Turn retention data into student success.

Punch Positive: How Boxing Saves Lives and Strengthens Retention

Lita Mae “Badass” Button introduces a non-contact, evidence-informed boxing framework designed to build confidence, resilience, engagement, connection, and sustainable healthy behavior. Participants explore accessible movement strategies, community building, mental health, self-efficacy, and low-barrier campus implementation.

• Identify physical, emotional, and social barriers to persistence.
• Connect movement, mental health, self-efficacy, and behavior change.
• Apply beginner-friendly non-contact boxing techniques.
• Build belonging and accountability in campus programs.

RISE for Retention: Building Staff Resilience to Fuel Student Success

Connie Horton and Stacey Lee Gobir of Pepperdine University lead a half-day intensive based on the RISE framework. Participants examine staff sustainability, compassion fatigue, and six dimensions of resilience: physical, social, spiritual, cognitive, life skills, and service.

• Relate staff resilience to student-retention outcomes.
• Use resilience-informed techniques in mentoring and advising.
• Recognize compassion-fatigue markers and reset strategies.
• Create measurable well-being and culture goals.

Managing Your Memory: The Second Responsibility of a Good Student

Michael Morsches and Grant Matthews explore memory as a distinct part of the educational process: learning at an appropriate level, managing what has been learned, and proving learning. The interactive workshop covers the history and psychology of memory, practical storage and retrieval strategies, interference, decay, and classroom application.

Operationalizing “Putting Students First”: A Collaborative Framework for Student Success and Retention

Tanya Stack, Karen Cassidy, Tamara Cooper, and DiAnna Washington of the University of North Carolina Wilmington share a cross-divisional partnership model that connects academic achievement, career preparedness, engagement, and holistic well-being in one campuswide retention strategy.

• Identify administrative barriers and build evidence-based support for policy reform.
• Create timely outreach campaigns that balance automation with meaningful human connection.
• Integrate student voice by co-designing solutions around real needs and lived experiences.
• Develop coordinated resolution workflows linking early alerts, leading indicators, and response protocols.

How the process works

1. Authors submit a proposal describing the topic, format, audience, and intended outcomes.
2. Proposals are reviewed for relevance, presentation method, and proposed treatment of the research or practice.
3. Authors of accepted papers and panels are invited to submit a 10-page paper for peer review. Other presentation types do not require a paper.
4. Qualifying papers are accepted for presentation and publication in the NSSR proceedings.

All presentations are delivered in person in Norfolk. Pre-recorded or online presentations are not accepted.

What a proposal includes

• Contact information and email address for every author
• Presentation title and a 200-word abstract
• Description and learning outcomes of up to 500 words, except for posters
• Presentation track, presentation type, audience level, and target audience
• A brief facilitator biography for coffee talks, facilitated discussions, and workshops

Accepted proposals must have at least one author registered for NSSR by September 1, 2026.

Presentation tracks

• Academic Advising
• Beyond the First Year Retention
• Data, Technology, and Methods
• Faculty, Teaching Excellence, Learning Engagement, and Retention
• First-Year Student Success
• Graduate Student Retention
• Online and Distance Students
• Programs and Initiatives
• Retention and Special Populations
• Theoretical Models of Retention and Success
• Transfers and Retention

Important dates

Accepted papers are considered for Best Practices, Institutional Research Leadership, and Director’s Awards; posters are judged onsite for the Best Poster Award.