This from the Richmond Register:
Eastern Kentucky University is taking “significant steps in the right direction, board chair Craig Turner said, as the EKU regents conducted their fall meeting Monday at Hazard Community and Technical College.
“Enrollment is up. Undergraduate, graduate, freshman and transfer enrollment is up,” Turner said without going into details.
In early September, Eastern reported preliminary figures that showed enrollment up nearly 2 percent to more than 16,450, with accompanying gains in diversity.
From left: Craig Turner, Eastern Kentucky University Board Regents chair, President Michael Benson and Dr. Richard Day, faculty senate chair, share a laugh before donning hard hats to participate in a groundbreaking ceremony Monday for a research center at EKU’s Lilley Cornett Woods in Letcher County.
Credit hours being taken this semester at the extended campuses in Corbin, Danville and Manchester are down, Turner said, but efforts will be made to improve in those areas.
“As far as the budget goes, operating revenues are up and expenses are down,” Turner continued, so things are looking really good.”
Kyle Nicholas, student government association president, was sworn in as the board’s student representative.
“We had a great start to the year and have finally finished reconstructing and rewriting the Constitution for EKU’s Student Government Association,” Nicholas said. “We have started programs such as ‘Colonel Up’ to benefit the students and give an athletic incentive to those interested in attending games. It is a great program, and we are really looking forward to the future of that. Also, SGA has reached a total of 127 members, and we have a $19,235 in the budget.”
The regents approved a revised SGA constitution, the first revision in four years.
President Michael Benson presented a summary of events this week leading up to his inauguration Friday night and homecoming Saturday.
Nikki Giovanni, a nationally known poet and professor, will speak at 6 p.m. Tuesday in the EKU Center for the Arts.
Kenneth Adelman, formerly a diplomat and director of the U.S. Arms Control Agency in the Reagan administration, will speak on campus Wednesday and Thursday evenings.
Wednesday at 6 p.m. in the Giles Gallery of the Campbell Building, he will talk about his experience collection African masks, including those he has donated to EKU. At 7:30 p.m. Thursday in Brock Auditorium, Adelman will talk about his experience as an arms control negotiator, focusing on the preliminary breakthrough achieved by presidents Reagan and Gorbachev at the Reykjavik summit.
At 4:30 p.m. Thursday, a ceremonial ground breaking is scheduled for the second phase of the New Science Building.
Benson’s inauguration is scheduled for 4:30 p.m. Friday at the EKU Center for the Arts followed by a reception from 6 to 7:30.
In an effort to be more tech savvy, Benson said he recently acquired a Twitter account (@EKUPrez) to communicate better students.
“I now get tweets all of the time from students about issues of interest to them,” Benson said. “That’s how students communicate with me now. We have started a platform for a lot of different sites, one being EKU Build. We will update daily, posting what is happening on campus and about plans and improvements being made on campus.”
After the morning meeting in Hazard, that was live streamed on the EKU website, the regents drove to Lilley Cornett Woods, a 554-acre old-growth forest in Letcher County the university uses as a an ecological study area.
There, they broke ground for a 2,200 sq ft research facility for which Eastern has received a $300,000 National Science Foundation grant.
1 comment:
Well the honeymoon is starting to come to a close for me. Most of what has occurred has been pretty superficial to me when considering the amount of effort he has actually invested in those achievements with which he is being credited. The campus expenditures have been bought and paid for with increasing tuition and the reallocation we all endured two years ago. Enrollment is up at many colleges and universities this year and mostly due to growing confidence in the economy in my opinion. Growing programs were already budding before he even knew they existed. Science building was a stage 2 investment so that train was already on the track. Getting bombed with press releases everyday about accomplishments and engagement by faculty, staff and students whose effort and initiative is almost exclusively their own and with out any investment by new administration. I don't want to lose faith but as I drive by the final destruction of Combs dorm I wonder how taxpayers' investment in that structure is better served by "green space" and a "entry point" which is pretty indirect in its approach from Barnes Mill's meandering behind Hooters and Liquor World. Even the speeches I hear are already becoming repetitive in their content and tone. To be honest I get the feeling all EKU is to him is just a post Utah resume builder toward a bigger university 2-3 years down the road. Sorry, I guess I am looking for something genuinely unique instead of another play called from the new president post secondary hip renewal play book.
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