Dear Campus Colleagues,
I offer my heartfelt gratitude to everyone at Portland State University for the considerable hard work and many large and small victories of the academic year. This weekend we will graduate 4,805 students across 10 Commencement ceremonies held at our own Viking Pavilion.
This is a proud moment for everyone in the PSU community. Student success is at the heart of everything we do and all of us should be taking part in this moment of celebration.
I know this year has been particularly difficult for many of us. But even as we face down a federal administration that appears hostile to higher education and public impact research, I believe that PSU is strong when we pull together.
In the coming year, I want to build on that strength by focusing on campus vibrancy. I am grateful to the more than 100 faculty and staff who joined us Monday evening to kick off summer on the terrace of the Academic and Student Recreation Center. During my remarks I shared my intent to improve levels of trust on campus through more face to face interactions in the coming year.
The new PSU course grid will be in place starting fall term, creating a community hour when no classes are in session. We plan to make great use of that time with regular gatherings and town hall events to support campus engagement on important topics facing our university.
As an essential part of our mission as Oregon’s Urban Research University, it is important that we continue to work toward returning PSU to pre-pandemic levels of campus vibrancy. We take our public service mission seriously and an active campus environment serves not only our students and our community but also our city and our region. To support this effort we are making some important changes to focus our workforce within our local region. We are also setting the expectation that all new hires will work on campus at least four days per week and asking unit leaders to model and encourage more engagement in the coming year.
Responding to campus feedback, we will increase campus engagement in our efforts to address PSU’s persistent budget deficit. Before fall term, we will gather Deans and Department Chairs in a workshop for ongoing stewardship of our programs using the Start, Stop, Grow framework we introduced last year, and we will develop communication plans to ensure consistent and comprehensive consultation with faculty in the fall term. We will also develop and introduce a framework for administrative restructuring and operational excellence, implementing recommendations we have received over the past several years that hold the potential to move PSU into a more student centered and efficient future. I hope that, as outgoing Faculty Senate Presiding Officer Jill Emery put it during Monday’s meeting, everyone can approach this work with “an expansive mindset.”
Those of you who attended the PSU Board of Trustees meeting last week know that the budget resolution passed by the Board included a requirement to return in September with a revised budget. By that time, we will have firm numbers — both from what we can expect in support from the state and how the FY2025 budget ended up. But we will also deliver a three year plan that will put a firm end to deficit spending by FY2028 and position PSU to end the cycle of cuts and start investing in promising programs to support future students.
As always, I am open to your ideas on how we can make PSU work better for all of us. I am hopeful that we can begin a new academic year with a new focus on collaboration. I look forward to working with many of you over the summer toward this goal and seeing everyone back in the fall on an energized campus.
Thank you again for everything you do for PSU.
Sincerely,
President Ann Cudd
Portland State University