Learning Resources

Abstract: As the country’s largest and most diverse four-year public university system, what happens at the California State University (CSU) reverberates nationwide. Each year, the CSU awards more than 125,000 degrees and one in every 20 Americans holding a college degree is a graduate of a CSU campus. Graduation Initiative 2025 is a university-wide initiative to ensure that all students have the opportunity to be successful and graduate according to their personal goals, positively impacting students’ and their family’s future and producing additional graduates to power the workforce for California and the nation. In this special session, the CSU Executive Vice Chancellor for Academic and Student Affairs will address the challenges and opportunities facing the 23-campus system’s efforts to expand authentic access to opportunity for students from all backgrounds and circumstances, eliminate equity gaps and ensure student success.

Abstract: This report was produced by the researcher awarded the M. Perry Chapman Prize for 2016–2017.

This research evaluates the role the campus built environment plays in student retention and graduation. The relationship between objective and perceived measures of the physical campus and student academic performance was examined using the California State University (CSU) campuses as the sample. The results show that both objective and perceived measures are significantly associated with academic performance and provide higher education institutions with insight regarding the role of the physical campus in enhancing student retention and graduation rates.