STUDENT SUCCESS & ENGAGEMENT PLAN 2026–2029
Aligning relationships, systems & learning for student success
RETHINK WHAT’S POSSIBLE
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At MSOE, students succeed when they experience a deep sense of belonging and agency, supported by strong relationships and a community that recognizes their potential. We engage students through hands-on learning, relational support, and personal connections that foster academic, social, and emotional growth. Our commitment extends beyond the classroom, equipping students to complete their degrees confidently, launch purposeful careers, and lead lives of impact grounded in well-being, connection, and lifelong growth. This plan is grounded in the MSOE Mindset, which articulates our shared expectations for learning, leadership, and value creation and guides how we design learning environments, support students, and define success across the MSOE experience. At MSOE, student success serves as a core driver of enrollment strategy, intentionally aligned with the recruitment, partnership, and support structures of the Strategic Enrollment Management Plan to strengthen persistence, reduce unnecessary attrition, and support timely degree completion.
Goals For Student Success And Engagement We believe that all employees are student-facing with a responsibility for student success, reflecting the shared expectations for leadership, care and responsibility articulated in the MSOE Mindset. Students must be active in their own development, supported by relational engagement with the campus community and stakeholders. Exercising agency includes the ability to recognize when support is needed. These goals are framed within the principles of universal design, ensuring that MSOE’s environment, systems and supports are inclusive and proactively accessible to all students.
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Foster Belonging Through Relational Community and Shared Responsibility MSOE cultivates a welcoming and inclusive environment that fosters belonging, agency and meaningful relationships across academic, co-curricular and social settings, strengthening student engagement, persistence and growth. Key Concepts: Relational connections, meaningful relationships, community, individual recognition, belonging, peer support, student voice, resilience, inclusion, and full participation. Key Outcomes: Increased sense of belonging, increased satisfaction, increased retention, increased persistence Key Partners: Student Affairs and Campus Inclusion; Advising and Academic Support Specialists; Residence Life and Apartment Life; Athletics; Admissions; CARE Team; Council for Community & Belonging; Department Chairs and Faculty; Career Connections; Living-Learning Communities; Student Organizations and Peer Leaders; Data, Analytics, and Institutional Research.
Strategies MSOE cultivates the relational conditions that enable every student to feel seen, supported and connected by: •
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Establishing expectations for integrated mentoring, wellness programming and developmentally appropriate supports that help students pursue their purpose with clarity and confidence, while ensuring access to basic needs and environments that promote well-being. Recognizing and supporting each student as an individual with unique goals, values, backgrounds and contributions, including first-year, transfer, international and historically marginalized students. Empowering employees and peer leaders with the expectations, skills and shared language needed to build trust and authentic connections across campus contexts through consistent, caring communication and responsiveness.
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Deepening relationships among students, faculty and staff through mentoring, community traditions, student organizations and peer leadership that promote shared experiences and a sense of place.
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Creating inclusive spaces and experiences that foster psychological safety, shared community and full participation, where students feel heard, valued and able to express themselves.
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Leveraging co-curricular and community-based engagement experiences—including campus life and residential contexts—as developmentally rich settings for relational engagement, peer leadership and shared responsibility.
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Inviting and incorporating student voice in meaningful ways so students see their ideas reflected in practices, policies and community life.
Actions 1.
Develop a campus-wide student experience and service model that advances community development, belonging, care and relational connection and establishes the expectations that guide advising, coaching and academic support systems across the university, especially during key transitions such as the first year and transfer entry.
2. Integrate purpose development with career readiness so students experience identity formation, belonging and professional growth as connected processes that reinforce confidence, resilience and contribution. 3. Equip faculty and staff with training and resources that enhance their capacity to engage students relationally—inside and outside the classroom—through shared language, inclusive practices, effective communication and early, compassionate intervention.
5. Design and implement a coordinated, relationship-based freshman orientation experience that begins with Admitted Student Day and spans through the first six weeks of the academic year, structured across three phases: Pre-Arrival (Admitted Student Day and ROAR), Welcome and Transition (Welcome Week) and Extended Onboarding (first six weeks of the academic year). 6. Design, implement, and continuously improve a targeted Math Readiness course to support incoming first-year students in achieving calculus readiness and strengthening foundational quantitative skills during the first term.
4. Align the advising ecosystem (academic advising, support specialists and success coaching) to deliver a coordinated, relationshipcentered and outcomes-driven student experience with consistent follow-through, warm handoffs and holistic care. | 3
Empower People and Systems that Support Student Success and Life-Readiness MSOE strengthens campus-wide systems and professional development efforts to ensure that every student is supported by people, policies and environments aligned for success during and after college. Key Concepts: Mentorship, data-driven student support, professional development, operational alignment, customer service, inclusive design, proactive support and integrated services. Key Outcomes: Stronger persistence and retention, academic momentum, student progression, degree completion, post-graduate success, stronger alumni connection Key Partners: Academics, Institutional Research, Council for Community and Belonging, Dean of Students Office, RCAS, Carter Academy, Chairs, Program Directors, Advising
Strategies MSOE strengthens the people, structures and partnerships that enable student success by: •
Advancing a culture of success by embedding well-being into the student experience and aligning personal development with academic and professional goals.
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Promoting academic persistence and degree completion through early alerts, academic coaching and scaffolding that meets students where they are.
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Investing in faculty, staff and student leaders as relational mentors and champions of student growth.
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Collaborating across departments to deliver student support through aligned services in academics, wellness and campus life.
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Ensuring that all student environments— physical, digital and cultural—are inclusive, welcoming and success-oriented.
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Expanding access to wellness, emotional and mental health resources through integrated support services and community partnerships that reflect the diverse needs of students.
Actions 1.
Develop and implement a standardized, research-informed success coaching model that ensures all students receive consistent, highquality academic, social and emotional support throughout their transition to and progression through the university.
6. Develop and implement a coordinated, data-informed persistence strategy that supports students as they transition from the first year into their sophomore year and beyond, addressing academic aptitude, social belonging, wellness needs and professional identity formation.
2. Reform and operationalize an early alert system that identifies at-risk students earlier and 7. delivers timely, cohort-specific interventions addressing academic performance, engagement, well-being and sense of belonging.
Train toward and integrate a mindset into the daily practices of faculty, staff and student facing units to strengthen belonging, agency, mattering and enculturation.
3. Establish a coordinated structure that aligns the goals, workflows and communication pathways among all student success committees and working groups to eliminate duplication, increase efficiency and accelerate progress toward shared institutional outcomes.
8. Invest in tools that develop and implement an AI-enabled student success analytics framework to identify emerging trends, unmet needs, and students at risk, and to proactively connect them with timely, personalized academic, wellbeing, and engagement supports.
4. Increase the availability, accessibility and visibility of wellness, emotional and mental health resources through enhanced staffing, expanded service modalities, innovative programming and strengthened partnerships across campus and the community.
9. Create a Center for Student Success that functions in concert with Academic Affairs for first-time student transition, academic momentum and whole student flourishing.
5. Equip faculty and staff with the knowledge, skills and confidence to recognize indicators of student mental and emotional distress, respond with empathy and connect students to appropriate campus resources—thereby fostering a campus culture where students feel seen, supported and understood.
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Provide High-Value Learning Experiences Accessible to All Students MSOE provides engaging, accessible and relevant learning experiences that prepare students to take on the challenges of today and tomorrow in a constantly changing technological ecosystem. Key Concepts: Evolving curriculum, real-world problems, modern tools and practices, developmental scaffolding, engagement, motivation, insight, curiosity, interdisciplinary connections, lifelong learning, challenge, resilience, career readiness and calling. Key Outcomes: Students who enter MSOE complete their academic programs and are prepared to take on complex challenges of today and tomorrow. Key Partners: Academic Chairs/Program Directors, course coordinators, Industrial Advisory Committee members, CREATE, Academic Partnerships, Financial Aid, Raider Center for Academic Success (RCAS), Student Accessibility Services, Institutional Research, Executive Vice President of Academics
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Strategies MSOE prepares students to confront diverse challenges throughout their careers by: •
Continuously evolving curriculum to address • the challenges of today while providing a lasting foundation to confront the problems of the future.
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Ensuring that learning experiences mirror the MSOE Mindset: intellectually engaging experiences that provide real value, promote curiosity and support student motivation for degree completion and lifelong learning.
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Providing opportunities for students to develop insight and make connections across disciplines.
Developing systems to support students in building the resilience and perseverance needed to confront difficult challenges and grow through struggle. Building the support systems needed to bring students from their developmental level at matriculation to the advanced level required of graduates ready to make an immediate impact in their chosen field.
Actions 1.
Create multiple pathways to degree completion that recognize variability in prior academic experience and non-academic challenges.
5. Seek feedback from students to gain a better understanding of student challenges and ways to improve motivation and success.
2. Routinely review curricula and course content to ensure that it is relevant in the context of modern tools and practices, with input from a variety of constituents including industrial advisory committees.
6. Decrease curricular complexity and promote curricular flexibility, recognizing that failure and resilience are part of learning. 7.
3. Foster collaboration between academic departments to promote student success through key course sequences and ensure course outcomes are aligned with the needs of degree programs.
Create an accountability structure for academic departments to ensure that they make progress towards this goal and identify areas in need of change and/or additional support.
4. Invest in release time for faculty to update curriculum, include student-centered approaches, promote curiosity and big-picture thinking, and coordinate delivery among faculty members.
Measures •
Fall-to-fall retention rate
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SSI
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Persistence rate
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Average credits completed
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Graduation rate
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Time to degree
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Placement rate
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Alumni engagement rate | 7
7827–2026