Collective impact in action: Advancing student success at MSU

SUES Strategy Guide Update

Last year, we spent time in an MSU sponsored learning community about the five opportunity areas of student success to continue getting feedback and suggestions for the Spartan Undergraduate Experience Strategy Guide. Thanks to the diligent work of Mariam Turkey, Wasek Sazzad, and Liz Fuller, we now have an updated version of the guide. The updates include the new Health and Wellbeing strategic plan along with Wellbeing Collective priorities and strategies.  By the end of this academic year, we also plan on having updated metrics for all five areas of success.

How can you use the guide? It provides the definitions of student success we are using at MSU to guide our work, and we encourage you to share it with your instructors and staff when setting goals and priorities for students. It provides the research that informs those definitions and guidance for how we as an institution can commit to practices that help us live out those definitions. It also provides suggestions for how to review and assess activities to determine if we are meeting our student success goals. 

Spartan Undergrad Experience Advisory Council 

The Spartan Undergraduate Experience Council is made up of 17 members who are either students from the 2024 and 2025 UGS201 course on about the five areas of success, and/or participants in one or multiple Undergrad Ed pathways programs, On Nov. 11, 2025, the SUES Student Advisory Council, met with Alexandra Stanley and Sara Miller from the MSU Modernization of General Education initiative and discussed the following questions:

• Reflect on which high-impact activities you have engaged in at MSU and if you have experienced any barriers to engaging in them.
• When you graduate from MSU, what do you think you, along with all Spartan graduates, should have in common (share) in terms of what you know, do, and experience while attending MSU

Some of the themes and ideas that emerged from that conversation included: 

• the importance of experiential learning and community engagement including volunteering as professional development and integrating service learning and community engagement into the curriculum;
• the benefits of having undergraduate learning assistants in courses to build community, and improve student confidence;
• confusion about how Capstone courses operate and what the requirements are across majors with the suggestion to include student input into designing them;
• praise for early integration programs with the recommendation to expand them;
• the need for a variety of learning modalities

Students identified experiences every Spartan should have before graduation:

• Social and Professional Networking: Building connections with peers and professionals.
• Exposure to Diverse Opportunities: Career fairs, student organizations, and interdisciplinary events.
• Study Abroad: Strongly endorsed for cultural immersion, independence, and problem-solving skills.
• Trial and Error: Experiencing both positive and negative professional settings to clarify career interests.
• Spartan Identity: Students aspire for Spartans to be recognized as innovators, advocates, and change-makers.
• Personal Growth: College should help students understand their capabilities, limits, and pathways to success.
• Self-Advocacy and Negotiation: Students stressed the need for training in salary negotiation, career advancement, and goal-setting.
• Advocacy for Others: Emphasis on using knowledge for collective benefit and community impact.
• Leadership and Independence: College experience should cultivate confidence, adaptability, and leadership skills

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. Find your unit’s representative on the available list here.

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 second meeting of the year, Vice Provost and Dean of Undergraduate Education Mark Largent discussed how the university was just 273 students short of our 11,000 enrollment goal with a focus on increasing transfer acceptances and simultaneously decreasing first time in any college acceptances by 100. The Community College Guarantee for free tuition is drawing more students into higher education.

Becky Keogh and Kari Stone-Sewalish joined us this month to engage the community in insights and input around the Academic Mapping Project that is part of the MiLEAP Transfer Student Success Initiative. MSU was recognized for our acceptance of MTA (Michigan Transfer Advising) at a conference which is a significant shift from three years ago when MSU received feedback that it was so difficult to transfer to our institution. Michigan Tech said they took a cue from MSU to accept MTA. Becky gave accolades to Laura Wise and Charles Jackson for their part in this shift happening.

The UGAAD community was then asked to describe the tools they are using currently with transfer students, what works, what doesn’t work and what would the tools be like in an ideal world – where would they live, how would they function. Becky, Kari and the project team will be taking the feedback to their working group and returning in December for further discussion.

Swapne Hingw, director of MSU Counseling and Psychiatric Services (CAPS), also joined to talk about how the Care and Intervention Team (CAIT) and CAPS teams function and to remind us of the resources available if we encounter a student or staff member in distress. We are seeing some trends in financial stress driving behavioral concerns this semester with a 30% increase in counseling and psychiatric visits since last fall. The goal is early intervention and coordinated reporting to provide the most comprehensive support possible.

Student Success Strategic Initiatives Portfolio 

Called together by Mark Largent and Renata Opoczynski, this group meets monthly to connect across initiatives to fuel collaboration and learning while also ensuring alignment and fulfillment of sponsors’ expectations.  Project leads identify barriers to progress with burning questions for Mark, Renata, and other project leads to problem solve and strategize.

We are currently working on a webpage that will provide information about current and previous student success initiatives and the outcomes of that work. The page will also serve as a resource for anyone who is considering developing a project along with tools for project managers and leaders as they engage in the work.

Active and well-established projects:

• MI LEAP Learning Goals – Renee Miller Zientek, Emily Conroy-Krutz, Helena Gardner, Stephen Thomas, Wasek Sazzad
• Academic Standing – Maria O’Connell,
  • Early Warning - Talitha Wimberly
  • ASUS Policy and Procedure - Debra Thornton
  • Monitored Intervention and Outreach - Justin St. Charles and Danielle Flores Lopez
• Class Scheduling Reform – SUES Wicked Problems Operational Area 1: Annette McLane, Lynmarie Posey, along with Susan Richter, Krysta Vincent, Zach Reichard, Ebony Green, Paige Forbes (student rep)
• MiLEAP Transfer Student Success Initiative – Portia Watkins Kristina Baas
  • Envision Green – Laura Wise
  • Increasing academic mapping – Becky Keogh and Kari Stone-Sewalish
  • Transfer Student Success Center Expansion – Charles Jackson
  • Transfer Advisory Council – Portia Watkins
  • Expanding Credit for Prior Learning – Sara Barnwell, Justin St. Charles
  • Transfer Communications – Jessica Livingston and Kristina Beatty

Developing Projects:

• First-Gen Center/Student Success Center – Heather Shea and Christina Bridges
• Student Digital Strategy – SUES Wicked Problems Operational Area 2:  Kristina Baas, Jason Beaudin, Carmen Crist, Jeremy Van Hof
• Strategic Retention Efforts
  • MI Leap Centralized Fund – Christina Bridges, Justin St. Charles
  • SCND: Reorientation/Reintegration (RoRi) – Justin St. Charles and Kay Stevens
  • Modern Campus Texting – Christina Bridges, Julia Barnes

Portfolio Projects - Parallel Partner Updates

• A Modern General Education Curriculum - Stacia Moroski-Rigney, Elizabeth Elliot
• Green and White Council Updates – Amy Hertel
• One Health – Jackie Goodway

May 2026 Student Success Summit Planning

One MSU for Student Success

• May 7 (in-person at the Business College Complex)
• May 8 (virtually via Zoom)

In partnership with CTLI MSU Spring TALKS and IT-Educational Technology, this event will be open to all MSU faculty, staff, educators, advisors, students, and our campus partners. 

The Student Success Summit is an opportunity for faculty, advisors and staff to share activities they have been engaged in over the course of the year, share assessment and research, and engage campus participants for insights and input.

This year's event will explore how our community is Empowering Student Success using the five opportunity areas of student success and highlighting positive contributions to undergraduate student success at MSU

The Summit planning committee met for the first time on Dec. 2, 2025. Our theme this year is Collective Impact: Empowering Student Success Across One MSU.

Committee members – we appreciate their leadership and involvement!

• Amy Martin and Maria O’Connell (co-chairs)
• Liz Fuller
• Jennifer Freitas
• Lillian Brooks
• Ellie Louson
• Qiana Green
• Samuel Saldivar
• Taylor Marino
• Heidi Quintero
• Annette McLane
• Alex Guo
• Wasek Sazzad
• charlie liu

As part of this effort, we would like to highlight the work you are engaged in for student success. For an opportunity to share your efforts with the MSU community, please complete this proposal by Monday, Feb. 9, 2026, at noon.

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.

In November and December, we refined our list of pain points in the following three areas and began to identify the root causes of those pain points. We are now trying to identify potential solutions to suggest to the most appropriate working group(s). Members of other campus groups were invited to participate in the root cause analysis process to provide further insight into potential root causes and solutions. 

In the next newsletter we will share the outcomes of this work and the academic enrollment hold mapping.

Find the list of CSSG members here. 

Root cause analysis and identification of solutions

• 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.

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.

Projects and initiatives are actively underway and connected to the Student Success Strategic Initiatives group. We will have additional updates in the spring; our next meeting of the Executive Committee is Feb. 23, 2026. 

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. 

During the Nov. 18 meeting, a draft of the metrics for Educational Success was shared and discussed. On Dec. 9, please join us for a discussion about sense of belonging metrics from 9-10 a.m., prior to the UGAAD meeting that day. 

Stay Informed About Student Success at MSU

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.