This article compares the themes of academic integration and social integration in Tinto's model (1987) with the themes of vision and sense of community as described in a recent ethnographic study (Tucker, 1998). Tinto's model has been used in a variety of college settings to develop Freshman Interest Groups as a method of improving student persistence (Upcraft & Gardiner, 1989). However, Tinto himself notes that while “… retention programs have helped some students complete their college education, their long-term impact on retention has been surprisingly limited” (1996). I argue that vision and sense of community contain more useful theoretical considerations to help us address the issue of student retention programs at colleges. Tinto (1987) has developed a theoretical model which may need to be reconsidered.
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