Purdue Global’s Karen McGregor models student success strategies at SXSW EDU

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — For Karen McGregor, student success isn’t just a metric, it’s a promise.

McGregor, Purdue Global’s executive director of student success, served as a presenter for a second time at SXSW EDU, held March 9-12 in Austin, Texas. Alongside collaborator Justin Thomason, assistant director of residence life at Central Michigan University, McGregor led the 90-minute interactive workshop “Beyond Handouts: Building a Culture of Basic Needs Support.”

The session focused on Purdue Global’s Best In-Class Basic Needs Support Badging Program, a professional development initiative designed to enhance support for adult learners facing nonacademic challenges. Participants learned how to develop a similar program for their own institutional context.

“We led a conversation. We shared our journey,” McGregor said. “We modeled a path forward for student success that others across the education landscape can actually follow.”

The workshop drew approximately 50 attendees, including those at the K-12, community college and higher education levels. McGregor noted that the diversity of the audience highlighted how universal the challenge of supporting students’ basic needs really is.

The impact of the session was immediate. McGregor said participants stayed after the session to ask follow-up questions and share their own institutional strategies.

“We both have a way of simplifying complex work and breaking it down so that it feels doable,” McGregor said. “We want people to leave not just inspired but with momentum, with a clear sense of what a first step might look like for them.”

The exchange of ideas has already sparked adjustments back home. McGregor noted that conference conversations led her team to reevaluate their “Gold Level” badging criteria, which they realized may have been set too high, inadvertently creating a barrier rather than a milestone.

“What struck me most about this trip was the full-circle nature of it,” McGregor said. “I take what we’re doing at Purdue Global out into the world, and I bring ideas back. That exchange benefits me, it benefits the university and it contributes to a larger ecosystem of educators who are trying to do right by students. That’s what SXSW EDU does. It reminds you that you’re not doing this work alone.”

Beyond her own session, McGregor immersed herself in the eclectic atmosphere of SXSW EDU, attending screenings of documentaries like “First Voice Generation” and participating in discussions on AI in higher education and transfer credit equity. She described the event as energizing and a collision of perspectives that spans from college leaders to ed tech founders to policymakers.

McGregor remains focused on advocating for the adult learner, those balancing education with careers and families.

“For our students at Purdue Global, finishing what they started isn’t just a personal achievement, it’s a life-changing one — a better future, a level-up for themselves and their families,” she said. “That’s what drives me.”