A university-wide Student Retention & Success Team will launch in fall 2026 to build community, scale promising practices and strengthen coordination across the institution. The university-wide Student Retention & Success Team will welcome interested faculty and staff who wish to contribute to this shared work and help advance student success across OHIO. Early efforts will build on existing initiatives and identify targeted interventions to pilot and assess (e.g., DFW reduction, career readiness curriculum tagging, and basic needs supports).
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Dynamic Strategy Pillar
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Ohio University has a long history of teaching excellence. Decades after they earn their degree, alumni continue to point to their close connection with and mentorship from faculty as a major contributor to their success. Faculty are deeply committed to their students as individuals and personally invested in seeing them succeed. Such a connection may be expected at a small private institution, but it is exceedingly rare at a large public R1 state university.
As we embrace our recently acquired R1 status, we continue to deeply value our commitment to teaching. Our vision is to stand comfortably at the axis and to set a new expectation for what a public university can and should be: equal parts teaching and research where both intertwine to enrich the student experience.
In order to better measure our success, we will partner with higher education industry leadership to define a system for evaluating universities’ teaching excellence so that we might set clear goals to achieve the nation’s highest standard in teaching as we have in research.
Goal
Become the nation’s first university to achieve the industry’s highest standard in both teaching and research.
Strategy 1
Establish a set of metrics to effectively evaluate our current excellence in teaching and to drive the elevation of the learning experience for all students.
Action 1 – Partner with higher education industry leaders and experts to define key elements and outcomes that demonstrate excellence in teaching.
Action 2 – Evaluate and improve our ability to measure both early and late indicators of student success as well as post-graduation student outcomes.
Action 3 – Identify current criteria related to our culture of teaching excellence, including ongoing pedagogical development, and amplify them.
Strategy 2
Immediately expand the availability of and access to learning opportunities outside of the traditional classroom that prepare students for post-graduation success, ensuring every OHIO student earns experience in their chosen field.
Action 1 – Expand opportunities for students to learn through service to and research benefitting local communities and the state of Ohio.
Action 2 – Increase scholarships and grants that support internships, externships and other experiential learning opportunities that support career exploration.
Action 3 – Incorporate industry-recognized credentials within and in addition to degree programs.
Strategy 3
Invest in innovative teaching and educational technology that improves student outcomes, and reward and celebrate teaching excellence.
Action 1 – In tandem with pedagogical and technology experts, conduct a comprehensive review of educational and student-support existing and emerging technologies and develop and implement a plan to align and improve tools to enable personalized, concierge-oriented student support.
Action 2 – Expand pedagogical development for faculty and incentives for teaching achievements, including evaluation of the tenure process focused on discipline-specific review and potential revisions aimed at new articulations of and rewards for teaching excellence and fostering innovation.
Action 3 – Strengthen compensation and rewards for faculty support of student research and experiential learning.
Latest Updates
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Student Retention & Success Team to launch in fall 2026
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New Teaching Certificate: Faculty as Mentors
Launched in June 2026, the Faculty as Mentors Certification recognizes the central role of faculty mentorship in fostering student success and advancing Ohio University’s Dynamic Strategy. Faculty mentors guide students’ intellectual growth, professional development, and personal resilience. This certification develops, supports, and rewards faculty who embed mentoring practices into their teaching, advising, and scholarly engagement.
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University College evolving to meet workforce needs
To amplify and focus the development of industry credential programs, workforce-aligned certificates and accelerated degrees, University College was reorganized to focus on these imperatives. Select student support services were moved to the Office of the Provost or the Division of Student Affairs allowing flexibility for University College to focus on workforce-aligned educational options and the development of new 90-credit-hour degree programs, the first of which will launch in the 2026-27 academic year.
Teaching Excellence
- Progress toward T1 status: Status of the collaboration between the John Gardner Institute and Ohio University on creating a framework for designating status for teaching excellence
- Number of faculty who have participated in the Experiential Learning Teaching Excellence certification offered by the Center for Teaching, Learning, and Assessment
Student Success
- First-year Retention rate: Percent of students in a first-year cohort that return for their second year.
- 6-year graduation rate: Percentage of students in a cohort who graduate within 6 years of entry as a first-time, full-time student
- Career destination rate: Percentage of students who are employed (full-time, part-time, self-employed) or enrolled in an advanced degree within a designated time period after graduation
- Post-graduation compensation: Compensation of a graduate at a designated time period after graduation
Experiential Learning
- Number of experiential learning opportunities completed by students in a given academic year
- Assessment of the impact of experiential learning on learning outcomes and student success
Learn Executive Leadership Team
- John McCarthy (Lead) – Interim Executive Vice President and Provost
- Lyn Redington – Vice President for Student Affairs
- Candace Boeninger – Vice President for Enrollment Management
- Ed Carter – Interim Chief Information Officer
- Scott Titsworth – Dean, Scripps College of Communication
- Kristina Bross – Dean, Honors Tutorial College
- Lisa Harrison – Dean, Patton College of Education