The fall semester of 2010 proved to be one for movement among students at Ottawa University.
Some students did not meet standards for grade requirements and they were released from the school.
Karen Ohnesorge, dean of students, said 27 students were let go, 21 of that number being first-year college students.
“It was an interesting result that I need to study in more detail,” she said. “One thing I was curious about was why so many were first-year students though. Usually there’s a spread.”
On the bright side, Ohnesorge said the fact that the number of sophomores and juniors declined in this department could be an improvement.
For a student to be academically ineligible at OU, Ohnesorge said a number of things can happen.
“If the grade point average is below one, or they were on probation before and didn’t improve, they can be dismissed,” she said.
Nino Straub, a senior and student senate president who tutors biology and psychology, said he was not too surprised by the number of students that ended last semester in trouble.
“Based on national stats, there’s quite a few students that think college is like high school,” he said. “They don’t commit the right amount of time.”
Ricardo Escalera, a junior-college transfer from Golden West College in California said he was surprised by the number of students let go.
“It surprised me a lot actually, because none of the new guys on the soccer team really had problems,” said Escalera, a member of the soccer team. “The curriculum doesn’t really seem that hard, compared to my junior college.”
Ohnesorge also said first-year students particularly are caught off guard by the requirements of college.
“Being a small private school, we can look at numbers and make changes right away,” she said. “When a student has a full-time load and classes, it’s harder because parents manage a lot for high school kids.”
However, if students are not happy with their dismissal, they have an opportunity to appeal it.
“We know there’s a big change from high school to college, and sometimes that shows up in their grades,” she said “Any time first-years are dismissed, they are encouraged to appeal.”
She said there are a few things the school is doing to decrease the number of students dismissed this semester.
“One of students most important relationships are with their Adawe advisers,” she said. “In a lot of cases, Adawe advisers were working with students to improve their grades, and they were also working with re-admissions.”
Ohnesorge said attendance is an early indicator of a student struggling, and through an early warning system, faculty and Adawe staff work to contact students when they learn of attendance problems.
She said another thing the university is trying to stress is the student services program.
“We’re targeting high risk classes and making sure we have students to tutor those classes,” Ohnesorge said. “We look at any class that has a lot of first-years, a lot of breadth area classes and content-heavy classes like biology and sociology.”
Straub said having a tutor can be a big help to students, and may even be the difference between passing or failing.
“I think having a tutor increases the chances for a student’s success,” he said. “As a biology student, you know what teachers are looking for, and other tutors know more about their subjects. Personally, I have students tell me they do better in biology after I’ve helped them.”