Marcos Velazquez wins the 2014 SAIR Best Paper Award

Marcos Velazquez, a research analyst for Barry’s Office of Institutional Research, won the 2014 Southern Association for Institutional Research (SAIR) Best Paper Award.

Among the hundreds of papers and presentations made at each SAIR Conference, a Best Paper is selected by a panel. Velazquez's submission, “The Relationship between Institutional Characteristics and First-Year Retention Rates,” was selected as the 2014 SAIR Best Paper Award by the SAIR’s reviewers, appointed and chaired by the Member-At-Large responsible for handling awards.

Velazquez will be honored at next year's SAIR conference, as well as the Association for Institutional Research (AIR) Forum. In recognition, he will receive a plaque, a total of $1,000 in travel grants to assist with the costs of traveling to the AIR Forum ($500 from each association), and will be formally recognized among his SAIR colleagues at the SAIR 2015 Awards Breakfast in Savannah, GA. Further, his paper has been automatically accepted for presentation at the 2015 AIR Forum, which will be held in Denver, CO.

SAIR is dedicated to the advancement of research leading to improved understanding, planning, and operation of institutions of post-secondary education. SAIR is the regional body that encompasses institutional research offices from Delaware to Texas. It includes 239 universities from 16 states.