Purdue News
Purdue NewsShe will oversee implementation of "Enhancing Undergraduate Commitment, Integration and Persistence," a program made possible with a $5 million, five-year grant from the Lilly Endowment. The grant, announced in July, is part of $24 million in Lilly Endowment grants to five public and nine private Indiana colleges and universities. Roney served as chair of the Purdue grant proposal project team. Her appointment as senior project officer, effective immediately, was jointly made by Purdue President Steven C. Beering and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs Robert L. Ringel.
"That one of our key senior academic administrators will oversee this important initiative underscores Purdue's commitment to enhancing undergraduate student retention, which will bear not only significant personal rewards for our students during their lives and careers, but will have a profound effect on our state's economic well-being in the highly competitive world of tomorrow," Beering said.
Ringel noted: "Purdue feels an intense obligation to help young people succeed in attaining their educational goals. With Dr. Roney's able guidance from proposal to implementation, we intend to put in place the personnel, equipment and educational experiences to assure that a student entering Purdue graduates within six years."
He said that by 2010, the project should yield completion of an additional 4,000 baccalaureate degrees at Purdue Calumet, Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne, Purdue North Central and Purdue West Lafayette. During the 1996-97 academic year, Purdue students earned 7,026 baccalaureate degrees systemwide.
"The grant programs were designed to achieve the goal of increasing graduation rates 5 percent at each of our campuses by the end of the five-year grant period," Roney said. "It's an exciting challenge that will include significant systemwide involvement of our faculty and staff. Purdue has a long tradition of good-faith efforts to enhance retention in the past, but the Lilly grant will make a key difference in implementation."
By the end of the grant period, the intended six-year graduation rates and numbers of additional students completing baccalaureate degrees will be:
Roney said the figures include both full- and part-time students, hence the lower percentages at regional campuses where higher proportions of students enroll part time.
The Lilly Endowment grant will allow the addition of a full-time staff member in the registrar's office and a full-time staff member for the retention project, and half-time clerical and account clerk positions for the project.
Roney said she will work closely with campus coordinators at regional campuses: M. Beth Pellicciotti, assistant vice chancellor for enrollment management at Purdue Calumet; Frank L. Borelli, vice chancellor for student affairs at Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne; and Linda M. Duttlinger, assistant to the vice chancellor for academic services at Purdue North Central.
The grant will fund programs to increase student interest in attending college, to help students adjust academically and socially after arriving on campus, and to improve teaching and counseling services for students. The grants are part of the Lilly Endowment's continuing effort to improve Indiana's 47th ranking among the 50 states in the percentage of college-educated persons in the work force.
Roney has been Purdue's registrar since 1994 and an Office of the Registrar staff
member since 1982. She holds a Purdue doctoral degree in student personnel administration.
She earned bachelor's degrees in psychology and elementary education and a master's in counseling and personnel services, all from Kansas State University.
CONTACTS: Ringel, (765) 494-9709; Roney, (765) 494-6161.
Purdue News Service: (765) 494-2096; e-mail, purduenews@purdue.edu
