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Article Type

Professional Proficiency

Article Abstract

Related Issue:

Robust strategic enrollment management plans include an integrated focus on student retention. While Piedmont University has seen steady new student growth over the past few years, retention rates had dropped from the mid-70s to an all-time low of 62 percent. Significant and immediate action was necessary. The Retention Vortex was created as a internal communication protocol that pulls together disparate units across the campus with an ultimate result of increasing the retention rate to 77 percent in three years. This article describes the Vortex and other successful student retention initiatives.

Author(s)

rettig-p--smPerry R. Rettig, Ph.D, is Distinguished University Professor and former vice president for enrollment management and student affairs at Piedmont University. Previously, he served as vice president for academic
affairs at Piedmont for five years. He has also served as vice president for the Athens Campus at Piedmont and as interim dean of the School of Nursing and Health Sciences and interim dean of the School of Education. He maintains his faculty
credentials and active faculty role in the College of Education at Piedmont. Prior to his move to Georgia in 2013, he served as associate vice chancellor of academic affairs at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh where he also served as a faculty
member. He began his professional career as a public school teacher for five years in rural Green Bay, Wisconsin and then as a public school principal for seven years in Sheboygan, Wisconsin. He has been an educator for more than 37 years.

Rettig has presented at international conferences in Beijing, China; London, England, Vienna, Austria; Melbourne, Australia; Belfast, Ireland; and this summer in Krakow, Poland. He has made numerous
presentations across the United States. He has published seven books with Rowman & Littlefield. In the summer of 2021, he published Enrollment Management: Successful Approaches with Dwindling Numbers (Rowman & Littlefield). Likewise, he
has published more than 20 articles in the field of education, writes a monthly education article for the local regional newspaper, and an occasional piece for the Atlanta Journal Constitution.

Rettig’s Ph.D. in Educational Leadership and Administration is from Marquette University. His master’s degree (M.S.) in Educational Leadership and Administration is from the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee,
and his bachelor’s degree (B.S.E.) is from the University of Wisconsin Whitewater.

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