MAVS Newsletter | January 2026

During the spring, you will receive a monthly MAVS message intended to help you help our students move toward their goal – graduation. MAVS messages will include:

• Monthly reminders – timely dates and information to share with students
• Active student engagement resources – ideas to enhance student interaction and learning
• Vital Support – highlighted student support services

Sharing course withdraw deadlines and encouraging students to discuss their implications with an advisor helps students make good academic and financial decisions. The last day to withdraw from a spring course via MavLINK with a grade of “W” and receive a refund are:

• January 25 – 75% refund
• February 1 – 50% refund
• February 8 – 25% refund

Encourage students to consider taking an intersession course. Intersession, a one- or two-week class session in which all courses are either fully online or off-campus with a focus on experiential learning (study abroad, internships, service learning, etc.), adds options and flexibility to students’ schedules and can be helpful in keeping students engaged and moving forward to graduation.

Enrollment for the summer intersession (May 11 to 22) and the traditional summer sessions begins in late February.

Do your students seem distracted? James Lang, a professor and columnist for The Chronicle of Higher Education, offers this advice.

1. Attending to students invites attention from students. Consider how you attend to the students – do you know their names and help them feel valued?
2. Increasing curiosity decreases distractions. The stronger the students’ curiosity, the more they focus their attention on the content you are teaching.
3. Sustaining student attention takes instructional forethought. Plan a mix of lecture, discussion, simulation, reflections, or practice sessions within a single class session or learning module to give students a cognitive pause and a chance to catch their breath.

Learn more in Lang’s book, Distracted: Why students can’t focus and what you can do about it

Sometimes students are distracted by events external to the classroom, such as financial hardship, relationship challenges, or physical/mental health concerns. In these cases, a referral to UNO’s Care Team, the coordinating hub of a network of existing campus resources, can be helpful.

Anyone can make a Care Team report, including students, parents, faculty, staff, and community members. The team handles each report with care, appropriate confidentiality, and with student success in mind.