We recently attended and presented at the annual NASPA Conferences on Student Success in Higher Education (SSHE), held on June 27-30, in Denver, Colorado. This sold out conference brought together about 1,500 student affairs professionals, administrators, researchers, and advocates united in supporting students not just academically, but holistically.

Using a multi-conference format, SSHE featured three unique tracks geared towards student success:

  • Assessment, Planning, and Data Analytics (ADPA): Addressed critical issues related to outcomes assessment and data’s role in student persistence and performance.
  • Dismantling Systemic Barriers to Student Success Conference (DSBC): Centered on identifying and addressing the systemic inequities students face, advance solutions towards systemic change, and foster holistic student success.
  • First-Generation Student Success Conference (FGSS): Focused on research and strategies to advance the holistic outcomes of first-generation students and the specific evidence-based practices to support their success.

Below, we share some reflections on notable themes and takeaways from NASPA SSHE 2025.

Gratitude whiteboard at SSHE 2025

Gratitude whiteboard at SSHE 2025

Student-Centered Approaches to Holistic Support (Elmira)

Supporting students holistically requires institutions to embrace a shift in mindset and move from offering isolated services to cultivating systems that recognize students as human beings with intersecting needs, identities, and experiences. This theme of student-centeredness surfaced powerfully throughout the conference, where multiple sessions emphasized the transformative potential of centering students in both the design and delivery of support services. For instance, one session showcased the In a Pinch initiative at the University of Utah’s David Eccles School of Business. What began as a small food pantry expanded into a comprehensive support system providing food, hygiene products, financial assistance, graduation regalia, and personalized assistance. The program aims to reduce stigma by eliminating check-in requirements and integrating resources into student spaces through strategic campus and community partnerships, underscoring how departments can lead impactful, scalable basic needs work.

Regalia Support, 245 students sponsored in past 3 years! "Having the David Eccles School of Business purcahse my graduation regalia had such a meaningful impact on both me and my family. Graduation is a proud and emotional milestone, not just for me but for my family back home who have supported me throughout this journey, even from afar. Being able to participate fully in the ceremony, dressed in the appropriate regalia, symbolized the hard work, resilience, and sacrifices that brought me to this point. It also allowed me to celebrate this achievement with pride and dignity, without adding financial stress."

Slide from In a Pinch: Addressing Basic Needs to Empower College Students for Success Session featuring student testimonials about graduation regalia support

Equally compelling was the recurring call to genuinely listen to student voices as essential sources of institutional knowledge while also empowering students to advocate for themselves. In “Bridging Gaps and Advocating for Student Parents in Academia,” the presenter called out the invisibility of student parents and the failure of most institutions to collect meaningful data about them. To reinforce the importance of truly listening to students, the presentation included recordings from interviews that captured student voices directly. This approach made the message especially powerful and illustrated how, without a student-centered approach to policy, data, and support, institutions risk perpetuating systemic inequities. Similarly, in her keynote address, “Designing for Impact: Cultivating Campus Climate Data with Purpose to Advance Student Success,” Dr. Tia McNair at SOVA highlighted how efforts to understand campus climate can incorporate public accountability, motivate cultural change, and center student narratives. The speaker highlighted that student success is everyone’s responsibility and stated, “we are committed to this work because we believe strongly in the success of every single student.”

Characteristics of Student Ready Leaders. They Know who their students are, how they are doing, and what they need to succeed. They are intentional. They build and strengthen people capacity to achieve student-centered goals. THey are self aware and opportunistic. They understand the big picture and think long term. They observe, act, innovate, and prioritize accountability. They are truth seekers and truth tellers.

Slide from Dr. Tia McNair’s keynote address

Sessions like “Journey Mapping for Student Success: Enhancing Support and Fostering a Culture of Change in Student Affairs” and “Bringing Support to Students: The Power of Embedded Services in Student Success Centers” offered practical models for translating student-centered values into everyday practice. North Carolina State University used journey mapping to help staff better understand the touchpoints, frustrations, and needs students experience when navigating institutional systems and empower staff to identify real barriers and implement more responsive solutions. Meanwhile, the embedded services approach at the University of Oklahoma, The Dodge Student Success and Advising Center, emphasized reducing the burden on students to seek help by bringing support services directly to where students already are, increasing access, visibility, and utilization. These efforts show that when institutions invest in understanding the student journey and integrate support into students’ lived contexts, they can foster more equitable, caring, and effective learning environments.

Transformational Collaboration and Communication (Melissa)

A powerful throughline at SSHE 2025 was the critical need to move beyond transactional collaboration, where departments simply collect and exchange information, to embrace transformational partnerships and communication, grounded in transparency and shared accountability for student success. This theme came into focus during Dr. McNair’s keynote, which challenged conference attendees and their institutions to become more intentional in their leadership and communication practices—campus leaders were urged to align their actions with purpose, know who their students are, and use communication not to just report out, but to build accountability and momentum for real change.

Types of communication. Transaction-focused: "talks at" audience, information is shared during a specific stage (usually when work is completed), does not account for power dynamics of audience or within the flow of information. Transformation-focused: "talks with" audience, establishes trust and transparency through relationship building and invitations to engage in various stages of the process, attempts to flatten hierarchies in audience or within the flow of information.

Slide from Dr. Tia McNair’s keynote address

This call to reimagine how departments collaborate was echoed in “Reimagining Student Success: Strategies for Changing Culture and Data Practices” where presenters emphasized how the challenge isn’t a lack of solutions, but a failure to implement them across fragmented systems. At Bowling Green State University, their Division of Student Engagement and Success unifies advising, residential life, student organizations, and analytics under one umbrella to better coordinate efforts and center student success. In “Enhancing Student Success Through Coordinated Outreach and Strategic Communication,” presenters shared how their institution developed a centralized, comprehensive communications calendar. By allowing multiple offices to contribute to and review planned outreach, they created a strategic and unified approach to student communication, reducing message overload for students, and encouraging departments to collaborate with greater intention and alignment, ensuring that outreach efforts were timely, relevant, and student-centered.

In my session, “Developing College Fluency: Strategies for Supporting Student Navigation and Success,” co-led with jean amaral and Elmira Jangjou, we highlighted how libraries and student affairs departments can partner more effectively to support students’ navigation of college services and access to basic needs. Drawing on case study examples and participant reflections, we demonstrated how these cross-unit efforts can strengthen communication, break down institutional barriers, and make processes more transparent and accessible for students. Together, these sessions made clear that transformational collaboration and communication require institutions to not only work across silos, but to do so with intentionality, clarity, consistency, and shared commitment to student success.

Leveraging Assessment, Evaluation, and Research for Student Success (Ify)

Locating, accessing, and benchmarking actionable insights about target populations is key for supporting student success. Several sessions throughout the conference highlighted the role of data and assessment, the challenges faced by program leaders in accessing data, as well as promising practices for accessing and translating data into actionable insights. In a session on “Leveraging Data Analytics for Equitable Student Outcomes,” led by Dr. Rhonda Mouton, participants discussed a variety of data sources including internal assessments by institutional research offices, national surveys such as the National Survey of Student Engagement (NSSE), third-party customer relationship management (CRM) tools which track students’ engagement with resources, and state-level administrative data. The session also explored how institutions can harness innovative technologies such as AI and predictive analytics to support student success.

A particular focus of several sessions was the role of data in supporting first-generation students, who comprise more than half of today’s college enrollment. To eliminate systematic barriers and foster inclusive campus environments, campus leaders and policymakers need reliable data to identify the first-generation student population, understand their needs and experiences, and monitor progress towards equity goals. In “Leveraging Momentum Metrics to Accelerate First-Generation Student Success,” presenters from FirstGen Forward addressed the persistent struggle institutions face in defining the first-generation student and identifying this population. The session also demonstrated how tracking momentum metrics such as first-year enrollment, credit completion ratio, and first-to-second-year retention, gathered through institutional data and the Postsecondary Data Partnership, can help institutions effectively support this population and close equity gaps in access and completion with their continuing-generation peers.

In my session, “Tracking the COVID Class: How Cohort-Based Interventions Distinguished the College Journey for FGLI Students Entering Fall 2020,” co-led with colleagues Gail Gibson, Shakima Clency, and Kristen Glasener of the Kessler Scholars Collaborative, and Carlota Deseda-Coon of Syracuse University, we demonstrated how intentional, robust, and continuous assessment enabled both program responsiveness to students’ needs and longer-term tracking of key success metrics. Through a three-pronged assessment approach—combining collaborative-wide oversight, external evaluation, and campus-level tracking—we documented how the holistic cohort-based support and a strong sense of community fostered by the Kessler Scholars Program shaped the college experience for first-generation limited-income students during the COVID-19 pandemic. Our comprehensive data collection strategy triangulated administrative records, student surveys, focus groups, and listening sessions. This continuous assessment process enabled timely program adjustments that addressed pandemic-related challenges, such as social isolation and food insecurity. By spring 2024, more than 80 percent of graduating seniors from the 2020 cohort who responded to a student survey reported a sense of belonging to the program, satisfaction with their program experience, and a willingness to recommend the program to other students from similar backgrounds. The cohort also achieved a 76 percent average four-year degree graduation rate across the six inaugural partner campuses, outperforming their first-generation peers at those same institutions, who graduated at a rate of 59 percent. The session underscored that embedding assessment from a program’s inception, leveraging diverse data sources, and creating rapid feedback loops are critical for meeting student needs and demonstrating meaningful impact.

Throughout these sessions, the message was clear: student success cannot be achieved without recognizing students as experts in their own experiences.

Throughout these sessions, the message was clear: student success cannot be achieved without recognizing students as experts in their own experiences. Their voices, perspectives, and needs must guide the design and assessment of support systems, policies, and practices. Doing so requires not only cross-departmental, transformational collaboration and clear communication but also robust, ongoing assessment efforts that center student feedback, identities, and experiences. The NASPA SSHE 2025 conference continuously reiterated the important call to action that by breaking down silos, listening to student voices, and embedding collaboration and assessment into everyday practice, institutions can build equitable, responsive systems that support all students in navigating and thriving in higher education.