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Student Success Launch and Summit

2025 Student Success Summit

Student Success Summit 2025, May 7, 8:30am - 4pm, Business College Complex, and May 8, 1pm - 4pm, virtual session via ZoomJoin educators, staff, and students at the 2025 Student Success Summit, a culmination of all the student success work that was advanced at MSU throughout the academic year. This year’s Summit will explore how MSU’s faculty and staff continue to reform MSU using the Five Opportunity Areas of Student Success, celebrating impactful contributions across campus. 

New for 2025, the Summit will take place over the course of two days: day one will be in-person, and day two will be virtual. 

Learn a little more about what’s planned for this year’s Summit below! Registration for the in-person session has closed but you may still sign up for the virtual session! Full schedule and details will be shared as the event approaches. 

Please reach out to chair Maria O’Connell at jacomema@msu.edu should you have any questions or concerns related to the 2025 Summit. 



May 7: In-person

Wednesday, May 7
8:30 a.m. – 4 p.m. 
Business College Complex

8:15-9 a.m.

  • Continental Breakfast and registration

9-9:15 a.m.

  • Welcome and event kickoff

9:15 a.m.-noon

  • Keynote: In partnership with the MSU Spring TALKS Conference, the opening morning of the Summit will feature Dr. Nick Sanders, professor of Rhetoric and Writing at Oakland University, and Spartan Alum, as keynote speaker.
  • Morning session: Mapping & Enacting the Spartan Undergraduate Experience Strategy – This session will ground us in the Spartan Undergraduate Experience Strategy by reviewing key efforts to date, including the Strategy Guide, Learning Community, and initiative database. We'll highlight the importance of student engagement, explore each of the Five Areas of Student Success through real examples, and provide space for reflection, and recognition.

Noon-1 p.m.

  • Lunch (provided)

1-3:30 p.m.

  • Breakout Session 1 (1–2:15 p.m.) and Breakout Session 2 (2:30-3:30 p.m.): Applying the Five Areas in our work. These breakouts will be interactive workshops where participants will engage in interactive collaborative sessions to discuss and explore ways to apply the five areas to your work, including: incorporating all five areas of success in your bridge, transition or cohort program; addressing sense of belonging in curricular and co-curricular efforts; tending to returning students’ success; assessing student success efforts; mapping student engagement, and more!

3:30-4 p.m. – Closing

  • Discuss key takeaways from sessions and actions to take for our student success work in the upcoming academic year.

 

May 8: Virtual

Thursday, May 8
1 – 4 p.m.
Zoom
Register via Zoom

The virtual day of the Summit is ideal for attendees who work fully remote or will not be able to attend the in-person sessions on May 7. 

The virtual sessions will provide opportunities to interact and engage with other virtual participants across the five opportunity areas of success. Recordings of the May 7 keynote session and some discussions will be available to virtual attendees the morning of May 8.

Register for Virtual

 
 

Student Success Launch and SummitTeacher working with student on laptop

The fall Student Success Launch and spring Student Success Summit are opportunities for the campus community to come together and discuss student success with an eye toward where we want to go and what we want to accomplish. 

The Student Success Launch is a chance to showcase the multiple places on campus where student success work happens and network with others who are doing similar work. The event regularly draws over 200 participants and is held at the start of every academic year in the fall. 

The Student Success Summit is an opportunity for the faculty, advisors and staff to connect at the end of the academic year on topics to support their student success work over the summer and into the academic year.

2024

The 2024 Student Success Summit was held on Wednesday, May 8 from 8 a.m. - 2 p.m. in the Minskoff Business Pavilion. Featuring opening remarks by President Guskiewicz, Interim Provost Jeitschko, and Vice Provost Mark Largent, with Dr. Kristen Renn as keynote speaker, this year's event focused on deep learning around the five opportunity areas of undergraduate student success, critical thinking around meeting 2030 goals, and a celebration of outstanding fellow Spartans.

For continued learning and those who were unable to attend, find materials from the day of the Summit linked below:

·      Student Success Summit Presentation (PPT)

·      Opening Remarks and Presidential Address (video)

·      Dr. Renn’s Keynote Presentation (video)

·      Student Interviews (video)

The 2024 Student Success Launch took place on Thursday, Sept. 17, 2024, from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. in the MSUFCU Club in Spartan Stadium. This event invited campus partners to participate in workshopping and discussion around the projects, policies, processes and practices that can remove student barriers and support the five opportunity areas of the Spartan Undergraduate Experience Strategy:

  • Self-discovery of purpose
  • Educational success
  • Developing a sense of belonging
  • Contributing to an empowered community
  • Developing wellbeing

Materials from the day of the Launch

Spartan Undergraduate Experience Strategy Database 

Please consider contributing to the Spartan Undergraduate Experience Strategy Database form. The purpose of this survey is to build a database of campus efforts that specifically align with and help us enact researched and documented MSU strategies for closing our opportunity gaps.

Five Areas of Success Learning Community 2024

Please consider joining members of a campus-wide community that will contribute to new discoveries and refine the institutional commitments and metrics for five opportunity areas of undergraduate success outlined in the Spartan Undergraduate Experience Strategy Guide. This guide supports our 2030 Strategic goals of increasing retention and graduation rates by closing opportunity gaps in undergraduate student success. This group will meet monthly in different formats (workshops, lunch and learns, design labs) depending on the topic and participant interest.

Sign up to join the community! Attendance is welcome at any and all of the scheduled meetings. 

2023

The 2023 Student Success Summit, Building Bridges and Cultivating Compassion, was held at the Business College Complex (BCC) on Monday, May 15, from 9:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m.

Dr. Alexis Travis, Assistant Provost and Assistant Vice President of Health and Wellbeing, opened the summit. Dr Travis is a passionate leader with 10+ years of expertise in developing strategic collaborations, building coalitions, and creating innovative programs for vulnerable populations.

Dr. Travis was followed by Keynote Speaker, Dr. Soumya Palreddy, co-founder of the Palreddy-Lowe Learning Lab. Dr. Palreddy is an anti-bias/anti-racism educator in progress, a licensed psychologist, and trainer.

Breakout sessions were led by campus partners and highlighted an overview of strategies, activities, and ideas they have implemented and/or plan to implement in alignment with the summit theme. 
Through collective wisdom and engagement between the presenters and attendees, the summit worked to build community, foster dialogue, and promote collaboration for the continued advancement of Student Success at MSU. 

2023 Student Success Summit Planning Team 

  • Kimberly Blair-Chambers
  • Chastity D. Gaither
  • Helena Gardner
  • Taylor Marino
  • Sadiq Mohammed
  • Jessica Oyoque-Barron
  • Kanchan Pavangadkar
  • Kristi Porrell
  • Jieron Robinson
  • Lance Sharp
  • Justin St. Charles
  • Kari Stone-Sewalish

Learn more

 

The 2023 Student Success Launch was held on Wednesday, Sept. 6, from 9 a.m. - 1:30 p.m. in the Kellogg Big Ten A&B room. This event centered around reaffirming commitments to student success, building community across campus student success work, and collaborating on moving key initiatives forward.

Learn more

2022

The 2022 Student Success Launch was held Tuesday, Sept. 27, 1-4 p.m. in the MSU Union Ballroom and via Zoom. 

The event highlighted the work that is going on across campus to close opportunity gaps while increasing student learning, persistence, and success. 

Watch recordings from the Launch: