Other Publications of Interest

New Issue of Data Notes Newsletter Available

Data Notes is a bimonthly newsletter that presents data from the National Achieving the Dream database. The March/April 2009 issue of Data Notes has just been released; you can view it here: http://www.achievingthedream.org/Portal/Modules/e7f22100-545d-48ae-a7e4-9b7767fd7887.asset?

This issue of Data Notes is the first of a two-part series investigating which academic terms have the highest frequency of stop-outs at Achieving the Dream colleges. In this issue, students who stop out during high-frequency terms are examined by enrollment status, gender, and race/ethnicity. Colleges have been divided into two groups: those operating on semesters and those on quarters/trimesters. Similar to national studies on student persistence, slightly more than half of part-time students at Achieving the Dream colleges stopped out by the fall of their second academic year. Female students were significantly less likely to stop out than male students, and Hispanic students were less likely to stop out over three years than were black, non-Hispanic white, non-Hispanic; or Native American students.

You can see past issues of Data Notes on the Achieving the Dream website here: http://www.achievingthedream.org/DATARESEARCH/DATANOTESNEWSLETTER/default.tp

New How-To Guide on Creating Climate Action Plans for Campuses

The Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (ASSHE) and the American College & University Presidents Climate Commitment has released, "Climate Planning for Campuses: A How to Guide." This 12-part, 100-plus page guide includes details on a variety of different greenhouse gas mitigation strategies and tactics, plus sections on creating an institutional structure to support a climate action plan, determining a baseline carbon footprint, setting emissions targets and measuring progress, financing climate action, and implementing the plan.

This guide is available online in a Wiki format, to allow users to suggest additions, revisions and updates. The guide can be accessed here:

http://www.aashe.org/wiki/climate-planning-guide