Welcome back Huskies!

It's good to have everyone back on campus. We are beginning a new academic year with exciting new programs, but also many challenges.

Our enrollment is slightly down again, in spite of our increased focus on recruitment and retention. We know the pool of prospective students is smaller, but we believe that is not the entire picture. So, we have joined the Student Success Collaborative, a new advising platform, to help us learn about roadblocks to scheduling and patterns contributing to high attrition rates in some programs.

Most important, the SSC will help us to better serve and support all of our students.

Decreased enrollment affects our budget. We expect a gap of approximately $5 million dollars between revenue and expenditures for the 2015 - 2016 academic year. The 3.5 percent increase in tuition helps narrow the gap. We continue to make sure every expenditure aligns with our mission to provide a high-quality, affordable education for our students.

One way we align our mission with the needs of the commonwealth is by introducing new high-demand programs. We now have a major in Supply Chain Management and minors in Aging Studies and Gerontology, and Spatial Analysis and Geographic Information Systems.

We received approval for the College of Education’s undergraduate Online Instruction Program Endorsement, the first in the state. These exemplify the progressive thinking of our faculty and their dedication to our students.

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