"Every student we admit to MSU has the capability to learn, thrive, persist, graduate, and succeed”

MSU Today with Russ White

MSU Strategic Plan 2030 identifies goals within six key themes: student success, staff and faculty success, discovery, creativity, and innovation for excellence and global impact, sustainable health, stewardship and sustainability, and diversity, equity, and inclusion.

On this edition of MSU Today, we'll be focusing on the student success theme of the plan with its executive sponsors: Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs Teresa Woodruff and Senior Vice President for Student Life and Engagement Vennie Gore.

Michigan State University President Samuel L. Stanley Jr., M.D. says MSU student success is central to everything we're doing at MSU.

“It's no accident that student success was the first pillar of our strategic plan, and it's really central to everything we're doing at Michigan State University,” says Stanley. “It touches on everything we do. I think what's exciting about what we're trying to do in this pillar and this area of emphasis is really bring to even further fruition a change in attitude and accomplishment that is taking place at Michigan State.

“We believe that every student we admit to Michigan State is capable and should graduate from Michigan State University. They're capable of doing that. When they finish, we're going to continue to support them in having rewarding careers during their lifetime. We’re going to help everyone who comes here graduate because we believe they can.

“We're not going to stop at graduation. We're going to continue to be an advocate for them and support them as they continue in their careers and their lives. People have been talking about this before I came, but I really see this as an opportunity for us as an institution to really make this happen. We're going to talk a lot today with Provost Woodruff and Vennie Gore about graduation rates. That's one of the most important measures of success. We’re supporting students’ mental health and supporting them in every way, shape, and form. It’s a holistic approach to see them succeed at Michigan State University. And I couldn't be more excited about that.”

Gore says the goal is for every student MSU admits to learn, grow, and thrive.

“Our goal is to have every student that we admit learn, grow, and thrive here at Michigan State and make sure they have the opportunity to have access to world class education through our faculty,” Gore says. “And we want them to have access to co-curricular and extracurricular activities, which helps them to grow and develop as people and become lifelong Spartans. That's what we mean when we talk about student success for the whole person.

“I meet alumni who have been here in the '50s and the '60s and the '70s and they look back on their educational experiences very fondly. They talk about what they achieved here at Michigan State and how it's helped them in their career and their life. That's what we want for everyone. Because I think when parents send their sons or daughters here, they want them to have that kind of enriched experience so that when they leave here, they can go out in the world and do the things that they hope to do.”

“Boy, Vennie, you're spot on,” Woodruff says. “I really echo a lot of what you said. I do agree. I think the student success that we measure at MSU is unique, and it's really the measure of our institution's ability to provide the kind of environment and inclusive, equitable curriculum and environment that really enables every student to learn, thrive, persist, graduate, and succeed after graduation. Each one of those is student success.

“The way we really look at it is to be very holistic and to understand that student success is not necessarily a measure of the academic achievement of an individual or the student collectively, but rather really thinking about how well the institution supports its students, which I think is a very MSU way of looking at student success. It really allows us to identify places where there are hurdles.

“We don't want a single soul at this institution to stub their toe as they're running down the track towards the world that is awaiting them with open arms with all the problems and the opportunities that exist. This notion of student success really is something that I think I'm really proud of. Vennie, as you said, I think it's something that parents see as really the opportunity for their child or grandchild or niece or nephew or friend to really succeed.”

What are some of the ways MSU is excelling in this area now?

“Go Green Go 15 is the credit momentum campaign,” continues Woodruff. “And what that really represents is the fact that one of the things that was identified at MSU is that students needed to maintain steady momentum in order to graduate in a timely way. If you graduate in a timely way, it allows you to get to that next destination more quickly and with less financial burden.

“That really illustrates the way MSU is able to look at student success with these data informed efforts and allow us to then modulate the institution towards the students' success. Another one that I know that we've done is to really redesign the math course curriculum. We're working on general education and other gateway courses.

“Part of that really lives out in the Neighborhood Student Success Collaborative, something that I think, Vennie, you and others really brought to this institution as a way of blending together intellectual and social in the ways in which you learn in a dynamic interface between people and the living setting and the formal learning environment and that we learn from each other. The newest thing we did during my time here is really My Spartan Story. It was started before I arrived, but it's that interactive platform that allows us to capture all these experiences. If in fact we believe that student success is part of this continuum of their experiences at the institution, how can we collate and capture all of that work to allow them to use that as they move beyond this institution? Student success is not of a moment in time. It is of that student's lifelong outcomes of being at a place like MSU.”

“One of the other things about being on a residential campus this large for our 50,000 students here on campus, our graduate professional students in Grand Rapids or in Flint or Detroit or up in the U.P. is finding that sense of belonging,” Gore continues. “When I find that sort of sense of belonging in a community, it helps me find my colleagues. My grandmother used to say you are your friends. I didn't really know what that meant, Russ. But I think what it really means is that if I'm a person here who's interested in the sciences and I become part of Lyman Briggs and I meet other students who have similar interests, that enriches my whole experience while I'm here. And that sense of belonging is critically important for everyone because I think what we're learning even in this period of the pandemic is that isolation is bad for students. Being social and having a sense of connection and having that support is critical. Belonging is another thing we are working toward because that helps with students persisting in school.”

Recently the Division of Residential and Hospitality Services was merged with the Division of Student Affairs and Services to form the Division of Student Life and Enga...