From the President – A great start to the new year!

Dear EOU Community,

We’re into our second week of classes, and it’s been great to have all the “new” energy.  New students, faculty, and staff, and also to reconnect with everyone across the campus as we discuss our mission and strategies for the coming year. 

Our Week of Welcome continues to be a rousing success and a great way for each of us to connect with the newest Mounties. I had a ton of fun taking first-day pictures with our students, greeting them on the Quad at our activities fair, and visiting with them at all of our events. Thank you, Kathryn Shorts, for your energy and care for our newest students.  

Fall brings many changes, and one of my favorites is the EOU energy.  Students are filling our classrooms and study spaces, connections are being made both online and on campus, our community is filling seats at events, artwork is gracing the Nightingale Gallery, and folks are celebrating the amazing work happening at EOU. It feels like we are at our best!

As always, we have much to be grateful for:

Special thanks to Dottie McInerney and Karen Wilburn for their collaboration on EOU’s annual Legislative Fiscal Office accounting report. Through their independent and diligent work, they prepared all the required information and successfully submitted the report ahead of the state’s Gold Star deadline.

EOU Chemistry Club has again received an Outstanding Award from the American Chemical Society for the 2024-25 academic year! This is the highest possible award that a Student Chapter of the American Chemical Society can receive. Congratulations to Assistant Professor Bri Holman and the amazing student leaders and members of the Chemistry Club for all their hard work. 

Congratulations to Dr. Kelly McNeil for her vision and leadership in creating the GO ASAP (Get Outside After School Activity Program), a lasting model of experiential learning that inspires youth and EOU students. The program is featured in this video celebrating the program. Special thanks to the OHSU Knight Cancer Institute Community Partnership Program for providing the seed funding that helped make this sustainable and impactful program possible. Thank you to all who contributed to the success of GO ASAP and to the REV (Rural Engagement and Vitality Center) for continuing this work.

The Tutoring and Family Services portion of Eastern Oregon Reading Clinic (EOURC) has been doing incredible work, and like most of our projects, doing so on a shoestring budget cobbled from grants and EOU resources. EOURC employed 5 tutors this summer and offered July and August sessions, which served 18 local children from Union, Imbler, La Grande, and some homeschool families in Union County. This equated to 130 hours of free tutoring, not previously delivered in our community. For Fall, EOURC recruited 22 EOU students, double the number of tutors usually in the fall term. Seven fall tutoring sites are planned, including after-school and evening availability. In addition, EOURC launched Family Engagement efforts in 8 counties across Eastern Oregon. All efforts are centered around their mission statement: “Partnering with families across Eastern Oregon to ensure every child is a confident, capable reader.”  EOURC began with outreach last spring and has since built partnerships with every single district and community organizations that responded! Congratulations to Professors Ronda Fritz and Jess Hagedorn for their amazing work. Wow! 

I am excited to be in community with you this year as we continue to be proud of the incredible work we do to increase knowledge, promote learning, and foster the well-being of Eastern Oregon!

Sincerely,

Kelly Ryan, Ph.D.
President