Research suggests that as many as a quarter of all undergraduate
students may find themselves on academic probation during their
collegiate years. If students on probation choose to return to their
institutions the semester following notification, they find themselves
in a unique transitional period between poor academic performance and
either dismissal or recovery. Effectively supporting students through
this transition may help to decrease equity gaps in higher education. As
recent literature implies, the same demographic factors that affect
students' retention and persistence rates (e.g., gender, race and
ethnicity, age) also affect the rate at which students find themselves
on academic probation.
This book serves as a resource for practitioners and institutional
leaders. The volume presents a variety of interventions and
institutional strategies for supporting the developmental and emotional
needs of students on probation in the first year and beyond. The
chapters in this book are the result of years of dedication and passion
for supporting students on probation by the individual chapter authors.
While the chapters reflect a culmination of combined decades of personal
experiences and education, collectively they amount to the beginning of
a conversation long past due.
Scholarship on the impact of academic recovery models on student success
and persistence is limited. Historically, attention and resources have
been directed toward establishing and strengthening the first-year
experience, sophomore programs, and student-success efforts to prevent
students from ending up on academic probation. However, a focus on
preventative measures without a consideration of academic recovery
program design considering the successes of these programs is futile.
This volume should be of interest to academics and practitioners focused
on creating or refining institutional policies and interventions for
students on academic probation. The aim is to provide readers with the
language, tools, and theoretical points of view to advocate for and to
design, reform, and/or execute high-quality, integrated academic
recovery programs on campus. Historically, students on probation have
been an understudied and underserved population, and this volume serves
as a call to action.
