The first year of college is critical to the growth and retention of the freshman college student. Students enter college with a wide range of backgrounds, skills and dispositions and it is the responsibility of the institution to do all it can to assist students in achieving their education goals. The purpose of this mixed methods research design was to understand the perceptions of higher educational stakeholders' on what impacts student persistence from freshman to sophomore year in order to bring forth recommendations for institutional action through Tinto and Pusser's (2006) model for institutional action. The following questions guided the study: a) What differences in perception, if any, are there between higher educational stakeholders on the impact of academic advising, relationships with a faculty and/or staff member, Supplemental instruction, feedback, and active learning on student persistence from freshman to sophomore year?, b) How do faculty members perceive their impact on student persistence?, c) How do academic advisors perceive their impact on student persistence?, d) How do faculty members' and academic advisors' perceptions on student persistence align with students' perceptions of their impact on their persistence? Case study methodology was employed to explore the retention efforts at a single university through the data collection techniques of mixed methods descriptive surveys, interviews and focus group. Approximately 250 sophomores and 25 administrators, faculty and academic advisors at a four-year public university in the Midwest participated in a survey. Following the survey, 9 students and 3 faculty participated in individual interviews and 6 academic advisors and 1 administrator participated in a focus group. The results were generally consistent with Tinto and Pusser's (2006) model of institutional action. Although support and feedback are necessary retention tools, in this study, participants claimed that involvement in extra-curricular activities and active learning experiences have a greater impact on freshman to sophomore year persistence. The research concludes that in order to increase student retention, a model of institutional action should immediately connect students to extracurricular activities that fit their interests and then link the outcomes of these activities to the learning objectives in an active learning classroom environment. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com.bibliotheek.ehb.be/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]