From the President – November 26, 2024

The season of gratitude

Dear Campus Community,

Recently, in one of my biweekly letters to students, I asked students to share with me their greatest success this term. I had a truly heartwarming response from a single mom who chose EOU to pursue her goals. She had always wanted to go to college, but with a couple of kids to raise, she didn’t feel she had the time. After a 20 year hiatus, she’s now attending EOU online and trying to stay motivated and keep up with her courses. She credits her success this term to her wonderful professors who have taken the time to help her navigate her new exciting, challenging, and bumpy path. Thank you for taking the time, giving of yourselves, and being patient. We are changing lives!

A great deal of hard work and dedication from faculty and staff has resulted in some good news for EOU and our students:

The College of Sciences, Technology, Mathematics and Health Sciences (CSTMHS) was awarded a Technology Workforce Ready Grant in the amount of $1,142,977.00. With this grant funding, CSTMHS EOU-ACTS (Acquisition of Computer and Technical Skills) will provide cybersecurity training for 70 Computer Science students and Information Technology internships for six students at Eastern Oregon University (EOU) over two years. Great work kudos to Darren Dutto, Jeff Carman, Justin Montgomery, and their contributors Steve Sheehy and Brian Scavotto.

GOSTEM was awarded a Technology Workforce Ready Grant in the amount of $444,999.00. With this grant funding, GOSTEM seeks to hire a Technology Workforce Exploration Educator (TWEE) to develop and provide Technology-focused lessons via our established Mobile Maker Lab Effort (MMLE), and act as the expert-in-residence to empower local educators to craft hyper-local lessons, harnessing the power of Artificial Intelligence (AI). Good job GO STEM!

For more additional information here is the HECC Future Ready Grant Press Release.

On November 1st, Grace Donovan of REV (Rural Engagement & Vitality Center) took two interns from the Rural Planning Program to Salem for Student Planning Day hosted by the Department of Land Conservation and Development to engage and encourage planning students. This was the first time since DLCD started hosting student planning day that EOU has participated, and our students were the only undergrads in the room.  On the drive home the students shared that grad students were envious of the opportunities EOU students had to directly impact and support a community planning project.

This year, we re-launched the American Democracy Project. Campus coordinator Nicole Howard shares that 20 students took part in the Unify Challenge. This challenge connects our students with others across the nation to develop their skills in discussing major topics of interest to our nation. On average, students rated the experience an 8.9 (on a scale of 1-10).

• 79.9% said the experience helped them consider new perspectives they hadn’t considered before.
• 78.5% said they felt comfortable sharing their points of view on political or current events in class (versus 44.2% prior to participation).
• 71.9% said they were hopeful or somewhat hopeful about our democracy (versus 42.3% prior to participation).
• 78.4% believe Americans share many of the same goals for the country (versus 46.2% prior to participation).

What a great experience for our students! Professor Howard has a lot of cool stories, and I hope you will be in touch with her to learn more and connect with her about future endeavors you may want to participate in.  

Men claimed 11th and Women 25th at the NAIA Cross Country Championships. Our EOU Men’s Soccer team won their first everNAIA national tournament. Volleyball is headed to Sioux City after defeating UC Merced 3-1 in the NAIA National Championship Opening Round!
Go Mounties!

I’m wishing everyone a restful Thanksgiving Holiday. We’ve earned it!

Sincerely,

Kelly A. Ryan, Ph.D.