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Jan 26, 2022
Fortune Names NISS Executive Director Tim Renick to Top 50 World Leaders
Confronted by Georgia State’s yawning achievement gaps—a little over a decade ago, graduation rates for African American and Hispanic students at the 50,000-plus-student school were barely above 20%—Renick, who is also a religious studies professor, turned to technology. Using big data and predictive analytics that Renick helped deploy, GSU preemptively targets students with financial aid…

Jan 2, 2022
The Inside Story
Andrew Gumbel’s prize-winning book “Won’t Lose This Dream: How an Upstart Urban University Rewrote the Rules of a Broken System” recounts Georgia State’s highly successful efforts to level the playing field for students from all backgrounds. Interview by William Inman (M.H.P. ’16) When he was first approached to write a book about Georgia State’s…

Jan 24, 2022
National Institute for Student Success Launches Partner Scholarship Program for Minority-Serving Institutions
ATLANTA – Georgia State University’s National Institute for Student Success (NISS) has launched a partner scholarship program to provide Minority Serving Institutions (MSIs), Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSIs) access to the institute’s student support consulting services. The work is supported by the Michael & Susan Dell Foundation. Partner scholarships…

Jan 29, 2021
Steppingblocks CEO Interviews NISS Executive Director
Students Success means a lot of different things to a lot of different people. Interestingly in higher education, the term is a relatively new concept in terms of strategy, but over the last few years, some of the most innovative universities in the country are focused on implementing student success programs. In this interview, we…

May 18, 2022
Harvard Business School Podcast Discusses Georgia State Student Success
Georgia State University was facing a growing “summer melt” problem, where nearly 20 percent of incoming students never actually enrolled. The university used a data-based approach to retain students of all racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic backgrounds and help them graduate. Harvard Business School professor Mike Toffel and senior fellow Robin Mendelson discuss what the university…

Jul 7, 2021
NISS Executive Director Writes About Redesigning Universities for Equity
By traditional metrics, Georgia State University is far from elite. A large urban university in Atlanta with more than 50,000 students, the university is one of the largest minority-serving institutions in the country, with 75% of students being non-white and 60% Pell-eligible. Our student-to-faculty ratios are well above national averages and our tuition costs are…

Jan 24, 2022
Georgia State plans to improve student career outcomes by sharing job data
Georgia State University plans to create and expand information systems designed to help students find a job, using a $250,000 grant announced last week. The funding is part of a $10 million effort by the higher education nonprofits Strada Education Network and the Taskforce on Higher Education and Opportunity to improve career outcomes at higher…

Oct 4, 2021
Closing the Achievement Gap at Georgia State University
Georgia State University’s successful decade-long effort to use big data to improve student success – especially among students of color and first-generation students – is the focus of the latest episode of the Talking About Cities podcast series hosted by Kresge Senior Fellow Carol Coletta. Dr. Tim Renick, senior vice president for student success, explains…

Nov 4, 2022
Spreading Roots
As Georgia State continues to expand the Atlanta Campus with new open space, new buildings and new uses for historic structures, it remains true to a legacy of existing hand in glove as part of the city.

Jan 26, 2022
Fortune Names NISS Executive Director Tim Renick to Top 50 World Leaders
Confronted by Georgia State’s yawning achievement gaps—a little over a decade ago, graduation rates for African American and Hispanic students at the 50,000-plus-student school were barely above 20%—Renick, who is also a religious studies professor, turned to technology. Using big data and predictive analytics that Renick helped deploy, GSU preemptively targets students with financial aid…

Elevating Achievement, GSU Magazine
The National Institute for Student Success is showing that in higher education, there is, indeed, a better way.

An Educated Guest: Are We the Problem?
“Are we the problem?” This simple question would lead Dr. Tim Renick to leverage big data at scale and profoundly improve Georgia State University (GSU) students’ outcomes. In this episode of An Educated Guest, Todd Zipper, EVP and GM of Wiley University Services and Talent Development, welcomes Dr. Tim Renick, founding Executive Director of Georgia…

Sep 21, 2022
The Magical Move Leaders Can Make to Create Seismic Change
What if the most critical change in any organizational change is within the leaders?

The Edge: Teaching Colleges to Take Down Barriers They've Created
Goldie Blumenstyk, a senior writer at The Chronicle, covers innovation in and around higher ed. This week The Edge highlights the work of a new institute for student success.