Introduction

Jouf University places great importance on its students and strives to provide care and attention, deliver outstanding educational services, and monitor students’ progress and integration throughout their university life to achieve their academic plans efficiently and effectively.

Student retention is an important measure of the University’s success in fulfilling its mission toward students. However, basic statistics fail to reveal relevant information about students who stopped studying or dropped out, and the reasons for their non-return are not precisely known. This highlights the importance of adopting evidence-based retention and completion procedures and providing and analyzing information and feedback. Moreover, the desire to improve student retention requires the University to establish a more accurate strategy to address this issue. In other words, answering two essential questions regarding student retention: Why do students leave? and why do students stay? Typically, the first question receives more focus, drawing attention to dropouts and studying the reasons for their withdrawal, while the latter question—concerning why students continue—is rarely addressed, although it emphasizes the University’s commitment to keeping them enrolled. It is therefore necessary to adopt a methodology that answers both questions.

Through this policy, Jouf University aims to increase the retention rate of first-year students and ensure they do not drop out, as well as to increase the completion rate of other students within the time frame of their study plan. This includes determining how to support students who need help to achieve success or maintain it, as well as ensuring the participation of all relevant sectors and defining their responsibilities and roles accurately as one of the key best practices to raise completion rates and retain students at the University.

Policy

Jouf University seeks to achieve high student retention rates. The University recognizes that student retention begins with admission policies and practices, which reflect on the student’s success and continuation at the University. Therefore, the University refines its admission policies to better enhance student retention.

The University creates a distinctive learning environment that helps students graduate within the specified time period, known as institutional retention. It emphasizes good practices that raise student retention rates, such as facilitating full-time attendance, first-year common programs in some majors, activities that help students clearly define main and professional goals, enabling participation in student activities at the University, and providing the appropriate major for the student. This contributes to forming a positive image of the University, faculty members, the program, courses, and academic life.

The University adopts a comprehensive strategy to increase its students’ completion rate. This includes many tools such as financial rewards for successfully enrolled students, ensuring students understand their academic options, academic advising to guide students to adhere to study plans, contacting students eligible for registration to ensure they have done so, assisting students to enhance continuous progress and guiding them to integrate into university life from admission to graduation, and creating conditions for all students’ success. This shifts the focus away from only “at-risk” students academically and instead emphasizes good administrative systems and providing the necessary resources for a successful teaching and learning experience.

Policy Implementation Procedures

Several procedures are implemented at different levels as follows:

First: Procedures at the Vice-Rectorate for Educational Affairs

• Study the status of retention/completion rates from a comprehensive perspective according to the following variables and factors:
  • Demographic Variables: Include family circumstances such as parental support, education and income, pre-university academic success, first-year common curriculum for some colleges, and friends enrolled in the college.
  • Organizational Factors: Include ease of admission and registration, rules and regulations, financial rewards, orientation and induction programs, participation in decision-making through membership in student clubs and advisory councils, staff treatment of students, consideration of conditions for students with disabilities, and provision of services such as parking and campus safety factors at the main campus and branches.
  • Academic Factors: Include the appropriate major, courses, positive interaction of faculty members (inside and outside classrooms), provision of academic advising, absenteeism, general skills programs (e.g., life skills and basic study skills), and campus services (e.g., computer labs, library, sports halls, transportation), as well as student interaction with faculty members.
  • Social Factors: Among the social factors affecting retention are having close friends on campus, peer culture, and informal contact with faculty members, which supports a positive multicultural environment.
  • Environmental Factors: Include continuous parental support, limited transfer opportunities, financial resources, other family responsibilities, marriage, and working while studying.
• Orient new students to introduce them to the University, academic programs, and requirements for continuing study.
• Use the academic system to track all student records, their academic progress, and fulfillment of graduation requirements.
• Ensure up-to-date, real-time data availability to the Vice-Rectorate for Educational Affairs and colleges.

Issuing periodic academic progress reports:

• Prepare annual or semester reports summarizing student progress at the program and institutional levels.
• Include data on at-risk students such as:
  • Students with low cumulative GPAs.
  • Students who have not met credit-hour requirements.
  • Students with repeated failures.

Continuous Improvement Mechanism:

• Analyze trends from semester student data to identify systemic issues affecting their progress.
• Implement regular updates to advising practices, curricula, and academic policies based on results.
• Document all improvements and submit periodic reports for institutional and accreditation purposes.

Communication with stakeholders:

• Publish summarized data on student progress and improvement initiatives to stakeholders, including students and faculty members, via the website or academic boards.

Collaboration with colleges:

• Share periodic reports with concerned colleges, highlighting points needing intervention.
• Hold mid-semester meetings between the Vice-Rectorate and colleges to discuss:
  • Cases of struggling students.
  • Evaluation of the effectiveness of supportive measures.
  • Propose policy amendments based on findings.

Second: Procedures at the Deanship of Admission and Registration

• Provide direct contact information to answer inquiries related to admission and registration procedures.
• Announce admission regulations through multiple channels such as program guides, majors, and course catalogs.
• Make statistical data available on students and their cumulative GPAs for each program and college at the main campus and branches, for both male and female students.
• Find systematic solutions and options to address the status of struggling students.

Regular Review of Academic Records:

• Conduct semester reviews of students’ academic records to evaluate performance indicators such as:
  • Cumulative and semester GPA.
  • Earned hours compared to program requirements.
  • Cases of academic warnings or suspensions.
• Verify students’ adherence to their academic plans and detect any discrepancies to address them.

Verification of graduation requirements:

• Create an electronic checklist for each student including:
  • Completion of required credit hours.
  • Completion of core and elective courses.
  • Submission of final projects or theses (if any).
  • Fulfillment of practical training or internship requirements.
• Match data with graduation standards approved by the colleges.

Final graduation audit:

• Approve a final review process for graduation requirements including:
  • Data auditing by program coordinators.
  • Final approval by the College Dean.
  • Issuing graduation eligibility certificates electronically.

Third: Procedures at University Academic Advising Departments and Units

• Implement various strategies to address challenges related to failure in retention, dropout, or low completion rates.
• Provide group advising sessions as additional support for students.
• Offer necessary academic and psychological support and counseling for new and continuing students referred by colleges.
• Train faculty members to acquire distinguished academic advising skills, act as educational university mentors, and handle different student learning styles.

Fourth: Procedures at College Academic Advising Units

• Assign an academic advisor to each student to provide academic support, considering advising scope.
• Early detection of first-year student dropouts.
• Early detection and classification of struggling students, identifying reasons for their difficulties, and submitting statistical reports to the competent authority.
• Review improvement plans at the department level to increase student retention and completion rates, overcome any obstacles to implementation, and provide technical support.

Fifth: Procedures at the Program Level

• Train faculty members on academic advising skills, how to identify and support struggling students, and where and when to refer students for academic support.
• Prepare comprehensive reports to monitor new students and track their academic progress or difficulties.
• Regularly follow up on students who have not achieved the minimum success in assessments and tests (utilizing formative assessment), develop proposals for solutions, and implement them while referring students to the competent authorities if needed to diagnose the case and provide necessary support.
• Discuss academic and non-academic reasons for difficulties reported by academic advisors in official councils and take appropriate corrective actions.
• Survey students’ opinions in each course and discuss their proposals and obstacles hindering their success to address them early.
• Study reasons for low success rates in courses and work on solutions.
• Support a peer interaction culture by involving senior students in the major to help first-year students.

Handling non-compliance cases:

• Form a committee within each college to address cases of students not complying with academic requirements.
• Provide tailored recommendations such as extending the study period or reducing the course load.

Sixth: Procedures at the Faculty Member Level

• Announce academic advising hours at the beginning of each semester through official channels.
• Focus on formative assessment (feedback) for students on coursework and periodic tests.
• Monitor student attendance, record repeated absences, and submit reports for necessary action.
• Classify cases of difficulty into academic and non-academic reasons, propose suitable solutions, and submit reports to the competent authorities.
• Escalate student cases needing more academic or psychological support to the competent authorities.

Seventh: Procedures at the Deanship of Student Affairs

• Allocate seminars to educate new students and increase their awareness of university life by providing guides on university activities and student services, as well as supporting student participation in extracurricular activities such as student clubs and their activities.
• Honor outstanding students.

Metadata Template

Approved by the Competent Authority,

Vice-Rector for Educational Affairs

Dr. Alaa bin Saleh Al-Arjan