Market Overview
Universities recognize that there are students attending their schools that are at risk academically. Most visibly, the African American student athlete, who along with his/her academic rigors faces the challenges of physical training both in season and out of season; travel for competition and most importantly making up classes and examinations missed due to travel, practice and/or hospitalization for injury.

Universities recognize that not only is the student athlete at a competitive disadvantage in the class room because of frequent absence to compete for the University, but for these students, this has been a trend that began early in life when most were originally identified as gifted athletes.

It is recognized by the universities that in order to maintain a proper balance between academics and athletics that these special students needed to acquire a near term competitive advantage in the classroom in an attempt to compensate for the skills deficiency that is believed to exist based on poor initial GPAs.

Many academic intervention programs have been both costly, upwards of $700 per student per semester, and ineffective “graduating only three African American basketball players in twelve years” at one California State University.

There is a large and willing market available in higher education for a proven academic intervention program directed at the student athlete.

Company
Student Retention Services (Athletics) has been formed to bring the nation’s most successful academic intervention program for student athletes to the higher education market. Its cohort, Student Diversity Program (SDP), has a proven track record on several California campuses and it now available for a national roll out through several business models.

At California State University Fullerton the following results were obtained after five years of operation:
Cost $47 per student compared to $700 per student for competing on campus support.  This represents a savings of 93%.  In 2003 terms, with over 1200 students participating in SDP, the University is saving of $840,000 per year in addition to Federal and State funding that is not lost.

The human side of the equation, 46% of the SDP students graduated compared to 23% of those not participating. (Source CSFU Registrar’s Office)  This represents a 200% advantage for the SDP approach.

Management Team:

John Reid, M.S. (MFCC) – President
Mr. Reid retired from the U. S. Navy after more than 20-years of decorated service.  He later supervised Electronic Fabrication and Assembly of the Block I and II GPS Satellite Systems for Rockwell International.  He also retrofitted Space Shuttle electrical systems under the auspices of NASA.  He is the founder of California State University Fullerton’s Black Ombudsman Program (BOP) and the current Student Diversity Program (SDP).  The SDP is recognized as one of the nation’s top student retention programs.

Louis Black, B.A. (Accounting) – Vice President Business Development
Mr. Black brings more than 30 years of combined private and public business management and development experience.  He has been affiliated with the Student Diversity Program since its beginning.

D. J. Dozier, B.A. – Director of Athletic Programs
Mr. Dozier was an outstanding student athlete at Penn State University where he was one of the all-time leading running backs for the football team.  He also played professional football with the Minnesota Vikings and Detroit Lions.  His athletic prowess garnered him an opportunity to play baseball for the New Mets major league baseball team.

Charles Moore, M.A. (Education) – Vice President, Enrollment Management and Training
Over sixteen years of administrative experience including stints at California State University, Long Beach, University of California, Riverside, and California State University, Fullerton (CSUF). Held position as Director of Enrollment Services Center, El Toro Campus CSUF, responsible for implementation of direct efforts to secure adequate numbers of qualified upper division and graduate student applicants and matriculants.  

Have conducted system-wide retention analyses, twenty-year study representing University of California and California State University freshmen and transfer matriculants to ascertain effects of affirmative action and termination of such programs.  

Marketing
Student Retention Services (Athletics) will focus its marketing efforts on institutions of higher education that have high profile athletic programs and a desire to have the true “student athlete on its campus.” Student Retention Services (Athletics) anticipates that its Lecture Series will generate substantial interest and entry to the above institutions.

Licensing
Student Retention Services (Athletics) will license its program to institutions of higher education that wish to implement and run their own SDP. With this license Student Retention Services (Athletics) will provide a site license; implementation support; hot line support, program results management and reports and training of staff. The fee for this license is $50,000 per year. The SDP will be web based and will be on-line to the licensing institution via an extranet.

Lecture Series
Student Retention Services (Athletics) will make available lecturers to address the SDP as it pertains to the host’s situation. These lectures can be used by host institution to raise money for their own program with a Student Retention Services (Athletics) SDP license. The fee for these lectures is $5000. If the host institution obtains a license, this fee will be waived.

Franchising
Student Retention Services (Athletics) will franchise the SDP business to those institutions that wish to enter into licensing SDP to other institutions, e.g., California State Fullerton may want to set up SDP in Orange County Community Colleges (OCCC) to help the transition of student athletes from OCCC to its school. Or the State University of New York may want to implement the SDP program across all its institutions. The fee for a franchise would be $100,000 plus $5000 for each school sublicensed.

Student Retention Services (Athletics) plans to successfully establish SDP in six institutions of higher education by the end of 2009 and establish SDP in twelve institutions of higher education in 2010. We will give at least two lectures each month and will establish one franchise eighteen months later.

Meeting the above plan will generate approximately $1.2M in revenue over the next 18 months. Expenses to get the company staffed and equipped to provide the above services are expected to match revenues over the next 18 months.

Student Retention Services (Athletics) will have three sources of revenue:

1.  Licensing
The fee for licensing the Student Diversity Program is $50,000 per year per institution.

2. Lecture Series
The fee for providing lecturers for events, e.g., luncheons, will be $5000 per event. If a license results from the engagement, the fee will be waived.

3.  Franchising
Franchises will be made available to those educational institutions that wish to establish the SDP program at other institutions of higher learning or state university systems such the California State University system. The fee for this program would be $100,000 per year and 10% of the sublicense fees.

Sustaining Competitive Advantage
Student Retention Services (Athletics) is bringing a truly remarkable academic intervention program to the market that has been fine tuned to support the “student athlete” in particular the African American “student athlete”. The results of this program have been analyzed over a five-year period with success quantified in terms of grade point average improvement, student retention and graduation. Further analysis has shown that the university recovers substantial state funds, over $9,000 per student, as a result of the increased retention.

Existing Academic Intervention Programs
There are two noteworthy intervention programs operating from a national perspective.  First, the Learning Communities model developed by Dr. Vincent Tinto from Syracuse University, Syracuse, New York is the most rapid growing retention program.  To facilitate students, frequent assessments of learning, frequent feedback about learning, and frequent feedback about teaching are required.  The SDP has a much more streamlined format providing more individualized short-term interactions.  The SDP’s focus is grounded in binding academic and social (including faculty) integration into one holistic unit.  The SDP is significantly more cost and time efficient.
Second, the Noel-Levitz Student-Athlete Retention Program assumes “successful student-athletes know how to transfer their strengths in athletics to academic success.”  The student-athlete matriculation process is complex and laborious using the Noel-Levitz model.  The SDP has simplified the student-athlete integration process by providing guidance and retention services, developing action plans and programs to address academic, social and cultural needs.  SDP also maintains a complex early assessment and reporting system.

New Market Entrant
Note:  There are no known New Market Entrants

Do we know of any new programs that would compete with us in the near future?

Program Technology
Student Retention Services (Athletics) will make extensive use of interactive CD training services, Internet and web based technology for the implementation, hands on training, hot line and program results management and reporting of the SDP program. Each licensee and franchisee will be on a Student Retention Services (Athletics) extranet. The latest remote learning technology will be made available to each licensee and franchisee.  We will also make available a comprehensive Workflow Measurement System (WMS) tool never used at any institution in America.

Funding
Current funding has allowed Student Retention Services (Athletics) to complete SDP development. A national roll out of this program will take an additional $300K over the next six months.