A nationally recognized expert on undergraduate student success, assessment and retention will speak at West Virginia University Wednesday, April 22.
Randy L. Swing will give a talk at 4 p.m. in the Erickson Alumni Center, Grand Hall A. His presentation is sponsored by the College of Human Resources and Education and the Department of Educational Leadership Studies.
Swingis executive director of the Association for Institutional Research, an organization of more than 4,200 institutional researchers, planners and decision-makers representing more than 1,500 higher education institutions around the world.
We are pleased and privileged to have a speaker of the magnitude and experience as Dr. Swing,said Dee Hopkins, dean of the College of Human Resources and Education.Dr. Swings research has led to a number of higher education strategies for retaining freshman students and assessing their experience, many of which we have studied and used at West Virginia University.
Before joining the Association for Institutional Research, Swing served as co-director and senior scholar at the Policy Center on the First Year of College and as a fellow in the National Resource Center for The First-Year Experience and Students in Transition at the University of South Carolina.
He has worked with numerous research teams in Japan and served as an adviser to the Quality Assurance Agency of Scotland. He authored articles, chapters, monographs and books, includingAchieving and Sustaining Excellence in the First College Year __ andProving and Improving: Tools and Techniques for Assessing the First College Year.
Swing is a frequent speaker at national and international conferences on institutional change, assessment, retention and undergraduate student success. He has held various leadership positions at Appalachian State University in assessment, advising, Upward Bound and Freshman Seminar.
Swing earned a doctorate in higher education from the University of Georgia, masters and Educational Specialist degrees from Appalachian State University and a bachelors degree in psychology from the University of North Carolina-Charlotte.
