Good Morning! It is wonderful having all of you here to celebrate three years’ worth of Homecomings. With that being said, we have a lot of classes to recognize, and a lot to celebrate, so I will keep my remarks short so we can get to the fun stuff!
But first, a little bit about who our students are today. Our annual headcount for last year was 3,453 students.
Our student body is:
- 80% female
- 28% age 25 or older
- 36% African-American
- 86% Mississippians
- 46% enrolled in health-related studies
The W’s strategic plan that was rolled out last year is based on 6 pillars. I will briefly share with you what these pillars are – and the activities and progress we have made in these areas:
- Academic Excellence
- We currently have a 12:1 student faculty ratio
- Not only are we providing academic excellence to OUR students, but we are enhancing K-12 education with collaborative partnerships to provide support for first year teachers, and we are working with our local CMSD to build a Blended Learning Academy at the Hunt Experience Center that will focus on technology-assisted learning and hands on experiential learning.
- Our Office of Undergraduate Research allows more students to participate in the research process. This boosts student engagement and confidence, and gives students a leg-up in the employment process and in graduate school admissions.
- Our second pillar is advancement excellence
- Our foundation has assets in excess of $63 million
- We have a 57% Faculty-Staff Giving Participation and a 9% Alumni giving rate. (our record of recent graduations keeps adding to that base number, so it takes more and more donors to increase that alumni giving rate!)
- We have increased the number of donors by 7% since last year
- These gifts made it possible for us to grant $1.86 million in scholarships to 724 students in 2021.
- The 3rd pillar is Community Connections. Our activities include:
- The Nancy Yates Community Engagement Program which matches students with local nonprofits to support day-to-day operations and capacity building for 5 weeks in the summer.
- Our Speech and Hearing Center partnered with the ALS Association of Louisiana/MS to provide communication devices for Mississippians with ALS.
- Last Saturday we hosted a CHEER event (Celebrating and Honoring Early Education Respect) for some 200 local early childhood educators. The energy in that room was amazing!
- In addition to the many cultural events that are open to the community, our students, faculty and staff provided over 215,000 hours of community service in 2021.
- The fourth pillar is Degree Completion.
- We lead the IHL universities at the number of graduates per 100 Full-Time Students. The system average is 22.8 per 100 – we graduate 33.5 per 100!
- Last year we graduated 991 students. We had a 15% increase in degrees, and a 26% increase in graduate degrees since 2016. In the last 10 years, we have had a 72% increase in undergraduate degrees.
- Not only do we graduate a record number of students, we lead the public universities in the state with the highest percentage of graduates who stay to work in MS! A recent State Auditor’s report on Brain Drain shows that 77% of The W’s in-state graduates are working in MS 3 years after completing their degree.
- Our 5th pillar is Diversity, Equity and Inclusion – we are on a mission to create a welcoming, diverse, equitable and inclusive campus climate for all. We recognize the value of varied perspectives. Projects included:
- Panel discussions about the significance of our new state flag
- A broad Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Council that participated in a two-part diversity retreat and engaged in a series of Deliberate Discussions throughout the year.
- The second year of the Unity Project
- Our Common Read Initiative adopted Bryan Stevenson’s book, Just Mercy – and included a showing of that film.
- 14 1st generation students participated in the 2021 Circle of Change First Generation Students Career Leadership Experience.
- We were awarded a $50,000 grant to recruit more women for state political positions.
- The final pillar of Financial Sustainability focuses on planning and actions that ensure the ongoing financial health of the university.
- Federal funds from our $1.5 million Title III grant and from pandemic related funding have helped us to automate more functions and to improve our technology infrastructure. These include software packages such as DegreeWorks, Cashnet, and Slate, and updates to our wireless network, gateway switches, firewall, network storage, virtual host servers and adding redundancy to our internet connectivity.
- You’ve seen the progress on our new Culinary Arts Building. Wednesday night I attended the Culinary Arts Final Dinner – and I was blown away not only by the food – but also by the demonstrations by our students. The new facility will have 4 kitchens, including a demonstration kitchen where our students, faculty and guest chefs can show off their skills.
I’ve already taken up more time than I expected – but I get a little carried away talking about our alma mater! Just a few more bragging points – we continue to be rated a Best Value, recognized for the social mobility of our students, and, for the 9th year in a row, we are named a Great College to Work for, we continue to have a Military Friendly designation. Our MFA in Creative Writing was ranked the #1 online Master’s program in creative writing in the country, and our RN to BSN program is #15 in the nation.
As members of our Long Blue Line, we have a lot to be proud of! Thank you for continuing to tell our story, share our good news, and support us with your time, talents and treasures.