Nature-based instruction offers students the benefts of experiential learning while spending time in nature. Research supports nature-based learning (NBL) with younger students (Pre-K-12), yet there is a dearth of research focused on students in post-secondary education. To advance research in higher education, an NBL project was launched with 16…

Student retention is important to any university, especially keeping commuter students who are traditionally less anchored in campus life. Even more at risk, given the leaky STEM pipeline, are STEM commuter students. In 2016, Valparaiso University launched the Establishing Practices Integrating Commuter Students (EPIC) program, centered around…

Qualitative research on the first-year experiences of Black male commuter students entering institutions of higher learning is necessary to provide a deeper look at institutional and individual factors that these students may experience, which impact their academic success. Understanding the issues that affect Black male college students in…

While a growing body of research supports active, student-centered approaches to teaching, the implementation of such methodologies in the undergraduate STEM classroom has not been widespread. In an effort to increase student success in an introductory course for biology majors, we developed Biology Boot Camp, a peer-led program based on active,…

Utilizing event history analysis and multilevel models, this study explored dropout risks for first-time nontraditional students who started at public 4-year commuter institutions across a U.S. Midwest state. The study revealed that (a) the dropout hazard rate remained relatively high across college years and differed by gender, race, and family…

College student adjustment, success, and retention have been a focus of college administrators and student development professionals for decades. However, national college retention and graduation statistics are typically focused on traditional, residential, full-time, college populations. The purpose of the current study was to examine more…

The purpose of this study was to expand the literature on student persistence in community colleges through three research innovations. First, the literature on student persistence in community colleges was expanded by applying theory to the identification and testing of predictors. Second, it was expanded by validating retention prediction…

Many urban and commuter universities have their sights set on students who are unlikely to connect with the college and likely to fail unless the right strategies are put in place to help them graduate. In efforts to improve retention rates, commuter colleges are looking to an unusual suspect: residence halls. The author discusses how these…

This study sought to conduct an assessment of a transfer retention program at a four year, commuter institution, and to examine its influence on the retention and academic performance of transfer students. A mixed methods case study utilizing both institutional quantitative data and qualitative interviews investigated the influence of this program…

The purpose of the study is to compare the student profile characteristics, which were categorized as demographic, prematriculation, and matriculation, between traditional residential and commuter students at a public, research, commuter university. Using status attainment as the theoretical framework, the researchers employed a discriminant…

This study tested Pascarella's reconceptualization of Tinto's model of the persistence/withdrawal process for use in a non-residential institution. Subjects (n=372) were college freshmen who had attended freshmen orientation and had completed an opinionnaire both during orientation and at the end of their first year in a medium-sized, urban…

"Lumina Foundation Lessons" is an occasional publication in which the foundation shares the results of its grantees' work on strategies to improve the persistence rates among Indiana's underserved college freshman and sophomore populations. This issue, the first in the series, contains the following articles: (1) Summer Transition…

Examines the impact of inner-city values on the social adjustment of inner-city commuter students. Notes that inner-city commuter students can be affected by the social climate of a college by becoming part of mainstream or marginal groups or failing to develop social connections within the college. Describes methods for helping this population…

Retention of college students in a special developmental program in the School of General Studies at Purdue University, Calumet (Indiana), was studied. Data were gathered from fall 1981 through spring 1984 on 245 students who completed developmental studies program requirements (24 hours) and transferred to a degree-granting school. Success was…

College and university students who live in campus residence halls are found to have a significant educational advantage over those who commute to campus, either from their parents' homes or from apartments or other off-campus housing. Residence hall dwellers are better off financially, educationally, and in other ways to begin with. Then, largely…