Specifically, the number of students receiving NR's went from 12% in '94 to 18% in '95 and the number of students receiving NR's and/or C's went from 36% in '94 to '44% this year. Roughly the same number of students were awarded the grades, but as this year's freshman class is smaller, the percentages are larger.
The number of A's awarded also went down slightly, "this trend isn't where we'd like to see it" says Garvin. MASH attendance is also down a little.
A bright spot is the EMSEP program, which is in its third year (see related story on page 2) and this speaks well both for the students in the program as well as the concepts behind it. The message is that "support services seem to work well" and they could be developed easily for other groups of students as we "have a good model on how to do this" says Garvin.
EMSEP has done well over the past three years, admitting around 30 students per year, a community has formed where the older students help the younger ones. In the first year 10 were considered in academic difficulty at the end of the first term, that number dropped to 3 in the second year and only 2 this year.
There is no single explanation for this trend, but as students continue to realize the resources that are available to them, they will presumably begin to do better academically.
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