UG Graduation and Student Retention Summit
Our campus held its first Retention and Graduation summit in April 2024. Annually we highlight “Promising Practices” or activities or initiatives practiced by our faculty and staff that are showing a positive impact on our ability to retain students and ensure their timely graduation.
We are excited to host our 3rd annual event to continue collaborating on this important topic.
When: Friday, March 13, 2026 from 11:00am-4:00pm
Where: Renick University Center - Kochoff Hall
This year's theme is “Embracing Student Success in a Changing Landscape” and we will focus on how our campus is responding to AI, demographic shifts, and online learning.
We are excited to see everyone at this year's event.
Agenda:
- 11:00am-1:00pm: Promising Practices Browsing Fair
- 1:00-2:00pm: Lunch with student panel
- 2:00-4:00pm: A variety of panels and/or learning sessions
The following topics will be featured at the Promising Practices Browsing Fair:
- AI & Academic Integrity
- Human in the Loop: Use of Reflective Writing to Guide the Use of Generative AI Tools in a Software Engineering Course
- Hands-On Workshop on Building Research Mindset and Skills through Reproducibility
- Supplemental Instruction: Demographic Shifts, Supporting Neurodivergent Students
- Librarians can help you explore options to lower the cost of course materials for your students.
- National Scholarships & Fellowships
- Appreciative Advising
- Leveraging On-Campus Student Employment in a Changing Landscape
- Creativity Experiencing Language, Literature, and Art in the Arabic Program
- Increasing the College Conversation around Student Professional Development
- Transfer Student Support through Library Collaborations
- Freshman Fridays: Learn Business by Working with Detroit Industries
- AI-Proofing Data Science Teaching: Handwriting R Code and Python Code in Biostatistics, Regression, and Topological Machine Learning as a Learning Tool and Assessment Tool
- Summer Bridge Program, 2025 Snapshot
- Promising Foundations
- Meeting Students Where They Are: Collaboration between Advising and the Engineering Learning Center
- "No Student Left Behind" Policy in the Classroom
Common FAQs about the Promising Practices Browsing Fair:
This year’s theme is “Embracing Student Success in a Changing Landscape.” We will focus on how our campus is addressing the shifting landscape around emerging technologies, online learning, and shifts in the type and needs of the students we are, and need to be prepared to serve in the future.
We want to hear from faculty, staff and from teams that have executed some impactful practices that enroll, retain and graduate our students.
We are asking for submissions that are:
- Practice or evidence based, innovative or scalable
- Align with this year's themes of:
- A promising practice related to emerging technologies (i.e. AI, software) that supports student success and learning.
- Promising practice that creatively serves the different needs of students from high school (under 18), young adults (18-24) and adult learners (25+)
- Innovative learning and student support in online modalities
We would like some visuals (e.g. poster, video) to help tell the story about why this is a promising practice to help support retention and graduation efforts. If possible, we are also interested in understanding how your practice can be implemented more widely on campus. This information will help support additional conversations on Friday afternoon. If you are aware of a student or students who have benefited from your practice in a positive way, we would love to meet them. You are welcome to invite them to the event.
Yes, if a department wants to feature an initiative that reflects cross-collaboration, even better. Only one team member will then submit the request for participation.
Below are some great examples:
Example 1: Foundations
Example 2: Study Abroad
Example 3: Writing Center
We will be paying for poster printing through FedEx on Michigan Ave by using the steps below. Please note that posters must be emailed to Kelsey Parker at [email protected] by Monday, March 9 at 12PM in order to ensure enough time for printing. Please note:
Poster dimensions must be 48 x 36
We will pick up your poster and hang it for you at the Retention Summit in Kochoff Hall. Please arrive by 10:30am on March 13th