gender, age and rank, and between groups of schools according to legal structure, orientation, enrolment, and accreditation status.

Deans/directors of 69 European schools and 350 faculty members in 12 countries completed the survey. The database could be further enlarged to make more detailed analysis possible. Expanding the research to include schools of other continents would enable one to analyse cross‐continent differences between business schools.

The developed framework and the data provide an excellent opportunity for business schools' leadership to analyze the effectiveness of its policy and benchmark the school against a selected peer group.

The survey and the developed framework for analysis are unique and, in this form, have never been done before. The value of the paper is that it presents unique evidence on important factors crucial to faculty management.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relationship between ethical leadership and academics’ retention in universities. It draws on the conservation of resources theory to deepen the understanding of a process underlying this relationship whereby academics are more likely to stay in universities through the practice of ethical leadership. Specifically, it advances academics’ job-related affective well-being as a potential mediating mechanism, fostered by ethical leadership, which lowers their intention to leave.

This study is conducted through a cross-sectional survey of 303 academics in Australian universities. Univariate, bivariate and multivariate analysis procedures are deployed to analyse academics’ data. The research hypotheses are tested through a bootstrapped regression analysis of academics’ perceived ethical leadership, affective well-being and intention to leave.

The findings lend support to the hypothesised relations, indicating a significant role of ethical leadership on enhanced intentions of academics to stay in universities by directly conserving their job-related affective well-being.

This paper contributes to knowledge of the relationship between ethical leadership and academics’ retention by identifying job-related affective well-being as an underlying mechanism in the university sector.

This paper has practical implications for higher educational institutes seeking to retain their academic staff. Its findings show that the practice of ethical leadership in universities matters, because it lowers academics’ intentions to leave by nurturing their well-being at work.

This is the first study to examine the impact of ethical leadership on academics’ well-being and intentions to leave in the context of universities in Australia. It is one of the first studies to explore the mediating role of affective well-being in the ethical leadership and leadership and intention to leave relationship.

This study analyzed the impact on the persistence of Chilean university students who had received a government-guaranteed loan (CAE).

Using academic and administrative data from 2016 to 2019, provided by 11 Chilean universities, a discrete-time survival model was constructed. The model was based on data of 5,276 students in the 2016 cohort and included sociodemographic variables, academic background prior to entering university and academic performance once in university. As a robustness check of our results to observable confounding, the analysis was repeated using a control group constructed using propensity score matching (PSM).

The results reveal that students who receive a bank loan (CAE) were more likely to remain in undergraduate studies for at least the first two years of university, as opposed to their peers who did not receive financial aid. In addition, they show the importance of academic performance in retention.

The article advances in the identification of the impact of bank loans on permanence. Although previous research has evaluated the impact of the CAE, it has been conducted on small samples of students. These studies also lacked student records associated with their academic performance at the university. The present research overcomes both weaknesses, allowing us to estimate the impact of the CAE on a larger population of students that is representative of the system.

Multiple research studies show a positive correlation between library usage and student retention. At the same time, no formal research studies focusing on the effect of library usage on LGBT student persistence and retention exist. The purpose of this paper is to provide information about today’s LGBT undergraduates, their personal and academic needs, and how academic libraries may meet those needs.

The author will challenge the grand narrative perpetuated by LGBT librarians that “libraries save [LGBT] lives” through a review of existing research literature on LGBT undergraduates and their personal and academic needs, where libraries play a role in LGBT undergraduate life, and whether or not academic libraries actually meet those needs.

No formal research studies on how libraries play a role in the retention of LGBT undergraduates exist. While LGBT undergraduates share many similarities with their peers, they seek out resources and spaces that the library may be able to provide independently or through collaborations with other units on campus. The existence of campus LGBT resource centers may impact LGBT undergraduate use of libraries.

The author will provide suggestions for academic libraries to create appropriate resources, services, and spaces for LGBT undergraduates so that they persist at their institutions and graduate.

This is the first research paper to address the role that academic libraries play in LGBT student retention.