The Student Success Center - a center committed to student success initiatives within Undergraduate Education opened its doors in July 2019. In August 2019, the center took over the central administration of the Complete Penn State program which is one of Penn State's five Open Doors initiatives. Through Complete Penn State, the center partners with 32 scholarship awarding offices and dozens of advising and student support offices across the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania to support students who are experiencing barriers to degree completion. The program awards over 2M in completion scholarships each year and recently surpassed 10M in total awards throughout its six-year history.

While working diligently to improve the support that students receive through Complete Penn State, the center has established key partnerships and other foundational elements to the center's work. These elements include a central definition and holistic framework for student success. Growing our partnerships resulted in the development of a newly designed first-year seminar for DUS students in conjunction with DUS Advising and the Office for General Education and the launch of the inaugural First-Generation Celebration at University Park. As we returned to in-person operations in Fall 2021, we hired our first graduate assistant (a third team member) and were thrilled to relocate from Old Main to 325 Boucke, a more student-accessible location.

In 2021 and 2022, we established formal partnerships with the First-Gen Advocates student organization, enhanced the University-wide First-Gen college celebration, and hosted the inaugural First-Gen Student Support Summit. We also helped Penn State become recognized nationally as a First-Gen Forward institution and launched a University-wide First-Gen Advisory Council. Additionally, we partnering with our colleagues at Penn State Learning, World Campus-Academic Development, Student Disability Resources, Student Care and Advocacy, and the Sokolov-Miller Family Financial and Life Skills Center to launch an Academic Life Coaching pilot. This program seeks to help retain students who may otherwise fall through support gaps by connecting them with certified life coaches. Academic coaching is a proven approach to helping students develop the skills necessary to be successful in their college careers and beyond.

In the summer of 2024, thanks to a generous gift from Gene and Roz Chaiken, the center has been renamed as the Penn State Chaiken Center for Student Success. As the center continues to grow and develop our programs, services, and advocacy, we hope to provide the greater Penn State community with updates on our ongoing progress. We hope you will revisit this page to learn more about our efforts and the Penn State students we assist. If there's anything you'd like to see on our website, we welcome your feedback at uestudentsuccess@psu.edu.

For more information on our approach and philosophy to student success, Completion Support, or First-Generation Success initiatives, please visit these respective pages via the side menu bar.