Vincent Tinto is a Distinguished University Professor of

sociology Sociology is a social science that focuses on society, human social behavior, patterns of Interpersonal ties, social relationships, social interaction, and aspects of culture associated with everyday life. It uses various methods of Empirical ...

Syracuse University Syracuse University (informally 'Cuse or SU) is a Private university, private research university in Syracuse, New York. Established in 1870 with roots in the Methodist Episcopal Church, the university has been nonsectarian since 1920. Locate ...

School of Education In the United States and Canada, a school of education (or college of education; ed school) is a division within a university that is devoted to scholarship in the field of education, which is an interdisciplinary branch of the social sciences en ...

. He is a noted theorist in the field of

higher education Higher education is tertiary education leading to award of an academic degree. Higher education, also called post-secondary education, third-level or tertiary education, is an optional final stage of formal learning that occurs after completi ...

, particularly concerning

student retention A student is a person enrolled in a school or other educational institution. In the United Kingdom and most commonwealth countries, a "student" attends a secondary school or higher (e.g., college or university); those in primary or elementary ...

and

learning communities A learning community is a group of people who share common academic goals and attitudes and meet semi-regularly to collaborate on classwork. Such communities have become the template for a cohort-based, interdisciplinary approach to higher educat ...

Education and career

Tinto received his Ph.D. in education and sociology from the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chicago is consistently ranked among the b ...

after earning a Bachelor of Science in physics at

Fordham University Fordham University () is a Private university, private Jesuit universities, Jesuit research university in New York City. Established in 1841 and named after the Fordham, Bronx, Fordham neighborhood of the The Bronx, Bronx in which its origina ...

in 1963. He was chair of the higher education program at Syracuse from 1999 to 2006. His best known work is probably his heavily cited book, ''Leaving College'' (1993, 2nd Edition), published by the

University of Chicago Press The University of Chicago Press is the largest and one of the oldest university presses in the United States. It is operated by the University of Chicago and publishes a wide variety of academic titles, including ''The Chicago Manual of Style'', ...

, in which he created a theory derived from the work of Emile Durkheim on suicide. This work compares such departure to the idea of leaving society (i.e., via suicide) due to a failure of the student and the campus to create a sense of belonging for the student. His career has involved the conduct of research on higher education, particularly on

and the impact of

on student growth and attainment. Tinto has served as a consultant to many federal and state agencies, independent research firms, foundations, and with two- and four-year institutions of higher education. He has also served on the editorial boards of several journals, organizations, and professional associations concerned with higher education. In 1990 Tinto served as Associate Director of the six-million-dollar National Center on Postsecondary Teaching, Learning, and Assessment funded by the U.S. Office of Education. He has worked with the Council for Opportunity in Education, the Pell Institute for the Study of Opportunity in Education, the European Access Network, and the Graduate Record Examination Board. As a member of the Pathways to College Network, he is currently engaged in a national effort to increase access to college. Tinto is retired as of 2013 and no longer a Syracuse resident.

Awards

*The Council of Independent Colleges 2008 Academic Leadership Award *The National Institute for Staff Development International 2008 Leadership Award *Distinguished Fellow in the Council of Learning Assistance and Developmental Education Associations *Lumina Foundation for Education grant (2002) *William and Flora Hewlett Foundation grant. (2006)

Publications

Books

*Leaving College: Rethinking the Causes and Cures of Student Attrition. Chicago:

. 1987, 2nd ed. 1993. According to Google Scholar, this has been cited 3415 times.ERIC document DED37165
Abstract
/ref> *Completing College: Rethinking Institutional Action. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. 2012.

Reports

*Moving Beyond Access: College Success for Low-Income, First-Generation Students (with Jennifer Engle). The Pell Institute for the Study of Opportunity in Higher Education. Washington D.C. 2008 *Student Retention and Graduation: Facing the Truth, Living with the Consequences. Occasional Paper No. 1. Pell Institute for the Study of Opportunity in Higher Education. Washington, D.C.. 2004 *"Adapting Learning Communities to the Needs of Remedial Education Students", NCPI, National Center for Postsecondary Improvement, Stanford University. 1998 *The Role of Financial Aid in the Persistence of Doctoral Students. (with Beatriz Chu Clewell). A final report for the National Science Foundation. Washington, D.C. 1999 *Building Learning Communities for New College Students (with A. Goodsell Love and P. Russo). A publication of the National Center on Postsecondary Teaching, Learning, and Assessment, Pennsylvania State University, 1994 *Collaborative Learning: A Sourcebook for Higher Education (with A. Goodsell and M. Maher), National Center on Postsecondary Teaching, Learning, and Assessment, Pennsylvania State University. 1992 *Education and Work: Differential Patterns of Occupational Attainment through Schooling. A final report to the National Institute of Education, Department of Education, Washington, D.C. 1980 *Assessment of a National Study of Special Service Programs in Higher Education. A report prepared for the Office of Planning, Budgeting and Evaluation, U.S. Office of Education, Washington, D.C. 1976 *The Effectiveness of Secondary and Higher Education Intervention Programs: A Critical Review of the Research. A report prepared for the Office of Planning, Budgeting and Evaluation, U.S. Office of Education, Washington, D.C.. 1974 *Dropout in Higher Education: A Review of Recent Research. A Report prepared for the Office of Planning, Budgeting and Evaluation, U.S. Office of Education, Washington, D.C.. 1973 *Where Colleges Are and Who Attends: Effects of Accessibility on College Attendance (with C.A. Anderson and Mary Jean Bowman) A general report prepared for the Carnegie commission on Higher Education. New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company. 1972

References

External links

Faculty bio
at Syracuse

{{DEFAULTSORT:Tinto, Vince Year of birth missing (living people) Living people Fordham University alumni University of Chicago alumni Syracuse University faculty Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute alumni