Leveraging Engagement Data to Strengthen Belonging and Retention

Challenge

The University of Kentucky (UK) is proud to be one of only eight institutions in the country with the full complement of liberal arts, engineering, professional, agricultural and medical colleges and disciplines on one contiguous campus. However, it recognized that valuable student engagement data was being collected through its engagement platform but was not yet fully leveraged across campus to support students. While individual departments tracked involvement, the institution lacked a shared, data-informed view of how co-curricular engagement connected to student success, retention, and sense of belonging. Expanding adoption and aligning campus partners around common data and goals became a priority.

Solution

The university strengthened cross-campus collaboration by integrating its Engage data with internal analytics systems, allowing engagement metrics like event attendance and organization membership to inform institutional reporting and predictive modeling. By making engagement data accessible and meaningful to a wide range of campus partners — from residence life to advising — Kentucky positioned Engage as a shared resource rather than a single-office tool. The institution also introduced structured pathways, such as the “Wildcat Way,” to proactively support students through coordinated outreach and involvement guidance.