When some freshman enter college, their first thought is not about frequent class attendance, but here at Mississippi State University, it’s important all students keep this on their brain.
Pathfinders, which began in 1998, started in order to strengthen academic performance of freshmen and to increase the amount of freshmen who would continue as sophomore college students.
Ty Abernathy, social science research center assistant research professor, along with many graduate students, said he conducted academic performance research for two years which led to the founding of Pathfinders.
The parents of all entering freshmen receive a letter at the beginning of the fall semester from the MSU President emphasizing the importance of attending class. At orientation incoming freshmen are also spoken to about class attendance policies at MSU.
Abernathy, who also teaches in the Department of Counseling and Educational Psychology, explained how and under what conditions students are addressed.
“Once a student misses twice, in any course, we have a brief intervention with them in their residence hall,” Abernathy said. “We have a residence adviser in each residence hall who has been selected, sometimes hand-picked, to conduct the intervention—sometimes it’s something they want to do.”
Abernathy also told how the selected residence advisers are trained.
“I train them over about a two-week period about how to approach a student, what to say to a student, what to do, what not to do,” he said. “It’s really just about a minute intervention. It shouldn’t last much longer than that unless the student has questions.”
The freshmen who are contacted are addressed about the class they have missed and are encouraged to talk with that professor if they are experiencing problems in that class. These students are also given an academic assistance card, with various resources available for help around the university. All contacts with students are followed up by an e-mail, a week later, that serves as a reminder.
After eight weeks of classes freshmen are divided into categories of those with absence problems and those without absence problems. A student must miss one course four times by that eight week mark to be considered to have an absence problem.
“We wait until the end of the semester and look at the GPA of those two groups,” Abernathy said.
Abernathy described the significant differences of GPAs of those who attended class versus those who did not attend class, typically about a 2.85 versus a 1.75.
Kaylee Boyd, senior, sociology major, who works with Pathfinders in Mosley Hall told why the program was important for the university.
“It’s a way to encourage the freshmen students to continue going to class, especially when some of their classes may seem a little too easy,” Boyd said. “Basically just making sure that they keep the motivation to be good students and continue that habit for the rest of their four years.”
Boyd also told why it was important for students to attend class and make that a good habit.     
“You’re always sure that you know what’s going on,” she said. “You don’t have to doubt that you’re missing information or that you’re going to fail a quiz.”
Molly Jobe, MSU graduate in interdisciplinary studies, who served as a campus-wide academic assistant with Pathfinders has worked in her current position for a year and a half. Before taking on her current role she worked with Pathfinders as a resident adviser for a year through Hurst Hall.
“Go to class and try to make good relationships with your professors because you never know when you’re gonna need a recommendation or assistance on something,” Jobe said.
Jobe suggested  freshmen set aside time each week devoted to studying. She said to make studying a routine as opposed to waiting until the night before a test to study.
Pathfinders has divided freshmen into four groups. Group 1 is a group that has never been reported to Pathfinders for missing class. The average GPA for Group 1 is a 3.0 and contains 1,631 students. Group 2 is a group that were not identified until final grades were submitted for the fall term, but had an absence problem. Since these absences were not discovered until after the fall semester Pathfinders was unable to assist these students. The average GPA for Group 2 is a 2.07 and contains 118 students. Group 3 is a group that was contacted by Pathfinders and obviously stopped missing class after the contact. The average GPA for Group 3 was a 2.58 and contains 389 students. Group 4 are students who were contacted by Pathfinders but continued missing class after the contact. The average GPA for Group 4 is a 1.59 and contains 290 students. Fortunately, Group 2 has decreased over the years since a larger number of faculty are reporting to Pathfinders.