More than 170 faculty, staff, students and campus partners attended the 2026 Student Success Summit in the Hill Student Center.UAB marked a significant milestone in its commitment to cohesive approaches to student success during the 2026 Student Success Summit held May 7 in the Hill Student Center. The event, which drew more than 170 faculty, staff, students and campus partners, served as both a celebration of recent progress and a formal transition point for the university’s SUCCESS Initiative.
Summit highlights Phase I progress
Under the theme “Empowering Every Student: Closing Gaps, Opening Doors,” the summit highlighted Phase I progress of the initiative. Early Phase I outcomes show progress in improving experiences for prospective and current students through stronger alignment of institutional processes.
“Through Phase I of the SUCCESS Initiative, we have built meaningful momentum, establishing a strategic and coordinated approach to student recruitment, engagement, retention and success,” said Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs Janet Woodruff-Borden, Ph.D. “Our work as a campus has progressed from planning to early implementation across priority areas, with measurable outcomes achieved in recruitment, retention, student support and policy enhancement. Broad cross-campus participation and enthusiasm have remained defining strengths of our shared work.”
Early outcomes of the SUCCESS Initiative demonstrate UAB’s momentum in student recruitment and retention efforts. Through campus collaboration, proactive advising, targeted academic support and a student-centered culture, programs across the university are reporting stronger student persistence and engagement. In the School of Nursing alone, retention rates now exceed 90 percent across most academic programs, with some programs nearing or reaching 100 percent retention.
The summit also featured updates from the SUCCESS Initiative’s four thematic groups, also known as working groups:
- Group 1: Student Recruitment and Enrollment Growth
- Group 2: Student Engagement, Retention and Success
- Group 3: Infrastructure and Data-Driven Decision-Making
- Group 4: Policy and Program Enhancements
Among their findings presented at the Student Success Summit:
- Strategic roadmap: The groups presented a campus-wide roadmap centered on increasing enrollment growth, improving student retention, and boosting graduation outcomes and well-being.
- Operational shifts: Groups highlighted how their collaborative efforts have led to faculty’s strengthening course design and advisors’ connecting with students earlier in their academic careers.
- Institutional integration: Group leaders shared how their action-oriented plans are now being embedded into permanent governance and accountability structures, signaling a move from a temporary initiative to a permanent institutional culture of shared ownership.
- Cross-unit collaboration: Groups shared their successful modeling of cross-unit partnerships, such as new outreach models for student resources, which are designed to remove barriers across academic and administrative boundaries.
Panelists share insights during one of the multiple breakout sessions during the Student Success Summit.The summit’s program was designed to mirror this move from planning to action and included an Innovation Showcase with short, TED-style presentations showing high-impact practices are already yielding results on campus.
One of the day’s most interactive segments was called From Ideas to Implementation. It tasked small groups with identifying immediate, midterm and long-term strategies to advance the momentum of the SUCCESS Initiative.
Breakout sessions occurred throughout the day and included:
- Creating a Seamless Student Experience Across Units
- Building Resilient Students: Mindset, Motivation and Well-Being
- High-Impact Practices: Making Them Work
- Removing Barriers: Financial, Mental Health and Life Challenges
- AI, Learning and Academic Integrity
- Data-Driven Decision-Making for Student Success
A culture of shared ownership
The SUCCESS Initiative officially launched in 2025. It was designed to integrate and improve the student experience from a student’s first interaction with UAB through their alumni status and beyond. Following a series of stakeholder surveys conducted in late 2024, an executive steering committee was formed, which developed the working groups model to operationalize the initiative. With Phase I completed, administrators thanked working group members for their insightful efforts and collaborative spirit.
In a letter to working group members, Woodruff-Borden and Vice President for Student Affairs John R. Jones III, Ph.D., highlighted the accomplishments of the initiative so far. “The SUCCESS Initiative has advanced a common, campus-wide roadmap focused on enrollment growth, student retention, graduation outcomes and student well-being,” they wrote. “Just as importantly, this work modeled the kind of cross-unit collaboration, shared ownership and partnership that we aim to embed into how we operate moving forward.”
The transition signals that collaborative strategies developed by the working groups are becoming permanent components of leadership workflows and continuous improvement efforts across the university.
Looking ahead
Bradley Barnes, Ph.D., senior vice provost for Enrollment and Student Success, emphasized that the conclusion of the working group phase of the SUCCESS Initiative represents not an ending, but a transition into sustained student success action and campus-wide implementation.
“This transition marks a pivotal evolution in our journey, moving us beyond the planning phase and into a sustainable model of action,” Barnes said. “By embedding the collaborative strategies of our working groups into the very fabric of our daily operations, we are ensuring that student success isn’t just a localized project, but a permanent, shared priority across every corner of our campus.”
For more information on the SUCCESS Initiative and to view progress on key performance indicators, visit uab.edu/success.