ORONO – Last fall the University of Maine enrolled more first-year students than ever before. Now the trick is to keep them.

Freshmen frequently fall through the cracks at a big university or suffer culture shock, especially those coming from small rural towns or low-income backgrounds.

During the last few years, UM has had one of the worst retention rates among land grant universities in New England.

But the UM faculty senate hopes to turn that around.

Members voted Wednesday to try to increase the number of freshmen who return for their sophomore year by encouraging colleges to create advising centers that help students navigate the system. Advisers help students choose classes and set up tutoring plans or refer them to other campus services.

One model could be the advising center in the College of Education and Human Development, according to the motion passed on a 28-4 vote by the faculty senate Wednesday.

The resolution also urged faculty to have more personal contact with students by breaking classes into small groups, scheduling field trips and lecture series and giving regular homework assignments.

“The quality of academic advising students receive varies greatly, especially for first-year and sophomore students,” the motion stated. Students are frequently uncertain about their choice of major, and often switch majors. Such situations “make it difficult for students to connect with their assigned advisers in their majors,” it said.

Between 1985 and 2001, the number of UM freshmen who didn’t return for their sophomore year has drifted up and down from a high of 25 percent to a low of 19 percent, according to John Beacon, dean of enrollment management.

U.S. News and World Report’s 2003 edition of America’s Best Colleges uses a retention formula in judging quality. UM tied with the University of Rhode Island for the lowest average retention rate among New England Land Grant universities, at 79 percent. The other New England campus rates were: University of Connecticut, 88 percent; University of Massachusetts at Amherst, 82 percent; University of New Hampshire, 84 percent; and University of Vermont, 82 percent.

In the magazine’s evaluation of “national universities,” some public institutions got much higher scores, such as the University of California at Berkeley and the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor at 95 percent. And some got much lower ratings, such as Northern Arizona University at 65 percent and the University of Arkansas at Little Rock at 64 percent.

U.S. News said its measure has two components: a six-year graduation rate (80 percent of the retention score) and a freshman retention rate (20 percent of the score). The graduation rate considered classes that started between 1992 and 1995, and the freshman retention rate looked at the proportion of classes entering between 1997 and 2000 that returned the next fall.

Chemistry professor Howard Patterson, who led the faculty senate’s initiative to increase student retention, said Wednesday that “UM is doing pretty good, but we want to do better.”

The goal is to improve by 3 to 5 percent during the next several years, he said during an interview before the meeting. Better retention would also go a long way in improving the budget, he pointed out.

He said he received a number of suggestions from faculty about how to keep students at UM and they were incorporated into the motion.

Reasons for students dropping out can be difficult to pinpoint, according to Dean Beacon.

Financial problems often play a part, he said. Some students want to be closer to home while others leave to be with their boyfriend or girlfriend.

In addition to the advising center at the College of Education, UM has an Academic and Career Exploration center which helps freshman who aren’t in a particular college, he pointed out.

Advising has been proven nationally to be “one of the best retention aces,” Beacon said.

Good advising is more than just providing academic guidance, he stressed. “It’s being a friend,” doing everything from helping students explore careers to lending an ear and helping them grapple with emotional problems.

Staffed by one full-time faculty member, one professional staff member who also does adjunct teaching and a graduate assistant, the advising center at the College of Education is continually busy.

After it was created in 1998, retention in the college went up from about 79 to 85 percent. according to John Maddaus, associate professor of education.

Professional advisers are more accessible than faculty advisers and “aren’t perceived as being threatening,” he said.

Patterson told the senate that “each college and each department has the freedom” to develop its own plan to increase student retention.

At least one professor doesn’t see his particular college veering from its current strategies.

The College of Engineering holds a dinner for first-year students, involves them in the American Society of Civil Engineers, and encourages them to call faculty members by their first names, said professor Dana Humphrey.

Each student is assigned a permanent faculty adviser, according to Humphrey, who said only 8 percent of engineering students fail to return for their second year.

“We know who they are as people, so they’re not some nameless face out in a class,” he said.

Some faculty members on Wednesday were obviously unenthusiastic about the plan.

It’s “more idealistic than realistic,” said Darlene Bay, assistant professor of accounting.

Although the motion is “well-intended, it’s not going to work for all faculty,” said Donald Hayes, associate professor of psychology. With hundreds of students, he doesn’t have time to grade weekly homework assignments or reduce his classes into small groups, he said.