Targeting ‘The Lost Year’

In material sent to prospective freshmen, Miami University tells students to prepare for two years of living in the dorms. That hasn’t always been the case at the Ohio public institution. Typically, more than 30 percent of students choose to live off campus after their first year.

On the whole, students in that category perform worse in the classroom and are less involved in co-curricular activities than their on-campus sophomore counterparts are, according to Susan Mosley-Howard, associate vice president for student affairs and dean of students.

Miami’s soon-to-be-implemented two-year residential policy is part of an initiative to keep students engaged in ways that administrators hope first-year students are, through orientation, meetings and residence hall programming...SOURCE