This year the Office of Undergraduate Education partnered with the Office of Admissions to engage incoming students and their families and supporters around the Five Opportunity Areas of Success at MSU. The idea developed from conversations that began last year when Vice Provost and Dean of Undergraduate Studies Mark Largent asked the Undergraduate Education Associate/Assistant Deans and Leadership group members to participate in 56 Inside MSU sessions that are held every spring for students who have been admitted to MSU and are considering whether or not to attend.
Partnering with the Admissions team to lead a 45-minute conversation, our job was to speak about all that MSU has to offer inside and outside the classroom. As one of the only Big 10 institutions where potential students, families and supporters can engage with executive leaders during this type of admissions session, this collaboration is a valuable part of welcoming our students to campus.
This year, the Five Opportunity Areas of Student Success was used as the framework for the 20-minute, Undergraduate Education-facilitated portion of the weekly sessions that ran between January and April. During these sessions, we interacted with 4244 admitted students (1608) and their supporters (2636). This same framework was also used for the inaugural Student Success Webinar held March 12 which garnered the attention of 796 family members and supporters of admitted students.
Information we shared during our engagement with students and their supporters included:
- describing our role on campus and facts about our own college journey
- background outlining how the Five Opportunity Areas for Success were developed from the expertise of our campus scholars, researchers, and practitioners, along with a national/international literature review
- information on ongoing collaborations with other universities across the country that are focused on student retention, persistence, and graduation
- overview of each area of success where we presented key questions for participants to consider as well as activities at MSU that supported students in that area of success
To continue learning more about the needs of our undergraduate students, this fall we will be measuring their awareness of the Five Areas of Student Success in the Student Experience Survey sponsored by Residential Housing Services. A baseline survey of students' understanding was conducted in fall 2024. In the interim, we gained some insight into the questions and needs of our newly admitted students through the Q&A portion of the Inside MSU sessions.
Notably, there was an obvious sense of relief among many students and their families when we discussed that most MSU undergraduates changed their majors at least once, and that we had designed a university to allow (and even encourage) students to explore their interests and find a major that allows them different pathways to careers.
During the sessions, participants also asked about the sizes of classes and responded positively when we discussed learning outside the classroom, the Spartan Experience Record of student learning activities, and the critical importance of being engaged on campus through opportunities like undergraduate research, education abroad, service learning, internships, campus jobs, student organizations, undergraduate seminars, writing courses, and the Spartan Early Start program. The work of our Strategic Retention team in reaching out to students not enrolled, the MSU Food Bank, the Computer Laptop Program sponsored by MSU Libraries and mental health support services were also of interest and further questions. We also reminded them that they should expect institutional strategies around the Five Areas at any university they were considering.
I wanted to express my sincere gratitude to Mike Kolar and Terence Brown, assistant directors in the Office of Admissions, and the entire Admissions team who lead the Inside MSU sessions for their support and partnership. And to our Undergraduate Education team—thank you for taking the time out of your already busy schedules to meet with incoming MSU students and their families/supporters. This type of partnership exemplifies the type of constructive collaborations that help students experience One MSU for undergraduate student success.
