2008 Woodie Awards
Letter to the Editor
Issue date: 9/5/06 Section: Opinions
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Dear Editor:
At the end of the last week of my first year here at Smith, I wrote President Christ an email. I felt compelled to send it to her after talking to student after student in the class of 2009 who have considered or actually are transferring schools, not to mention graduates of the class of 2006 who had plenty to say about the changes since they were first-years. Our retention rate is under 90%, and that is a huge, huge problem -- to put it another way, an 89% retention rate means that more than 1 out of every 10 Smith students doesn't return for her sophomore year! Why is the first year experience at Smith so terrible for so many people? I know there are other students who notice and care about the problem of retention rate, and I am concerned by President Christ's response, which I feel reflects a greater unwillingness to discuss Smith's fundamental challenges. I ask you to publish my letter and Christ's response in the hope that it will spark a discussion and help us fix whatever has gone terribly wrong at this school. You have only to pick up the most recent issue of The Sophian to see the disparity between the starry-eyed prospective students and the disillusioned graduates and alumnae who have lost interest in donating to this institution. To ignore this problem is to resign ourselves to a disaffected administration, a disgruntled student body, and decreased alumnae donations at the very time we need to invest in change.
Dear President and Committee Members,
I attended two of the planning teas with President Christ, and each time brought up (and heard others bring up) a key term that I find absent from the online report -- retention rate. Thinking I might have missed it while reading, I searched the document and, to my distress, found the phrase missing. Perhaps it is because I am a first-year that the issue of retention rate is foremost in my mind, but it seems to me to be too big of a problem to leave out of our long-term goals.
At the end of the last week of my first year here at Smith, I wrote President Christ an email. I felt compelled to send it to her after talking to student after student in the class of 2009 who have considered or actually are transferring schools, not to mention graduates of the class of 2006 who had plenty to say about the changes since they were first-years. Our retention rate is under 90%, and that is a huge, huge problem -- to put it another way, an 89% retention rate means that more than 1 out of every 10 Smith students doesn't return for her sophomore year! Why is the first year experience at Smith so terrible for so many people? I know there are other students who notice and care about the problem of retention rate, and I am concerned by President Christ's response, which I feel reflects a greater unwillingness to discuss Smith's fundamental challenges. I ask you to publish my letter and Christ's response in the hope that it will spark a discussion and help us fix whatever has gone terribly wrong at this school. You have only to pick up the most recent issue of The Sophian to see the disparity between the starry-eyed prospective students and the disillusioned graduates and alumnae who have lost interest in donating to this institution. To ignore this problem is to resign ourselves to a disaffected administration, a disgruntled student body, and decreased alumnae donations at the very time we need to invest in change.
Dear President and Committee Members,
I attended two of the planning teas with President Christ, and each time brought up (and heard others bring up) a key term that I find absent from the online report -- retention rate. Thinking I might have missed it while reading, I searched the document and, to my distress, found the phrase missing. Perhaps it is because I am a first-year that the issue of retention rate is foremost in my mind, but it seems to me to be too big of a problem to leave out of our long-term goals.
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