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Improving How We Communicate with Students: What’s Ahead

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By Audrey Iffert-Saleem, Special Advisor, Strategic Initiatives in the Office of the EVPAA / SCC Co-Chair
Paul Kohn, Senior Vice Provost, Strategic Enrollment + Student Success / SCC Co-Chair
Rachel Aho, Assistant Vice President for Strategic Initiatives & Chief of Staff to the VP for Student Affairs / SCC Message Prioritization Sub-Committee Co-Captain
Ravneet Chadha, Chief Data Officer and Vice Provost for Enterprise Planning
Jennifer Reed, Senior Associate Vice President for Auxiliary Services & Operations
Chris Nelson, Chief University Relations Officer

Over the past year, many of us have been part of conversations about student communications: what’s working, what’s not and what we can do to improve things for our students.

This direction is grounded in research we’ve been doing to better understand students’ experiences and to learn from how other universities are approaching this work. One theme we’ve heard consistently: students are receiving a high volume of messages that are not always coordinated. Important information like deadlines, required actions and available support can get buried or overlooked.

This has real consequences. When students miss a key registration deadline or a required financial aid step, it can delay progress by a semester or more. At an institution like ours, where only about a third of students graduate in four years, even small breakdowns in how messages are coordinated across a high volume of communication can add up in meaningful ways.

At the same time, we know that people across the U are communicating with students because they care: advisors reaching out to support students, offices sending important deadline reminders, engagement teams promoting programs and events and staff connecting students to resources. Each of these messages serves a purpose, but historically, we haven’t had a strong way to coordinate them across units.

The result is a system that makes it harder for students to know what matters and what action to take. Students tend to describe their inboxes as a “junk drawer,” a place where everything accumulates, making it difficult to identify what really matters.

Where We’re Headed

Our goal is straightforward: Ensure students receive the right information, at the right time, through the right channels, in a way that is clear, coordinated and actionable.

While inbox volume is a major part of the current challenge, this work extends beyond email and requires us to think more broadly about how students receive information. Students are engaging with information in different ways, and that will continue to evolve. As we design a more coordinated approach, we’ll think broadly about how communication happens across channels as well as how emerging technologies, including AI, are beginning to shape how students access information and take action.

To support this, we’ll work toward a more structured approach to how student communications are coordinated across the university, including clearer guardrails around how student contact data is accessed and used.

You may hear this described as “data governance for student communications.” At its core, this simply means being more intentional about:

  • who is communicating with students.
  • how audiences are defined.
  • how timing and messaging are coordinated.
  • how communication channels like email, app, text and other platforms are used.

When this work is successful, students won’t have to sort through a crowded inbox or navigate multiple platforms to figure out what matters. They’ll receive fewer, more relevant messages, and it will be clearer what requires their attention and what action to take.

For staff, it will be easier to reach the right students at the right time without building workarounds or competing with other messages. There will be clearer processes, better tools and more coordination across units.

These are big shifts, and we’re approaching this as a phased design effort over time, with input from across campus. No immediate changes are being made to how units communicate with students today.

We also recognize that not all communications are the same. Some messages, like advising outreach or time-sensitive interventions, need to happen quickly and close to the point of care. Others are broader, more informational, or tied to key dates and milestones.

There are many additional layers of nuance we need to work through: who has access to student contact data, who can reach which student populations, how messages are prioritized and sequenced, how often students are contacted, how opt-in communications are handled and what should be coordinated centrally or should remain within units. These decisions are interconnected and need to be grounded in how communication actually works across the university and how students receive information.

A central goal of this work is to better coordinate these different types of communication without slowing down the ones that need to be fast and responsive. Finding that balance will be a key part of what we design together.

How We’re Approaching This Work

This effort builds on a foundation of research, beginning with the findings of the National Institute for Student Success (NISS) report, which highlighted the need for more coordinated, student-centered systems.

Since then, we’ve conducted additional work to better understand how students experience communication at the university and how peer institutions are addressing similar challenges. You can explore the most recent work we’ve conducted here:

This work also builds on the feedback shared through SCC quarterly updates, subcommittee meetings and other campus discussions over the past year. We’re grateful for those contributions, which have shaped our understanding of both the challenges and opportunities ahead.

As we move forward, we’re taking a phased approach. In the near term, the focus will be on understanding needs and defining the problem space. Leveraging that information, our goal is to define an initial platform strategy and data governance model in fall 2026, while also developing the organizational structure, workflows and operational processes needed to support more coordinated student communications. We will then pilot this work with a small number of units in spring 2027. We have not yet identified those pilot units.

The pilot will allow us to test and refine our approach before scaling more broadly. We’ll also share updates and create opportunities for stakeholders to provide feedback as we move through this work.

The SCC and the Student Information Systems and Technology Council (SISTC), which include representatives from across academic and administrative units, will play central roles in shaping this work. We’ll also share regular updates and gather feedback through existing groups such as the Student Success Leadership team and the Council of Academic Deans. In addition, this effort will be supported by a small steering committee to provide ongoing guidance and critical feedback, as well as a focused implementation team that will help move the work forward and support pilot efforts.

Looking Ahead

You can expect regular updates through this blog as the work progresses. If you have feedback or ideas, you’re always welcome to share them through the feedback form on the SCC webpage. You can also connect with your unit leaders, who will be kept up to date as this work evolves; if you’re not getting the information you need, please feel free to reach out to Audrey Iffert-Saleem, SCC Co-Chair, directly.

This work will take time, and it will require input and collaboration from across campus. Our goal is to be transparent as we move forward and to create space for feedback before decisions are made.

Ultimately, this is about making it easier for students to navigate their experience at the university and ensuring the effort units are already putting into communication is as effective as it can be.