Following is a copy of President V.Lane Rawlins “Quarterly Update.”
Welcome to the new academic year, and a sincere thanks to faculty and staff who helped our students successfully start this new year. Working together, you are making reality of our goal to offer our students the best undergraduate experience in a research university.
Certainly we had some financial disappointments last spring as our state budget was finalized. However, as I’ve interacted with you and our students in recent days, I’ve felt a sense of energy and commitment in the mood of the campus. I hope I’m right because we have much to accomplish this year.
I am especially pleased this fall with the increase in high-ability students, both from Washington and out-of-state, in our new freshman class, as well as the increase in students of color choosing Washington State University. While we won’t have official registration numbers until the tenth day of classes, we have good snapshots now of our entering students.
Compared to last year, approximately 29 percent more new resident students with 3.6 and above high school grade point averages and 52 percent more non-resident students at this level are enrolled. Washington State University is a top-tier research university with rigorous academic disciplines. Attracting more academically talented undergraduates is an essential strategy for us, and making substantial progress so quickly is very exciting.
Contributing to this accomplishment are our admissions counselors here in Pullman and those who are taking WSU into high schools in high-population areas, especially the Seattle and Spokane regions; our integrated marketing communication work to present the quality of WSU clearly and consistently; and the many positive personal contacts that future students and their families have with Washington State University.
We also are seeing an approximate 12 percent increase in students of color in our entering class, another very positive step forward for us. This growth continues a long and consistent trend for Washington State, and demonstrates that our outreach to diverse students, their families and communities is effective. In fact, the Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction here in Washington chose WSU’s approach as the model program in the state and recognized our efforts in an 18-minute video to be distributed to high school and community college administrators and counselors statewide, as well as to other state officials.
Just as we are setting higher standards for admission to Washington State, we are also communicating with our new undergraduates about our high expectations for student behavior. We typically do this during the summer Alive! orientation program, but this year I also wrote to students just before they headed to campus. I focused on standards that are essential for their own success and for the kind of community we want to have here academic integrity, diversity, and personal responsibility. For example, we are communicating with all of our students 20 and younger that we will use the parental notification mechanism in our substance abuse policy on a regular basis starting this year.
We also are taking very deliberate steps in the early weeks of this new semester to encourage each member of our community to report any instances of hate behavior so that we can follow up and work on solutions. For example, posters with contact information for reporting hate crimes will be put up in various campus locations. Please help us if you see a problem of this kind. We must not permit our colleagues, our students, or our community to be menaced by ignorance and malice.
The outcome of all these efforts will depend on consistent application of our standards. To provide you with more details, our Office of Student Conduct will send you a copy of the brochure that went with my letter. The brochure also contains referral information to use when you are assisting students.
I wish there were time for me to sit and talk one-on-one with each of you who have ideas or concerns to share. However, in the year ahead, I know I will find my time more and more focused on efforts to achieve a permanent funding source for public higher education in our state, as well as on obtaining increased support from our private donors. I appreciate your patience and understanding with this reality, yet at the same time I want to make sure communication keeps flowing.
If you have ideas about our strategic plans and directions, for example, I encourage you to share them with the members of the relevant Implementation Teams. These groups of committed faculty, staff and students are hard at work on the goals we have set together. We have our four broad goal areas and many strategies to reach them, but we also know that new ideas will emerge in coming months and years on how to achieve those goals. The Strategic Plan Web site is updated so that you can easily find team members’ names, telephone numbers and email addresses.
Our annual Fall Address gathering at 3:30 p.m. on September 17 at Bryan Hall will give you an update on University progress and key directions for the coming year. And I will continue the series of Dialogues that provide you an opportunity to ask questions and share comments about WSU. The fall Dialogue is scheduled for noon on October 23 at Compton Union Building Cascade Rooms, and I hope you will participate.
Again, thank you for helping get the new semester off to a good start. I look forward to a very productive year for Washington State University.
