Fallon Contreras joins Adrienne Carnes in her office in the Jerry S. Rawls College of Business. Along with typical office decor — office plants, family photos, books and various Texas Tech University memorabilia — a massive whiteboard dominates one wall.
On either side of the whiteboard are two running lists: one shows the college’s enrollment numbers for recent years and the other shows the college’s retention rate for the same period.
Every time Carnes enters her office, she looks at these numbers. To her, they are not evidence of what the college has done to recruit and retain students; they are her motivation for doing her work.
It is a topic both Carnes and Contreras are eager to discuss.
“For us, retention is personal,” Carnes says. “Our job is to keep the students here, and if it’s not in this college, it’s somewhere in this university.”