Dr. Ruff’s Doctoral Dissertation work: Caseload Advising as Teaching- An Advising-Teaching Model to Improve Retention and Persistence of First Year STEM Students- consisted of a six year study to improve the transition, retention and persistence of first year students within the College of Science and Technology (CST) at Temple University. As an Advisor, he was assigned as Coordinator of the CST 1001 “Freshman” (First Year) Seminar course. This aligned with his six year Dissertation study, which set out to improve first year programming via the First Year Seminar course. This was accomplished by adding a pedagogical (teaching) approach to the course. In 2017 he extended his research by crafting the CST 2001 Transfer Seminar course for first year Transfer students. By the fall 2019, both courses emerged as graduation requirements for matriculating undergraduate students in CST.
In 2017 Dr. Ruff expanded his research through the Transfer Seminar course by starting and continuing to teach an Early Fall term section, specifically to provide jumpstart (college) preparatory information and resources that were unique to students in the College of Science and Technology. The Early Term section also contained an outreach component to specifically target students from the Community College of Philadelphia (CCP.) Relative to Temple University’s Transfer Student population, Dr. Ruff has held also held leadership and student service assignments at Bucks County Community College and Montgomery County Community College. These community colleges represent the top three (3) feeder institutions of students transferring into Temple University.