Challenging economic conditions, changing student demographics, and heightened levels of accountability may require community colleges to address student retention more strategically. Community colleges must cope with external forces while at the same time attempting to meet their mission of open access. Retention is also important when community colleges rely on student enrollments for economic survival. There is a need to study programs that increase student retention, and new student orientation programs are the most promising in addressing the problem of student attrition. This quantitative, retrospective study examines a first year orientation program (FYO) at a rural 2-year community college and its influence on the term-to-term retention of first year, degree seeking students. Enrollment data for the two years prior to the program's inception were compared to the first two years the FYO program became mandatory for all freshman, degree-seeking students enrolled in at least one college-level course. Chi-square tests for categorical data were calculated to find significant differences in returning versus non-returning student totals. The overall influence of the program on retention was significant. Implications for practice are discussed and examples of application are included in the appendix. [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/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]