They’re gone: Building classroom community to promote student retention

These were the words that ran through my head as I looked around the room during the last 15 minutes of my nonmajor general education biology class during the eighth week of the semester and noticed that one-third of my students had quit attending class. This was a recurring pattern I had seen many times in my seven years of teaching nonmajor biology and human physiology courses at my open enrollment, commuter, predominantly undergraduate state institution with a 40% first-generation student population. It amazed me that students would quit attending class or submitting assignments in the course without formally withdrawing from it. As a result, one-third of my students lost their tuition and received a failing grade for the course. This was disheartening.