推动学生成功

2023年5月11日

密歇根州立大学丹佛分校的教职员工，

Congratulations on wrapping up another great semester at 密歇根州立大学丹佛! Tomorrow we reap the rewards of all our had work, 庆祝2岁以上,000 students becoming graduates at Commencement and recognizing that none of that would be possible without all of you! 谢谢，谢谢，谢谢.

As we look forward to summer and we all hopefully get a chance to catch our breath, I want to provide an update on where we are headed as a University and give you some things to think about in the months ahead.

Two years ago, we introduced our “Recover, Stabilize, LAUNCH!框架，因为皇冠官网网站正在完成皇冠官网网站的 2030年策略计划 为皇冠官网网站摆脱疫情指明方向. 在最困难的时候, we proactively planned how we would recover from the shocks of Covid-19, stabilize our enrollment and build the foundation to help us launch toward our Strategic Plan goals.

• 恢复: We strengthened and in some cases repaired our administrative backbone and updated our data analytics enterprise so that we could truly operationalize the Strategic Plan.

• 稳定: We overhauled our budget 流程 to be more strategic and invested in data informed strategies (aka “Stuff That Works”) to help enrollment.

• 启动: Now, we’re building on all this great work to truly launch toward our goals.

The biggest key to our launch is student retention, the one thing in our flywheel from which everything else turns. You’ve probably heard me calling out our huge gains in new student recruitment this year, which has helped curb our overall enrollment decline, but retention is the rocket fuel needed to launch. Retaining our students and helping them on their journey to graduation is essential to achieving our mission of providing students with an enriching education and sending them on to successful lives and careers. And for every percentage point we boost retention, we add roughly $1 million to the University budget, thus not only improving a critical student success outcome and fulfilling our commitment to the students we recruit, but also providing us the financial sustainability and flexibility needed to reach even more students with the supports we know work.

I have charged Provost Ad Interim Marie Mora and Vice President for Student Affairs Will Simpkins with leading the effort to cultivate a clear plan for student success. 这学期皇冠官网网站加紧了这项工作, especially in April when we gathered over 100 leaders from across the University including the department chairs, deans and the Senior Leadership Team for an interactive workshop on evidence-based, data-driven strategies for student success and to examine which strategies are best suited for 密歇根州立大学丹佛. 根据反馈，Dr. Mora和Dr. Simpkins本周分享给与会者, we are looking at issues related to faculty and staff workload, 建议, and curriculum amongst others that will bend the retention curve. Watch the Early Bird over the summer for information on a new webpage, where we will share more takeaways from this workshop and track the ongoing progress.

这是重新焕发活力的一部分, 以数据为导向关注皇冠体育官网, with a specific eye toward retention and graduation, as we begin operationalizing our Strategic Plan Pillars I and II with synergies for Pillars III, IV和V. We’ll be forming a student success launch taskforce to align with the retention work underway in the Faculty Workload Taskforce, which was stood up in March under the leadership of Dr. Mora和Dr. 梅瑞迪斯杰弗斯. The student success group will begin the ongoing cycle of assessment, 规划, implementation and evaluation to reach our Strategic Plan student success goals.

The trustees will hear a presentation on this work at the June 1 Academic and Student Affairs Committee meeting, and Will and Marie will lead deep dives this summer to help inform our launch efforts in the fall. 我知道你对这项工作有疑问, and there will be plenty of opportunities to engage in the summer and fall. This is the beginning of a multi-year process to make sure our structures, 流程, curriculum and technology are clearly aligned so that we provide our students the optimal atmosphere to succeed.

We realize there have been many past and ongoing efforts to improve retention, but what we are doing now is bringing everyone together for an intentional, 有凝聚力的, 以数据为基础的全校范围的关注. We often say we know what works at 密歇根州立大学丹佛; the challenge is prioritizing, aligning and scaling our best ideas and systems so that we are rowing in the same direction and not operating in silos. 留存是每个人的工作, and soon we will identify the best tactics to move the needle, 帮你看清你在工作中的角色, and work together toward launching sustainable student success strategies. 谢谢你的合作!

真诚地,

珍妮·戴维森博士.D.
密歇根州立大学丹佛