Schatzel and her team will regularly provide updates on strategic initiatives as part of her report to trustees. She outlined her strategic priorities at a previous trustees meeting. Updates from the provost’s office and community relations were given at the Oct. 25 meeting.

Interim University Provost Gerry Bradley was first up with his report, which focused on how the university will establish and implement a five-year undergraduate success plan to advance inclusive student success and raise UofL’s six-year graduation rate from 62% to 70%.

According to Bradley, the undergraduate success plan will prioritize eight key areas: advising systems and services; course catalog and scheduling; first-year experience; financial aid; key predictive analytics; living-learning communities; degree navigator software; and transfer and dual enrollment pathways. Unit meetings with deans and vice provosts to identify specific initiatives are under way.

Vice President of Community Engagement Douglas Craddock provided insight on the establishment and implementation of a university-wide community engagement plan. This plan will further the university’s efforts to serve as a premier metropolitan university – one that, “facilitates the use of university knowledge and resources to support partnerships advancing the mutual needs of the university and the community.” Craddock said this is an important initiative for UofL to maintain its status as a Carnegie Research 1 and Community Engaged Institution.

The community engagement plan will focus on the institutionalization of community engagement, strategic partnerships, assessment and evaluation of community engagement initiatives and being an anchor institution for workforce development.

The committees of the UofL Board of Trustees will meet Dec. 14, 2023, and the next full Board of Trustees meeting will take place Jan. 25, 2024. Meeting minutes, schedules and other details are available on the .

UofL student-athletes achieved a record 91% graduation rate to match the Cardinals’ best mark in the Graduation Success Rate (GSR) Report, which was developed 16 years ago to account for transfers into the university who graduate and those who leave in good academic standing. The Cardinals’ GSR, most recently reported for freshmen who entered in the 2013-14 academic year, has risen 25% since the reporting began 16 years ago.  

Seventeen of the Cardinals’ 23 sports attained a GSR above 80% in the most recent report, including baseball, men’s and women’s basketball, women’s cross country, field hockey, football, men’s and women’s golf, women’s lacrosse, women’s rowing, women’s soccer, softball, men’s and women’s swimming, men’s and women’s tennis, women’s indoor and outdoor track and field and volleyball. 

All UofL student athletes combined to produce an average grade point average of 3.0 or better for each of the last 19 straight semesters. Cardinal student-athletes achieved a collective 3.332 GPA combined for 2019-20 academic year.  

UofL’s men’s and women’s basketball, women’s cross country, women’s golf and volleyball teams were honored in May for ranking among among the top 10% in their respective sports in the latest multiyear APR, which measures academic eligibility, retention and graduation for student-athletes. Fourteen UofL athletic teams posted perfect scores in the most recent single-year APR figures released in May.

UofL was one of 23 public universities that recently attended  to share best practices and strategies for increasing college completion. The summit was hosted by the University of Utah and the Lumina Foundation, a nonprofit working to increase the proportion of Americans with postsecondary credentials to 60 percent.

“It was an honor for UofL to be selected to participate in the College Completion Summit,” said Michael Mardis, dean of Students and Vice Provost for Student Affairs. “They used national data to look at public universities who over the last decade have significantly moved forward with their completion agenda, meaning more students graduate. For us to be in that elite group of schools, it validates the hard work that our faculty, staff, administration and leadership teams have been working toward.”

The number of graduates at UofL increased from 43 percent to 58.6 percent in the last 13 years, culminating in a record class last year.

“It’s important to recognize these successes and celebrate them too,” Mardis said. “The national perspective is that we’re a really strong university that has advanced greatly in these areas. But we’re always striving to be better at UofL.”

While there are numerous ways the university has intentionally increased completion rates, Mardis was asked to specifically address student engagement on a panel. He addressed hallmarks of change at UofL, like the growth of campus residential life, from 3,000 beds to more than 9,000, with more types of housing offered along with Living Learning Communities and other programs. The number of registered Student Organizations has also grown from 20 to 450 and students participating in Greek life has grown by 20 percent.

Research shows that students who live on campus and participate in campus life are more likely to graduate. 

Specific initiatives have helped as well, like the honors and scholarship programs, the Persistence to Graduation Committee and CardSmart, an analytic advising platform which flags students at risk of not succeeding in their college career. 

Mardis told Summit participants about programs that are meant to boost graduation rates for African American students, like the and .

Other UofL attendees included Amy Lingo, dean of the College of łÉČËÖ±˛Ą and Human Development, James Begany, vice provost of Enrollment Management, Khotso Libe, systems analyst and Lily Assgari, coordinator of Strategic Planning and Assessment in Student Affairs. 

The Lumina Foundation paid for two students to attend the Summit: Sabrina Collins, Student Government Association’s Academic Vice President and Samantha MacKenzie, a graduate student and .ĚýĚý