Sharing the Burden of Student Success:

Abstract

One barrier to student success and retention is not seeking help before a problem becomes unmanageable. The focus of this paper is to describe how the implementation of a social capital development program integrated with institutional problem normalization may lead to student success and retention. Through the implementation of these two small, cost-effective interventions institutions can increase student success and retention by helping students reduce stigma about seeking help, increasing ease in communication, and address problems before they become unmanageable. A five-part example is introduced to develop institutional problem normalization and the shared burden of student success is demonstrated.