From the President – August 14, 2024

From the President – August 14, 2024

Eastern Oregon University is often recognized for our awesomeness. Most recently, we received numerous accolades from the Colleges of Distinction. Thanks to each of you, EOU is recognized as a College of Distinction for 2024-2025, and we are only one of seven in this category for all of Oregon! They’ve also ranked us as a Public College of Distinction, Business College of Distinction, Education College of Distinction, Career Development College of Distinction, and we are the only institution in Oregon to be recognized with an Affordable College of Distinction. Each award criteria adheres to the Colleges of Distinction approach of going beyond the data to individually evaluate each institution based on Four Distinctions: Engaged Students, Great Teaching, Vibrant Communities, and Successful Outcomes. Congratulations and thank you again for all you do for our students and EOU!

I am happy to share that summer camps hosted by EOU Athletics have helped fill our campus with student energy over the summer months. Since May EOU has hosted over 2,000 students in various athletic camps: football – 1,668, volleyball – 205, men’s basketball – 115, men’s wrestling – 64, softball – 40, women’s wrestling – 18. Thank you head coaches, assistant coaches, athletic trainers, staff, athletes, residence life, food service and everyone who works together to make these growth opportunities available for students from throughout our region!

EOU’s volleyball team received the 2024 AVCA Team Academic Award. The benchmark to receive this award is an average 3.3 GPA for the entire team during the academic year. EOU women’s volleyball earned a cumulative 2023-2024 academic year GPA of 3.658! Congratulations to these coaches and student athletes.

EOU’s Summer Bridge Kickstart program, developed by English and writing faculty at EOU in collaboration with the Multicultural Center, was featured in a National Humanities Alliance (NHA) recent report: Expanding Access to the Undergraduate Humanities Education: Models and Strategies. Thank you Dr. Cori Brewster for sharing EOU’s work as a model for other institutions.

In other good news, we’ve heard from Oregon’s Department of Corrections that our Prison Education Proposal, which was requested by the state, has been approved. Next steps are to apply to the Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities. We’re also putting forward an application for the recently released TRU/PSU funding to support several new academic programs. 

As always, it’s been a busy time at EOU, though I’ve managed to have some fun here and there. I really enjoyed attending some of the New Nature Writing Con events, which were affiliated with our Master in Fine Arts in Creative Writing Program. It energized my spirit to hear from such talented authors! I had a great tour of the EOU Archives from Sarah Rowland. One of my favorite discoveries was the1979 “Go Mounties” and EOSC Toilet Seat covers! (Should we bring this back?) I had fun representing EOU at the Union County Fair, even though the temperature was over 100 degrees that day! Thanks to all of you who volunteered. It was fun talking to all the kids participating in showing and selling.

It’s retreat time in Oregon! I attended the Oregon Council of Presidents retreat, where we spent two days rethinking how we advocate for public universities and heard from the many inter-institutional councils (Provosts, Students, DEIB, and Research) that advance our work in the state. At EOU, I held a leadership retreat with the cabinet and the executive leadership group, made up of university council and faculty senate presidents, many directors, deans, and other individuals. We’re focused on how to work better together to advance EOU and how we can build more trusting relationships on campus. I had a great meeting with EOU’s union leadership on campus to focus on the same issues of working better together. EOU’s Board of Trustees also held a retreat in Baker City, where I got to share a sneak preview of our Ascent ‘29 Strategy and learn more about how we can better serve Baker. Our strategy team work will also be presented at our convocation and upcoming University Council and Faculty Senate meetings for the final phases of input.

Sincerely,

Kelly A. Ryan, Ph.D.
President