Over the past year, UAB’s SUCCESS Initiative has produced significant momentum in advancing the university’s strategic priorities for student recruitment, engagement, retention and success.
These include increased funds for scholarships and restructuring of scholarship awards; recruitment of the largest incoming freshman class in UAB history; policy changes to give students more time before deciding whether to drop a course; expanded academic support for at-risk students and improved retention fall to spring; earlier advisor engagement for new students; launch of an online graduate orientation program; creation of a campus-wide Academic Recruitment Council; and campus-wide recognition through the UAB SUCCESS Champion award for faculty and staff who go above and beyond in shaping the student experience at UAB. (Do you know an individual or team that has gone above and beyond in supporting student achievement? Submit a nomination for the first-quarter 2026 SUCCESS Champion by March 1.)
What’s coming in 2026
In 2026, campus will continue to see new strategies and programs introduced through the SUCCESS Initiative, including:
- A unified recruitment campaign that will incorporate the refreshed UAB brand and shared visual identity across schools and programs.
- A new roadmap for online programs, with expanded numbers of seven-week courses that improve speed to degree, financial aid flexibility and overall retention — early pilots within the Blazer Core Curriculum were started in fall 2025, with more options to come in future semesters.
- A unified framework, known as Classroom-to-Career, to better connect academic learning with real-world career experiences, starting with First Year Experience courses — a stakeholder survey distributed in January, and early February has collected feedback to guide a UAB-specific framework built on national best practices.
- Modernization of websites across the university, including bringing online new chatbots to enhance communications with prospective students.
- Additional scholarship policy updates and tuition transparency efforts.
Strong campus-wide engagement in SUCCESS
These efforts and other implementation actions are being led by four thematic groups:
- Group 1: Student Recruitment and Enrollment Growth
- Group 2: Student Engagement and Success
- Group 3: Infrastructure and Data
- Group 4: Policy and Program Enhancements
Starting in August 2025 and continuing through August 2026, the thematic groups have been addressing 30 plans brought forward by the SUCCESS Initiative’s initial seven working groups — focusing primarily on plans with high potential impact and low- or medium-cost implications.
Stakeholders from across campus have contributed to these plans. At the Student SUCCESS Summit held in May 2025, attendees were given an overview of the plans under consideration and had the opportunity to submit suggestions. More than 340 suggestions were received, and more than three quarters of these suggestions (76 percent) have been subsequently integrated into the plans.
Campus engagement in the SUCCESS Initiative continued at the town hall meeting held in September 2025, which received more than 150 RSVPs. Updates on the SUCCESS Initiative were shared with campus bimonthly in 2025 through articles in the UAB Reporter.
Tracking progress and town hall for 2026
The four SUCCESS Initiative thematic groups are delivering monthly progress reports to the initiative’s executive leadership; summaries of these reports will be shared regularly in the UAB Reporter.
Starting in September 2026, a dashboard for the SUCCESS goals and metrics will become operational, which will include progress reports on key performance indicators (KPI).
Save the date for the 2026 SUCCESS town hall meeting, scheduled for 9:30 a.m. Oct. 7.
Learn more about the SUCCESS Initiative and follow the latest updates at uab.edu/success.