This fall, the Student Undergraduate Experience Strategy (SUES) team will be providing monthly updates that spotlight the collaborative work happening within the student success ecosystem. Inspired by Meaghan Kozar’s call to broaden awareness, these updates aim to highlight both the effort and learning that define MSU’s collective impact approach to institutional change for the undergraduate student success.
Campus Student Success Group (CSSG): Tackling student pain points
The CSSG is a cross-campus committee focused on improving the student experience by advocating for change regarding systemic challenges in policies, procedures, and practices – student pain points. Members represent their units and bring forward feedback, co-create solutions, and elevate promising practices.
Key Focus Areas:
- Major Change Process: Addressing inconsistencies across colleges and improving clarity for exploratory students.
- Enrollment Holds at 56 Credits: Evaluating equity impacts and exploring advising-based interventions.
- Late Drop / 0.0 Trending: Considering compassionate, policy-informed responses to academic distress.
- Academic Enrollment Holds Mapping: Collaborating with the Registrar and University Advising Leadership (UAL) to analyze and streamline hold codes.
CSSG also engages with other campus groups and offices like SPIRE (Stewardship, Policy, Integrity, Risk, Evaluation) in the Office of Accreditation, Assessment, Curriculum, and Compliance to gather insights and support change. Upcoming discussions include:
- Academic standing policy revisions through the work of the Academic Standing group lead by Maria O’Connell, Talith Wimberly, Justin St. Charles and Debra Thornton
- Writing, Rhetoric, and American Cultures (WRA) assessment findings by Susan Richter, Crystal VanKooten, and Bree Straayer
- Impact of the 2-Year Live On Requirement by Abe Huyser Honig, Chris Stone-Sewalish, Ray Gasser, and Paul Goldblatt
UGAAD: Strategic Engagement for Undergraduate Success
The Undergraduate Education Advice and Deliberation (UGAAD) group provides collaborative campus stakeholder engagement to support strategic initiatives and organizational change activities for Spartan undergraduate success.
Goals:
- Engage change management processes with the campus community through recommended stakeholder engagement processes.
- Incorporate feedback on planning and implementation of initiatives and organizational change.
- Recognize innovation and excellence in alignment with student success definitions, outcomes and metrics.
In our first meeting of the year, Residential and Hospitality Services Associate Vice President Patty Martinez and Vice President of Student Affairs Jim Hintz introduced themselves and shared some updates on their unit’s structures and plans for working collaboratively.
We also had an update on the Spartan Wellbeing Collective by Laura Bélisle, UHW Project Manager. This initiative supports the implementation of the Okanagan Charter, embedding health into all aspects of campus life. Faculty, staff, and students are invited to participate in workgroups and contribute ideas to promote holistic wellbeing.
- University Health & Wellbeing Plan (slide deck)
- SAVE THE DATE: Spartan Wellbeing Summit, Feb. 26, 2026 (slide deck)
- Resource List to Support Pedagogical Wellness at MSU (Excel document)
Finally, we had a presentation on current enrollment trends, time to degree, retention and graduate rates by Bethan Cantwell, assistant provost of Institutional Research. You can find information at these links:
- Public Facing Fall Enrollment Report (PDF)
- Student Enrollment by Primary Academic Career (available to all MSU faculty and staff; MSU NetID login required)
- One Page Fact Sheets and Dashboards (available to all MSU faculty and staff; MSU NetID login required)
- Retention, Graduation, and Time to Degree Tables (IT Service Desk Access Request required for student success Tableau Dashboards)
SUES Executive Committee: Solving Wicked Problems
Charged by MSU’s President to embody the “One MSU” vision, the SUES Executive Committee brings together vice presidential level leaders including college deans to address complex/wicked institutional challenges through shared operational strategies and unified principles. The Executive Committee’s most recent meeting opened with a welcome to newly invited members, including several college deans who volunteered to engage more deeply in SUES work. Approximately one-third of attendees were new.
Framing Principles
- Residential undergraduate education is the core business and moral function of MSU - the foundation on which all other functions depend.
- The goal is to align strategy, structure, and resources to support this core purpose.
- Leadership must coordinate vision across distributed units - guiding, not replacing, the work already happening at multiple levels.
Each project provided written updates in advance. The session focused on identifying barriers, dependencies, and alignment opportunities.
Four Wicked Problems Under Active Resolution
- Degree-Career Alignment: Through MiLEAP Learning Goals and the Modernization of Gen Ed Project.
- Transfer Articulation: Improved modeling and benchmarking.
- Policy “Paper Cuts:” Campus Student Success Group and SPIRE reviewing small but impactful barriers like late fees.
- Student Experience Mapping: Connecting curricular and co-curricular pathways.
Four Wicked Problems Needing Continued Institutional Focus
- Course scheduling and seat availability: Over-concentration of classes between 10 a.m. - 2 p.m.; poor time/resource utilization; low Friday and evening course offerings
- Uncoordinated student digital tools and experiences: students must master multiple learning management systems (LMSs) and tools per semester, creating inequity and inefficiency.
- Unclear strategy for financing total cost of attendance: costs beyond tuition (materials, software, parking, housing, emotional and cultural burdens) lack cohesive planning.
- Institutional misalignment between structure, policy, and student needs: reflects higher education’s organizational inertia; MSU must adapt to rapidly shifting student demographics and expectations.
SUES Five Areas of Success Learning Community
The SUES Five Areas Learning Community, led by Maria O’Connell, UIA fellow and Undergraduate Student Success Strategic Initiatives manager; Rebecca Dean, director of Assessment and Data Analytics; and Laleah Fernandez, associate director, Institutional Research, continues the work of building and updating the Spartan Undergraduate Experience Strategy Guide. Through engagement of the campus community, the Learning Community works to fill in gaps of the metrics we are trying to achieve in areas of success and design an assessment strategy.
The Learning Community’s first two meetings of the semester were focused on education success, with members of the campus community invited to join in the conversation. Learn more at undergrad.msu.edu/strategy-retention/sues/learning-community.
As part of our broader effort to foster transparency, collaboration, and innovation across MSU for the Spartan Undergraduate Experience, we will continue to provide important updates from the meetings, conversations and engagement opportunities with the campus community. Explore more Student Success News to stay informed and join the conversation as we work together to build a more student-centered MSU.