To better support first-year students acdemically and foster a sense of community, McLaughlin College continued to deliver its First Year Experience (FYE) programming, including Fall, Winter and Summer Academic Orientation, the FYE Peer Mentorship program, Your First Lecture, the inaugural First Year Fellowship Program, the First Year Lunch Program and additional supports.

LA&PS delivered a virtual and in-person Transition to Next Year workshop targeting undergraduate students who completed their first year at York. The workshops supported students enrolling in courses for the upcoming academic year, reviewing and understanding their degree requirements, interpreting their academic decisions and providing them with academic and personal support services, including information about co-op opportunities.

LA&PS strengthened student pathways and academic success through targeted analysis and intervention. Comprehensive retention and performance analysis identified courses wuth high withdrawal, drop and failure rates, programs with low retention rates and priority student groups, informing term-by-term academic support initiatives. Interventions included PASS, SNACK, the Financial Early Alert program, triaged student support and academic early alert campaigns. Together, PASS and SNACK reached 8,763 student attendees during the Fall 2025 and Winter 2026 terms.

From Summer 2025 through Winter 2026, 588 LA&PS students benefitted from securing a meaningful, paid co-op placement to help build their network, enhance skills and complement their academic journey

To support the success of our international student community, this year we delivered nine pre-arrival webinars, ran two cohorts of the York First Friend International Mentorship program and launched Ask Me Anything drop-in sessions with the Global & Community Engagement team. Through targeted conversion initiatives, we increased the international student accept-to-enrol rates by 18 per cent for Fall 2025.

We also delivered DLLL 1001: University Literacies & Belonging in Fall 2025 and Winter 2026 to support new, mature and international students' transition to university life. The course helps students develop critical thinking, effective writing and reading strategies, confidently plan for exams and learn the art of research, providing a strong foundation for university life.

This year, we developed strategies and initiatives to improve upper-year student retention and graduation rates, including targeted outreach and intervention for students with academic and/or program warnings who were at risk of de-enrolment, helping them get back on track.

LA&PS Advancement team secured over $1.2M in new students support (endowed and expendable).

To help equip upper-year students with job-ready skills, Vanier College hosted a variety of professional programming and events this year including Pizza with Profs, student and alumni networking mixers, Career Readiness Workshops, LinkedIn headshot sessions, the College Crew Volunteer Program and the Leading with LA&PS Certificate Program.

New College enhanced their programming to support LA&PS graduate students by offering dissertation and thesis writing support, weekly Grad Writing Hub events, monthly Grad Cafes, Orientation events, webinars and more.

To better support Undeclared Major (UNMA) students in selecting a major, we enhanced the YU Explore program this year by introducing a pilot wraparound services initiative. Through the YU Explore: Connect to a Professional program, we engaged 17 UNMA students, while more than 50 students participated in Majors' Week, which promoted popular degree options like Commerce, Economics and Social Science. In March, we also launched tailored wraparound services for our most at-risk students - during this time we have worked with over 35 students.

Over the 2025-26 year, the Nellie Langford Rowel Library's collection has expanded to include new resources on Queer and Indigenous studies, as well as rare and banned materials such as those featured in the broadside archival collection and soon-to-be opened reference collection.

To help increase student understanding of academic honesty in a rapidly changing environment, LA&PS delivered a month-long academic honesty campaign that reached over 10,000 social media followers and engaged over 200 students through in-person tabling and events.

Math for LA&PS ran in Summer 2025 serving 101 students. This six-week, online, non-degree course provided a Grade 12 U-level mathematics equivalency, creating new pathways for students who did not meet their admission requirements and addressing the numeracy gaps experienced by many incoming students.

In an effort to improve student retention and graduation rates, our Academic Advising team used early alert data to conduct proactive outreach to first-year LA&PS students and connect them to their dedicated academic advisor to better support them through their studies.