Southern Miss Receives Coursera Engagement Excellence Award

Tue, 09/29/2026 - 09:42am | By: Jennifer Rigney

The University of Southern Mississippi has been named the North American regional winner of the 2026 Coursera Outstanding Achievement Award in the Engagement Excellence category. The award recognizes organizations across business, higher education and government that sustain learner participation and connect learning with academic, professional and community goals. This is the second consecutive year that Southern Miss has received a Coursera Outstanding Achievement Award.

Presented by Coursera, a leading global online learning platform, the Outstanding Achievement Awards recognize organizations across industries and regions that are advancing skills development, enabling workforce transformation and delivering exemplary impact through learning.

“We are incredibly honored that Southern Miss has been selected as Coursera’s North American winner of the Engagement Excellence Award,” said Russ Willis, associate provost for student success at Southern Miss. “This recognition is a testament to the hard work and dedication of our faculty and staff, who have embraced Coursera as a valuable tool to enhance student learning and expand opportunities for our students. We are grateful for Coursera’s partnership and proud of the work being done across our university to ensure that Southern Miss students are Ready for Life.”

The 2026 Coursera Outstanding Achievement Awards span five categories: Learning Excellence, AI Pioneer, Maximizing Impact, Engagement Excellence and Skills Transformation. To assemble the list, organizations submitted nominations demonstrating impact and commitment to learning transformation. Winners and finalists were selected based on a rigorous evaluation across key criteria, including learner engagement, business outcomes, applied innovation, community contribution and alignment with Coursera’s mission to provide universal access to world-class learning.

“As organizations navigate complex changes in technology and workforce needs, the foundation always comes down to capability,” said Anthony Salcito, senior vice president and president, enterprise at Coursera. “When teams have the skills to actually apply new technology, investment turns into measurable outcomes. We’re proud to recognize these organizations for building a culture of learning that delivers lasting impact.”

Southern Miss began offering Coursera Career Academy in fall 2024, providing students, faculty and staff with access to professional certificates, courses and guided projects at no cost. The university also extended licenses to members of the Southern Miss Alumni Association.

Through Coursera Career Academy, learners can access industry-recognized professional certificates developed by leading companies such as Adobe, Amazon Web Services, Google, IBM, Meta and Microsoft. The certificates help learners develop career-aligned skills in fields such as data analytics, artificial intelligence, digital marketing, software development and project management.

At Southern Miss, Coursera is used to support individual learning, career readiness and curriculum enhancement. Faculty can integrate Coursera content into courses, while Career Services encourages students to use professional certificates to supplement their degrees and strengthen their resumes and internship applications.

“We are so proud of our faculty and staff and what this award says about them,” said Dr. Joanne Tran, assistant provost for academic success and associate professor of marketing. “We took a bottom-up approach from the start, inviting faculty and staff to bring Coursera into their courses or programs where it made sense for their students or employees. Today, 72 percent of all micro-credential completions at Southern Miss come through those faculty-led courses. For our students, that means graduating with more than a degree. They also leave with industry-recognized certificates that show employers they’re ready to contribute on day one. That kind of engagement comes from faculty who believe in it, and what makes this recognition so meaningful to us.”

The university has also partnered with the Association of Office Professionals to allow staff to earn Professional Standards Program points through Coursera, connecting professional development with professional advancement.

Coursera is available to students, faculty and staff at Southern Miss thanks to the generosity of donors to the Southern Miss Fund through the USM Foundation. This fund offers flexible and discretionary support, enabling the university to address priorities, seize emerging opportunities and invest in initiatives that strengthen students, faculty and the broader Southern Miss community.

For more information about Coursera or to sign up, visit USM Coursera Career Academy. For questions about signing up, please contact Russ%20Willis. Faculty interested in integrating Coursera into their courses or programs should contact Dr.%20Joanne%20Tran, assistant provost for academic success and associate professor of marketing.

About Coursera
Coursera was launched in 2012 by Andrew Ng and Daphne Koller with a mission to provide universal access to world-class learning. Coursera partners with leading university and industry partners to offer a broad catalog of content and credentials, including courses, Specializations, Professional Certificates, and degrees. Coursera’s platform innovations — including AI-powered personalized guide and features, like Role Play and Course Builder, and role-based solutions like Skills Tracks — enable instructors, partners, and companies to deliver scalable, personalized, and verified learning. Institutions worldwide rely on Coursera to upskill and reskill their employees, students, and citizens in high-demand fields such as GenAI, data science, technology, and business, while learners globally turn to Coursera to master the skills they need to advance their careers. Coursera is a Delaware public benefit corporation and a B Corp. Coursera recently combined with Udemy to create one of the world’s most comprehensive skills development platforms. Together, the Coursera and Udemy platforms reach more than 300 million learners and 12,000 enterprise customers worldwide.