Elements of Student Success

We will continue to increase access for underrepresented students through innovative recruitment strategies and by creating seamless pathways to enrollment for first-year and transfer students that facilitate timely degree completion. We will strengthen relationships with community colleges and high schools and provide personalized degree planning tools to ensure efficient credit accumulation and transfer.

Students benefit from coordinated summer pre-matriculation programs aimed at providing an orientation to undergraduate life, connections to our diverse campus community, and resources to support their success at UIC. Our approach to programming supports students’ academic and socio-emotional transition to college, bridging the learning that occurs inside and outside the classroom while also providing opportunities to advance from developmental placements into credit-bearing courses.

Students require stable financial support and financial education to be successful. We leverage grant and scholarship programs to expand access, promote diversity and degree completion, and support emergent needs. We provide programming aimed at increasing resource awareness and promoting an understanding of the financial aid process. Recognizing that student needs are ever-changing, we engage in ongoing conversations with students, advisors, faculty, and staff to remain aware of challenges our students face— whether financial or otherwise — seeking the necessary resources to address them.

Students benefit from ongoing, proactive, targeted, and growth mindset advising throughout their time at UIC. We aim to enhance our technology tools usage, utilizing data to improve our practices and strengthen connections among advisors, coaches, faculty, and units. This ensures all students’ needs are met while providing extra support for those who will benefit the most from additional positive attention.

Recognizing the importance of teaching and learning practices to enhance classroom achievement, we see faculty as key partners in student success, actively innovating curriculum and teaching practices. We will streamline curricular analytics tools to guide institutional change for strengthening curricula and degree plans and advancing equitable student success outcomes.

Access to tutoring, success coaching, and summer term opportunities are essential to students progressing in a timely fashion toward graduation. We will identify and eliminate barriers to student participation and find ways to offer these programs at scale. To ensure students remain on track for degree completion and maintain financial aid, provisions will be made for those needing additional credits to take at least one summer course during their time at UIC.

We aim to provide all students with mentoring and access to an expanded array of research, experiential learning, internships, and career preparation offerings during their time at UIC. We envision something akin to a proactive placement service to help students find the right opportunities for research, internships, study abroad, civic engagement, or community-based learning to support their career or graduate school aspirations. We will strengthen relationships with external partners and employers to grow paid internships and pathways for engagement, leadership, service, and learning.

A supportive climate and adequate mental health services are essential for student success. We will advance an integrated, community-oriented and public health-grounded approach to student health and wellbeing that advocates for healthy behaviors, provides access to health-promoting facilities and activities, mitigates barriers to accessing health and well-being services, reduces harms associated with negative health behaviors, and builds individual and community capacity for resilience and health promotion.