New Report Shares How Leaders Define Student Success at MSIs
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Jacinda Nembhard | jacinda.nembhard@gse.rutgers.edu | 848-932-0774
NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J., February 12, 2026 — The Center for Minority Serving Institutions (CMSI) is proud to announce the release of a new research report, “How Leaders Define Student Success at Minority Serving Institutions.” This report offers insight into how leaders at MSIs describe, cultivate, and measure student success within their own institutional contexts. It also highlights the different dimensions of success that are essential to students' overall progress at MSIs but are often overlooked by traditional academic performance indicators.
“At a time when colleges and universities are under increased pressure to deliver measurable outcomes, the conversation around student success at MSIs requires a more nuanced approach,” shares Marybeth Gasman, author and Samuel DeWitt Proctor Endowed Chair and Distinguished Professor at Rutgers University. “Instead, it should encompass an institution’s capacity to affirm student identity, foster community, promote wellness, and equip students to lead lives filled with meaning and personal agency.”
The report draws from a mixed-methods study of leaders at MSIs that states, “academic advising and support services emerged as the top priority, with 76.9% of respondents rating it as extremely important.” Other essential factors include culturally responsive pedagogy, faculty-student engagement, and mental health support. Leaders indicated that success involves intellectual, social, and emotional transformation that will ready students to handle and challenge systems that were not made for them.
To move toward this vision, the report suggests that institutions add belonging and leadership skills to their definitions of success. It also recommends that leaders make basic needs support, such as emergency aid and housing assistance a top priority as a necessary infrastructure.
Furthermore, the report calls for the breaking down of internal silos by forming coalitions and investing in data systems that enable early intervention. In the end, the report says these promises must be reflected in budget choices to ensure that students are not just surviving but thriving.
You can read the full report here.
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About the Rutgers Center for Minority Serving Institutions
The Rutgers Center for Minority Serving Institutions (CMSI) brings together researchers and practitioners from Historically Black Colleges and Universities, Tribal Colleges and Universities, Hispanic Serving Institutions, and Asian American, Native American, and Pacific Islander Serving Institutions. CMSI’s goals include: elevating the educational contributions of MSIs; ensuring that they are a part of national conversations; bringing awareness to the vital role MSIs play in the nation’s economic development; increasing the rigorous scholarship of MSIs; connecting MSIs’ academic and administrative leadership to promote reform initiatives; and strengthening efforts to close educational achievement gaps among disadvantaged communities. The Rutgers Center for Minority Serving Institutions is part of the Samuel DeWitt Proctor Institute for Leadership, Equity and Justice (Proctor Institute) at the Graduate School of Education at Rutgers University, New Brunswick. For more information about CMSI, please visit http://cmsi.gse.rutgers.edu/.
