From grade-point average statistics to enrollment figures, Kevin Rome threw out a lot of numbers last week, during Lincoln University's Faculty/Staff Fall Institute.
For instance, the last four years of freshman classes show an overall GPA that improves from one year to the next.
But African-American students consistently have the lowest GPA in each class - ranging from a 1.94 overall average for last year's freshmen to a 2.54 average for the students who entered LU in Fall 2010.
And Caucasians have the highest GPA average, from a 2.72 overall for last year's freshmen to a 3.21 average for those who were freshmen in 2010.
"This data tells us that, if we retain our students, they do better over time," Rome told the faculty and staff Thursday. "If we can retain them, we have a positive impact on their academic success.
"So, we have to figure out a way to retain our students better - but, beyond that, we have to find a way for our African-American students to do much better during their first year."
Rome said there are a lot of factors leading to African-American students having lower GPA numbers.
"Many times, it has to do with the high schools that they come from," he explained. "It may have to do with the family unit. It may have to do with whether they're a first-generation college student.
"But a lot of it really boils down to their economic situations."
Rome noted most of the national research shows "a direct correlation between college success and one's financial abilities," and Lincoln has "a lot of students who come from lower socio-economic backgrounds. They come from poor neighborhoods - which, typically, means poor schools.
"This does not mean that they can't do the work or are incapable of learning and
achieving because they don't have the requisite skills to do it."
Still, the LU president says, the situation means LU has to have programs that "help bridge that gap - and we have to do it better."
That's why his administration has been making changes - some of them controversial - for more than a year, he said.
Those changes include redesigning and relocating counseling programs and making tutoring programs mandatory for those who need assistance.
"There are going to be consequences for the students," Rome said. "And one of the things we've told the parents and the students is, if they don't go to the tutoring and if they don't go to their academic coaching sessions - we're going to send them home."
Class attendance also will be mandatory for those students.
"If they're not attending class, guess what - they're going to go home," the president said. "We don't need any students to be distractions.
"If they're not here to go to class and get an education, then they shouldn't be here."
When he was applying for the LU president's job at the end of 2012, Rome said Lincoln's "open admission" policy might have to be studied to see if it should be continued - even though the soldiers who founded the school in 1866 intended for it to be open to people who had not had access to a good education, or any education, such as the former slaves who had been forbidden to learn even basic skills, under an 1847 Missouri law.
Thursday, Rome told the faculty and staff he has no plans to end LU's open admissions program, which allows students to be accepted even if they have poor high school grades or test scores.
Although many over the years have attributed low academic achievement to that policy, Rome said open admissions hasn't been the problem, "because we only accept a very few students through our open enrollment. The majority of our students come through regular admissions.
"I want everybody to know that the majority of our students who fail are admitted through regular admissions - they meet our standards for admissions."
So, he was asked, why don't those students do better?
"It's typically an issue with college readiness," he noted - even for students with a good high school educations and supportive family. "Universities have to have programs in place that help students be successful."
Rome reported another troublesome statistic is that LU's undergraduate enrollment is down almost 4.2 percent from the fall of 2007 through last year, and almost 27.2 percent at the graduate level.
Since classes don't start until next week, no numbers for Fall 2014 are available yet.
"We're going to do a better job of retaining the students that we have - because that's the best way to increase retention," Rome said, "and we're going to do a better job of recruiting better-qualified students."
Those fallen numbers also affect on-campus housing as well, with an 88 percent occupancy rate in Fall 2009, up to 94 percent two years later - then a drop to 72 percent in Fall 2012 and only 75 percent a year ago.
Enrollment numbers are important, Rome said, because the university sets its budget on a certain percentage of occupancy.
"When we don't meet those targets, it costs the university money," Rome explained. "So, money that we could use for other purposes, we have to put into sustaining our auxiliary functions," including paying off housing debt.
Rome announced Thursday he's "made some decisions about requiring more students to live in the residence halls," including "requiring that any students who received a presidential scholarship or a curators scholarship to live on campus."
Rome's administration also is changing the protocal for adult staff who live with students in those residence halls.
"Our new resident directors all have master's degrees in higher education, or education.
"It's important that we have staff in our residence halls who are educators, because the goal is to change the environment and focus on the success of our students."
Why share all the numbers with the faculty and staff?
"One of the things I think is important is information - and I want all of us to have the same information," the second-year LU president explained. "There is a lot of change that's happening at Lincoln.
"And I want everyone to know exactly what's going on."