Collaboration, Policies, and Programming: Advising Administrators’ Perspectives on Academic Recovery

Low enrollment numbers pose a significant challenge for various types of colleges and universities. National enrollments for undergraduates are projected to increase only slightly or to flatline through 2024 (Hussar & Bailey, 2016). To address this issue, rather than simply recruiting new students, many institutions have shifted attention towards retaining current students. However, retention has also proved challenging. Although higher education institutions seek an aspirational first-to-second year persistence rate of 80%, the national benchmark rate remains at 73% (Frederick et al., 2018).

Academic advising administrators are increasingly burdened with supporting overall university retention efforts (Frederick et al., 2018; Schneider et al., 2017). Tinto (1975, 1993) predicted that nearly 15-25% of student departure is correlated with academic dismissal, a set of policies used to remove students who do not make satisfactory academic progress (Cornelisz et al., 2019). Academic advising offices have focused on academic recovery to help retain students heading towards dismissal. Academic recovery is a performance-based approach targeting students who do not demonstrate satisfactory academic progress based on minimum continuance standards, typically a 2.0 cumulative grade point average (GPA; Frederick et al., 2018).

Many institutions have developed a webbed process of academic recovery that includes academic warning, probation, and suspension.¹ Academic probation is a curtailed period, ranging from one academic semester to an academic calendar year, in which a student must meet the academic continuance minimum. Academic warning is a “last-chance” attempt in which the student only has a single or specific semester in which to meet the academic continuance minimum before they are no longer allowed to enroll. Academic suspension is a stop-out approach in which the student must meet specific academic criteria to re-apply to a committee for admission consideration. Academic suspension usually allows the student to re-enroll after one semester or academic year.

To help students navigate these policies, many institutions have implemented what McGrath and Burd (2012) identified as academic recovery programs. These programs focus on developing student self-confidence, academic skills, and utilization of campus resources to prevent academic dismissal (Mathies et al., 2006). However, evaluations suggest that current academic recovery approaches are ineffective and may even negatively impact student persistence (Lindo et al., 2010; Sneyers & De Witte, 2017, 2018). Therefore, academic recovery programs need to be carefully researched and evaluated to better ensure their efficacy.

Rationale for current study

Academic advising administrators often have many responsibilities and coordinate a range of retention initiatives. These include coordinating academic support services, tutoring centers, writing centers, and advising offices (Hamman, 2014; NACADA, 2017). Advising administrators hold a unique position as middle management, charged with the exceptional task of executing institutional strategic initiatives while advocating for students. Their unique positionality allows them to gain insight into the many cogs that work to advance individual student persistence towards academic recovery. However, no current research explores academic advising administrators’ roles in or perspectives on academic recovery, and these programs are scantly examined in the literature in general. To address this gap, this study draws on interview data to describe mid-level administrators’ perspectives about and experiences with academic recovery programs. The goal is to uncover common features of recovery programs and concerns or challenges administrators face in implementing or managing them.

Literature Review

There is scant literature on academic dismissal, probation, warning, suspension policies, or recovery programs. Existing research focuses on individual student persistence to explain outcomes, rather than retention programs or policies offered by higher education institutions. Frederick et al. (2015) termed this individual student focus the “fundamental attribution error of higher education” (p.1), in which colleges and universities assume that all students are admitted under the pretense that they are “college ready” without consideration of pre-college factors, identity development, or social justice issues among student populations. Prior to the 1970s, student departure was attributed to individual student psychological factors, as those who did not persist were labeled as less motivated or less capable (Tinto, 2006). Frederick et al. (2015) suggest that this narrative myth still persists today, as higher education assumes students should be able to take responsibility for their personal academic success and thus does not provide sufficient targeted and intentional support.

Individual Persistence Factors

Tinto (1975, 1993) posited that students need to build a strong academic foundation and that institutions need to provide timely support when academic success declines. He identified three major components contributing to student departure from college: (a) academic difficulties; (b) an inability to resolve educational and occupational goals; and (c) failure to become incorporated into a university’s culture (Tinto, 1975, 1993, 2006). Based on this foundational research, the concepts of individual persistence, which relates to a student’s desire to remain at an institution, and retention, which is the ability of an institution to keep a student through graduation, were popularized (Frederick et al., 2018).

Researchers have subsequently focused on students’ individual-level traits to predict student departure. These factors include family background, parental education, socioeconomic status, peer groups, and quality of secondary education (Guiffrida, 2006; Pulliam & Sasso, 2016; Sommerfeld, 2016). Factors also include measures of academic achievement, such as ACT and SAT scores or high school GPA (Reason, 2003). Hoyt and Winn (2004) identified factors leading to differences in enrollment stop-outs (temporary pauses) and drop-outs (prolonged pauses). These included a lack of financial literacy, childcare support or assistance, time management skills, and sense of community. Students who are experiencing homelessness or food insecurity, working jobs, raising children, and caring for elders as well as students whose first language is not English, who have disabilities, or who have mental health challenges also face difficulties persisting in college (Frederick et al., 2018).

Scholars have discussed grit, which is defined as a sustained interest in and effort toward long-term goals as an individual trait leading to success (Duckworth et al., 2007). Students who exhibit more grit typically have higher high school GPAs (Galla et al., 2019). Similarly, scholars have linked self-efficacy to academic success. Students who set higher educational expectations for themselves are more likely to graduate and achieve higher levels of educational attainment (Bean & Eaton, 2001; Sommerfeld, 2016). Students who hold both high internal locus of control and optimism are more likely to achieve higher GPAs, seek resources when they begin to struggle academically, and adjust to new experiences (Chemers et al., 2001; Mellor et al., 2015).

Institutional Policies, Programs, and Interventions

Institutional retention efforts have been shaped by research on student departure (Tinto, 1993), engagement (Kuh, 2009), and involvement (Astin, 1993). They have focused on academic and social integration as well as bolstering student satisfaction (Frederick et al., 2018; Hwang et al., 2014; Tinto, 1993). Specific efforts include facilitating contact with faculty, early alert systems, first-year seminars, academic mentoring, tutoring services, supplemental instruction, and study and support groups (Collier & Morgan, 2008; Hoyt & Winn, 2004; Reason et al., 2006).

Despite these comprehensive retention efforts, institutions place many students on academic probation or warning. Academic probation students are less likely to persist into their sophomore year (Fletcher & Tokmouline, 2010) and have a one-third chance of persisting toward graduation (Mathies et al., 2006). In one study, students placed on probation reported receiving little support (Tovar & Simon, 2006). However, institutions have created retention programs specifically for students in probation or warning, which are referred to as academic recovery programs (Hamman, 2014; Mathies et al., 2006). Such programs are either “intrusive or non-intrusive,” meaning mandatory or voluntary (Damashek, 2003). Existing research finds that intrusive or mandatory programs are more successful in facilitating academic recovery (Hsieh et al., 2007, Kamhoff et al., 2007; Kirk-Kuwaye & Nishida, 2001). Intrusive programs were first conceptualized in the 1970s as intentional efforts to facilitate rapport and develop relationships between academic advisers and their students (Glennen, 1975; Glennen & Baxley, 1985). These programs utilize increased frequency of contact through advising meetings, proactive advising approaches, and direct outreach using technology such as social media (Frederick et al., 2018; Kamhoff et al., 2007). Academic recovery programs also include group formats such as seminars or student success courses (Arcand & Leblanc, 2011; Humphrey, 2006; McGrath & Burd, 2012; Nance, 2007). Existing research suggests coupling proactive advising with student success seminar coursework is most efficacious in facilitating academic recovery (Hamman, 2014).

Methods

In this study, we interviewed mid-level academic administrators, as defined by NACADA: The Global Community for Academic Advising [NACADA] (2017), about their academic recovery programs. Following guidelines of descriptive phenomenology, we placed a strong emphasis on the words expressed by the participants and not on the interpretations of the researcher (Moustakas, 1994). Broadly, our goal was to uncover some common features of academic recovery programs across institutions and advising administrators’ concerns about those features at their institutions.

Sampling and Participants

We used a chain-referral (snowball) sampling procedure and solicited participants through email (Jones et al., 2014). Participants were vetted by using the following inclusion criteria: (a) academic advising administrator status with previous experience serving as an academic adviser; (b) mid-level position title (see Council for the Advancement of Standards [CAS], 2019); and (c) oversight of academic recovery programs. These criteria were selected to narrow the scope of the sample and better conceptualize the participants’ work roles.

Academic advising units typically specialize in and focus on particular student populations or academic areas (NACADA, 2017). Hamman (2014) noted that responsibility for academic recovery programs is usually not centralized. Given academic advising administrators typically manage academic recovery for their specific population of students or within their academic area, we used a purposive sampling strategy. Specifically, we made an effort to sample a variety of academic advising units serving different student populations. The sample was stratified by institutional type according to the Carnegie Classification system’s (CFAT, 2011) residential and size categories.

Seven mid-level academic advising administrators were selected as participants (see Table 1). Each was assigned a pseudonym to protect confidentiality. They came from residential, small, private institutions; residential and nonresidential (commuter), midsize, public universities; and residential and nonresidential, large, public universities. All served at the director level and had at least partial responsibility for managing academic recovery programs. Only one participant served in a centralized role as a “chief retention officer.” The other participants’ offices offered academic advising and coordinated academic recovery for specific student populations. In addition to managing advising and academic recovery, some were also responsible for other components of student success, such as educational opportunity, orientation, academic counseling, and supplemental instruction.

Table 1

Interview Procedures and Data Analysis

All participants were interviewed by the same researcher. Interviews were not single- or double-blinded (Patton, 2015). Participants received a standard informed consent form which communicated their rights to confidentiality and to withdraw. Although the interviewer followed a prepared interview guide (see Appendix), interviews were semi-structured, allowing participants to elaborate on their responses. Interviews lasted between 45 and 60 minutes and were recorded through video conferencing software. Audio was extracted from the video recordings and transcribed.

Data analysis began with the development of multiple codebooks using open and focused coding (Patton, 2015). The focused codes were then collapsed into themes recurrent throughout the interviews using bracketing (Jones et al., 2014). Strategies we employed to improve trustworthiness and reduce confirmation bias included external auditing and peer review by individuals who were not affiliated with the study (Jones et al., 2014). These strategies are consistent with an interpretive paradigm suggesting that understanding is co-constructed and there is not one objective truth or reality to which the findings can be compared (Patton, 2015).

Findings

Participants discussed current academic recovery initiatives at their institutions and their opinions regarding those initiatives. Three prominent themes emerged: (1) the importance of collaboration across departments and divisions; (2) criticisms of recovery policies as a delayed reaction to academic difficulty; and (3) reliance on supplementary programming. Across each of these three themes, participants highlighted institutional resource limitations as a prominent barrier to successfully implementing these programs and helping students. In some cases, participants also attributed challenges to students’ individual effort or merit.

Student Success Through Collaboration

All academic advising administrators cited pressure to retain a set percentage of academic probation students but without the minimum staffing to provide effective intrusive advising to a very high number of students. Many participants felt their offices were perceived as the source of all retention efforts. Moreover, they felt siloed and separated from other departments and programs. They believed that collaboration was their best approach toward meeting institutional retention goals and relieving some of these pressures.

Participants indicated that there were challenges and barriers that impeded cross-department collaborations. For example, Whitney spoke of her struggles trying to change faculty members’ perceptions at her institution during her attempts to collaborate with them: “[I]t’s a campus-wide effort to retention. We can’t do it all out of this office, even though we’re charged with that goal. But we need them to be a part of the solution as well.” All participants indicated that there was a lack of data sharing and communication about students in crisis that impeded collaboration. Abigail expressed that a lack of communication in her department had caused many initiatives and programs to be replicated in different areas on campus, which was not a good use of time or resources for the student or the campus:

Oh, another department’s doing a very similar program, and there’s other departments doing a very similar program, but the students do have to go to three or four different programs because they fit three or four different categories, and we’re not looking at a student as a whole.

Conversely, participants praised successful collaborations with other departments. All participants provided positive examples of cross-departmental counseling center partnerships that have been of great benefit to students. Paige spoke of a partnership that aided students on probation or academic warning in support groups focused on mental wellness:

It’s a partnership with our counseling and wellness offices where it’s a small group experience for students on probation or warning to just talk about what their experience has been, to lean on each other, to gain encouragement, support. And it has a curriculum associated with it. So, it’s not just talking.

Paige suggested that initiatives like these better facilitate a culture of care, a viewpoint she believes should be promoted across departments:

I think the most distinctive piece is the strength-based model, that the students are not broken, even if they feel broken or they’ve experienced a trauma or a crisis that has broken them in some areas, that students are not problems to be solved. They’re all assets to be developed. And so how different would it be if people looked at students like that? Even in their most difficult moments or when students are not making good decisions ... any student who comes here to learn is an asset for our world, and we have the privilege of helping to cultivate that seed or that asset.

Like Paige, all other respondents cited mental health as a significant barrier that necessitated cooperation with campus counseling offices.

One respondent also described cross-training as a potentially effective method of campus collaboration. Tracey discussed the value of creating a “one-stop shop” that maximized students’ time. She spoke of students feeling pushed away to another department when advisers referred them, and this prevented capitalization on already established student rapport:

I talked about having everything within the center, but one thing we have done is cross-train our advisers to be able to do academic counseling and to be able to do career advising. So, because we know students ... by having one person be able to do academic counseling, career advising, and academic advising, all in one, you just create an opportunity to grab hold of those teachable moments as they come.

According to Tracey, this approach encouraged campus collaboration in training and allowed advisers to understand how to appropriately refer students and work together with other departments.

Policies as Delayed Reactions

Academic policy was among the most discussed topics among participants. Respondents broadly believed that warning, probation, and suspension policies are helpful. For example, according to Tracey:

I’m a huge proponent of suspension. I always have the conversation with students that a suspension feels punitive, but it’s really meant to give you the time to change whatever it is that’s keeping you from being successful ... I definitely feel that the suspension policies are beneficial to students.

However, most of the participants expressed concern that they needed to “better support their students” with respect to policy. They discussed a lack of resources as one barrier in implementing policies successfully. Deborah spoke of her staffing concerns:

I would just want more advisers. Our caseloads are very high for some of our advisers. So, I think if we could get more reasonable caseloads, [we would then be] able to do more interventions with these students based on different risk factors, with all the data that we have available at our fingertips now on students.

Respondents were also critical of the nature and content of policies. Overall, the participants felt that academic warning or probation policies were a delayed reaction to individual students’ academic issues.

Notification

Participants felt that better notification and advanced warning could support academically struggling students. There were gaps in communication to students regarding their academic status, as advisers relied heavily on the registrar or other departments, and coordination between units was lacking. All participants indicated that most of their students did not know the academic continuance policies until they found themselves on warning or probation. Typically, this was communicated to students via email or a physical letter or even by placing registration holds on student accounts. Some believed that sending a generic email or letter is insufficient and that academic advisers should reach out individually to their students who are placed on academic warning or probation. Other ideas around advanced notification included early alert systems or communicating policy in a freshman seminar. But even with some of these efforts, Tracey expressed frustration at the late or delayed nature of how students found themselves in her office:

Unfortunately, sometimes, the conversation isn’t had until a student comes in when they’re in a situation. So, specifically in our program, students are referred typically once they’re on academic warning … we explain the [academic warning/probation] policy at our orientation and in our first-year seminar courses ... But, in my experience, students [feel] “Oh, that won't happen to me.” You know, we all think that about so many things in life, it’s kind of the same ... for policy.

GPA and Grade Policy

Five out of seven participants expressed frustrations regarding the complexity and exclusion of GPA calculations. For example, Natalie discussed an issue around considering GPA in some semesters but not others:

We don’t take [summer and winter courses] into consideration. There could be a student who failed everything in the spring but took five summer classes, got all As in those summer classes. We don’t count that. That student typically is still on probation even though they just aced five summer classes. I don’t agree with that at all.

Others disagreed with the use of cumulative rather than term GPA for determining academic probation status. Participants cited students being left behind in what they referred to as the “murky middle.” These are students who have a higher cumulative GPA, high attempted credit hours, and begin to do poorly. These students often did not fall within the warning/probation levels and so could not be supported in any academic recovery program. Whitney stated,

I think the thing that is an odd thing, and really is a little unfortunate, is that based on how they classify probation or suspension, how they look at the number of credits and GPA ... I think there needs to be some type of warning for those students who get a zero GPA in a term, but yet don’t go on warning, or probation, or suspension.

In addition to GPA issues, course repeat polices were also considered a significant barrier. Most participants said that their institutions only allowed for three grade adjustments through course repeat and at least two admitted a lack of monitoring. There was variance across institutions around whether new grades would replace or average with the previous grade. Five of the participants recognized the benefit for student persistence, but they felt that students relied on this policy as a sense of comfort. According to respondents, some students used them in a singular semester and did not perceive the seriousness of their situation. Rather than relying on grade adjustments, they believed that advisers should work with students to re-evaluate a chosen major or adjust study habits to accommodate the rigor of a course.

Supplementary Programming

The academic advising administrators we interviewed suggested another approach to facilitate academic recovery: thinking beyond policy and collaboration to incorporate intentional supplementary programming. These types of programs did not enforce or implement policy. Rather, these efforts were described as “beyond policy” because they augmented or supplemented the advising and policy components of academic recovery programs.

Supplementary programming facilitated by academic advising administrators was seen as a component of their academic recovery programs. The programming taught academic and non-academic skills to connect students to their campus and other administrators. This programming was either prevention-based or intrusively oriented. Administrators who believed academic recovery was the student’s individual responsibility tended to favor intrusive programming. Those who believed the institution needed to shoulder more responsibility in students’ academic recovery favored prevention-based approaches.

Prevention

Five of the seven participant offices primarily focused on prevention-based programming. Participants described prevention programming as an attempt to facilitate a sense of belonging and support students’ transition to college. Such programs were aimed to prevent academic dismissal and placed this responsibility with the institution insofar as they were meant to reach students before they experienced academic difficulty. These included student success seminars, which were typically at least one credit and lasted eight weeks. Other examples included a fall or first-semester student success workshop series or group advising sessions themed by major interest or clusters for first-generation students.

Whitney believed such courses should be mandated for everyone, not just students on academic warning. At Abigail’s institution, such courses were required for all first-year students but were removed as resources tightened. Aside from courses, Paige spoke of another type of programming that was successful on her campus: “A university-wide event that they call success symposium, which is where students are giving TED-style talks about their own growth and their own experiences here around professional development, around wellness and resilience and self-advocacy, around mental health, around adulting.”

Intrusive

Intrusive programming typically included mandatory courses for students placed on academic probation. Another type of intrusive program was intended for first-generation students. Both programs included coursework that was coupled with intrusive advising. The focus on such efforts placed initial responsibility on the institution for avoiding academic difficulty. However, this help did not come until after students were already experiencing difficulty. Abigail noted that, by making probation courses a requirement for all students, “I think we see a lot lower number of students coming to probation because ... they’re better informed with the university policy. They’re better informed of options that they have while they’re here.”

These courses were meant to connect students to resources on campus, build academic skills, and address topics such as finances. Deborah described her institution’s intrusive approach:

Once [students] do end up on academic warning, all our first-year students are required to attend a University 110 academic success workshop the next semester. That’s about 10 to 12 sessions throughout the semester in the spring for the first-year students to really get them to do some reflective work, figure out what went wrong.

Paige and other participants described targeted, intrusive programming for first-generation college students who were on academic probation or warning. Programming included mandatory elements such as attending events to build social capital and engage with faculty. These sorts of programs were concurrent with required sessions with an academic adviser, which would range from four to six meetings per semester. Paige described one intrusive program:

A program just for first-generation college students where the honor is in their progress and their growth and development, so they have to do things … like interview a faculty member or attend a conference or a talk or go to a play or go to a lecture … There is a GPA component, but … we feel that the honor shouldn’t be in a prerequisite, like … it's that, no, you have taken full advantage of this institution.

Limitations and Challenges

Although they believed efforts, such as supplementary programming, were important, respondents were also critical of these programs. They felt limited in their ability to improve programs due to a lack of financial resources. They also lacked resources to assess the effectiveness of their programs. One participant described programs as a “shotgun” approach that unsuccessfully attempted to guess what issues students were experiencing based on their own assumptions as advising administrators. Five of the seven participants suggested that their academic recovery programs were haphazard and not data driven. They believed they had little to no evidence to understand which types of programming were the most efficacious or efficient in facilitating academic recovery.

Respondents also expressed frustration that students did not participate in their supplementary programs at the rates they desired if they were not mandatory. All suggested that supplementary programing for academic recovery should be mandated, with consequences for those who did not participate. Whitney said her office is exploring the idea of putting holds on students’ accounts, and Abigail’s institution mandated participation, but there are no immediate consequences for noncompliance. All participants agreed that nonmandatory programming yielded lower participation rates, and all expressed frustration about attendance and participation rates for their supplementary programs. All seven participants believed students did not understand that participation in supplementary programs would facilitate a greater likelihood of readmission if academically suspended.

Implications for Practice

In exploring the perspectives of mid-level academic advising administrators on academic recovery programs, responses indicated a reliance on campus collaboration, policy administration, and supplemental programming to facilitate academic recovery for students placed on academic warning or probation. Participants reported struggling with many barriers, including institutional support and resource scarcity, to implementing collaborations, policies, and programming. Several recommendations can be gleaned to address these specific barriers.

Collaboration

The mid-level academic advising administrators we interviewed experienced challenges with campus collaboration in referring students for academic support and in implementing policies. Efforts should be made to develop a standardized referral system and to improve advising organizational structures to incentivize partnerships for student success.

Collaborations should include implementing case management-style information systems to share information among academic advising administrators and other student affairs administrators in a student’s network. Oftentimes, individual departments have unique interactions with students, and all these interactions come together to tell the student story and paint a picture of their experience (Reason et al., 2006). The use of case management-style cloud software, accessible anywhere on campus, may help facilitate sharing information about individual students and mitigate notification and communication gaps around academic status and student progress.

Academic advising administrators should work collaboratively with other departments through a centralized office or student support model. Schneider et al. (2017) suggested that most academic advisers work within a decentralized, split-satellite model of academic advising (see Habley, 1997). This can pose significant challenges to collaborations around supporting students with intrusive advising, which was the common model used by the participants to facilitate academic recovery. Case management information systems and a centralized advising organizational structure may allow for increased communication, reduced redundancies, improved collaboration in supplementary programming, and greater opportunities for the assessment of programs.

Policy

The mid-level academic advising administrators we interviewed shared the challenges of implementing academic continuance policies and, in particular, feeling that the policies were “too late” to facilitate any change. We, as the researchers, noticed that participants expressed a high level of remorse or guilt around students experiencing academic suspension. Participants highlighted that academic continuance policies led to academic suspension for many students. They also cited the differential impact of academic continuance minimums across majors and inequities across student populations, particularly among first-generation students and students of color. Therefore, policies related to academic suspension should take multiple student identities into consideration for a more culturally sensitive approach. Implementation of this approach should include extending academic probation or warning periods to more than one semester and allowing course repeats in summer and winter terms to increase GPA.

As suggested by Bénabou and Tirole (2003), there should also be different academic continuance minimums for different major clusters, such as STEM (e.g., science, technology, engineering, architecture, math), the allied health professions (e.g., nursing, pharmacy, pre-medical), and the humanities and social sciences (e.g., English, history, sociology), as student success is different across professions and academic disciplines. This complicates policy and could be challenging to communicate to students. However, adopting this approach may increase academic opportunity and reduce situations in which the most talented and resourced students are privileged in cases of academic dismissal during the undergraduate first-year experience, as suggested by De Koning et al. (2014).

Programming

Participants noted a lack of assessment exploring program efficacy as another challenge to implementing supplementary programming. Little evidence exists on how supplementary programming supports academic recovery beyond the promising anecdotal evidence presented in this exploratory study. Some research exists on academic probation seminars (Sasso et al., 2018), but the broader efficacy of these practices remains unknown. From their own experience, participants recommended intrusive advising approaches and mandatory requirements, noting a potential participation difference when programming is nonmandatory. To support mandatory programming, greater efforts need to be made to demonstrate supplementary programming’s effectiveness through assessment.

Although the academic advising administrators we interviewed wanted access to data that would allow them to analyze the impact of their supplemental programming on student persistence, participants found that it was a challenge to cooperate with other offices to gain access to information about their students. Stronger collaborations should be built between advising units and the institutional assessment or enrollment management offices, which often have the analytics staff and expertise necessary to assess programs such as the ones being offered for academic recovery.

Other types of supplementary programming for academic recovery should also be considered. Supplementary programming should not be limited to preventative or intrusive efforts but rather include academic reentry programming as well. Intentional reentry programing could include communicating with academically suspended students to facilitate reentry or readmission and mandatory special sections of a student success seminar. In this study, all participants indicated that their institutions did not reach out to students on academic suspension and that the better and more ethical approach would be to engage in intrusive advising and outreach with academically suspended students. Participants believed that such students were probably scared or embarrassed about their academic status, which could make them less likely to reach out for advising. If there is resource scarcity for such an initiative, an academic adviser could be tasked with providing proactive outreach to academically suspended students as part of their caseload or as a collateral assignment. This could lead to small increases in student persistence and increases in overall university retention and degree completion rates.

Conclusion

This study described common structural features of academic recovery programs and academic advising managers’ concerns about how those features are organized and implemented at their institutions. Academic advisers and advising managers who have firsthand knowledge of how institutional practices and policies operate on the ground can offer important insights for improvement. Steele and White (2019) have suggested that advisers’ voices should be amplified to create meaningful changes in institutional policies and practices. In line with that broader project, this study has presented academic advising managers’ critical viewpoints around academic recovery programs.

However, this study had a limited sample that may impact generalizability. Participants were all female and were only from public and small residential private institutions. Moreover, participants generally discussed policies and practices aimed at traditional-age undergraduate students. Building upon our exploratory and initial findings, future scholarship could more fully flesh out the common features of academic recovery programs in a more representative sample of institutions as well as examine variation in those features. Future research could also examine the perspectives of a more diverse sample of advisers and advising administrators around the academic recovery initiatives they oversee. Finally, students’ perspectives are also important for understanding the features of recovery programs and how they may be improved. Future research should consider examining the experiences of students in academic recovery programs directly and identify best practices for program evaluation.