Greetings JSU Family,
Today marks the 3rd Anniversary of my presidency. As an alumnus, one may never imagine being honored to serve in a leadership role at their alma mater. However, I was provided an opportunity to head this great institution at a time when several factors impacted its continued growth.
As I think about what that means, I reflect on my first meeting with the Jackson State University body. Initial concerns were cloaked around the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges (SACSCOC) reaffirmation, a very significant matter in which planning was only newly underway. The JSU brand, reputation, and story were also under scrutiny, along with long-term financial issues.
No one could predict a once-in-a-lifetime pandemic lay ahead of us or that spring break 2020 would turn into a months prolonged shutdown of in-person learning. Still, we met these challenges head-on. Not only did we survive, but we thrived. This is who we are. We elevate in adversity. The impact of external factors on our internal operations was paramount to our plans to comply with all standards and expectations of our accreditors and our governing board.
Additionally, we realized that we were poised to lead and, in all things, grow the institution. That was the expectation of our students, faculty, employees and alumni. That guiding light remains ever present in our search for improved outcomes in student success, academic prominence, research excellence, and financial stability.
As President, I have been fortunate to be invited to and attend countless events sponsored by JSU academic departments and programs, centers, student organizations and alumni. I welcome these invitations as these engagements have been opportunities to witness the incredible work of JSU faculty, staff, students and alumni. The last three years tell the story of our resilience and the monumental progress that has been made. We have achieved many successful milestones through the work of faculty, staff and students.
Working together, we have fortified the University’s finances and have accomplished a significant increase in days of cash on hand, going from 39 to 115 days. We have saved approximately $5,000,000 by restructuring our debt, cleared all audit findings, and have been removed from SACSCOC financial monitoring. These financial accomplishments have allowed us to provide much-needed and deserved raises to faculty and staff for the first time in several years and add new personnel lines.
External funding efforts, including congressional appropriations, have allowed us to add additional faculty lines and develop new academic programs. For example, with support from State of Mississippi grant funds, a new undergraduate degree program in Public Health was launched in Fall of 2022 to respond to societal needs and reflect our commitment to improving health in Mississippi. In the same semester, we launched an undergraduate program in Supply Chain Management, and we have since secured $4,000,000 in funding to create a related center that will provide experiential learning opportunities for students in the College of Business. Additional funding secured by my office has allowed us to support new programs in the College of Liberal Arts through the Center for Living, Learning and Cultural Engagement.
Improvements in our alumni engagement are a point of pride for our University. We have all witnessed the outpouring of “Tiger-Pride” over the years. Now, we are starting to see tangible results of more targeted efforts to engage our alumni. I initiated a series of “Presidential Meet and Greets” with alumni chapters across the country in an effort to re-engage our alumni. Through the “Elevate the Rate” campaign, the annual alumni giving rate has tripled since 2020. This metric reflects the increasing engagement of JSU alumni, and as a result, JSU has been able to offer scholarships and gap funding to a record number of students.
More students are choosing JSU, evidenced by a 74.8% increase in first-time, full-time student enrollment over the past three years. Through our revised general education program and new articulation agreements with community colleges, we have made transferring to JSU easier for prospective transfer students. In the past few years, we have signed and implemented transfer agreements with community colleges nationwide and increased our presence at college fairs and through school visits. We have positioned ourselves to provide unique experiences and systems of support to pre-college and college students through our 12 TRIO programs. Thanks to our collective work, we have achieved a significant milestone in becoming the first and only institution in Mississippi to have the full cadre of TRIO programs funded by the US Department of Education.
Institutionally, we are investing in our employees. We are delighted to use institutional funds to support approximately 90 faculty members with the opportunity to pursue a Certificate in Effective Instruction awarded by the Association of College and University Educators (ACUE), the only college teaching credential endorsed by the American Council on Education (ACE) that has been shown to improve student achievement and close equity gaps. We have also assisted the staff senate in the reestablishment of the Staff Leadership Institute, a program designed to develop the competencies most critical to staff success.
My administration has responded to the faculty feedback calling for better supporting and incentivizing grant writing. Through collaborations between the Division of Academic Affairs and the Division of Research and Economic Development, a record number of program officers, funding agencies, foundations, and federal partners have visited our campus over the past three years to work with faculty on grant and research efforts. Our collaborative efforts have resulted in our faculty and staff securing $64.7 million in competitive grants. This is the highest amount of grant funding in the past 5 years and an increase of more than $30 million since I became President. In FY ’22, there were 78 principal investigators (PIs), with 22 being new PIs, suggesting that the enhanced support and incentives are working as designed. Our collaborative efforts have led to newly established partnerships with aspirational R1 institutions such as Princeton University, Northeastern University, Vanderbilt University, University of Illinois, University of Memphis, and Louisiana State University.
The accomplishments of the Division of Athletics are another point of pride. On top of numerous championships won over the past three years, JSU’s graduation rate for student-athletes was the highest in the SWAC and among the highest of Division 1 programs in the state.
Finally, we have achieved a successful decennial review of our regional accreditation by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on College and successfully earned re-accreditation in multiple academic programs. Positive independent and external evaluations from various accrediting bodies are strong indicators that JSU is an academically sound institution.
These achievements only happen when members of the JSU community work together. I applaud each of you for doing your part in ensuring JSU’s success as a distinguished HBCU. Although we have so much to celebrate, challenges remain. Recent concerns reveal that we are still striving to make JSU the institution it should be. There is little time to pause and bask in accomplishments when other areas need our attention. We still must collectively forge ahead because there remains much to be achieved.
For instance, our R.O.A.R. QEP, selected by faculty and staff just before the pandemic, focuses on two issues that we must continue to address: improving retention and student success. As part of the QEP, we have reimagined and redesigned our general education program to improve the achievement of our student learning outcomes, retention, persistence, and graduation. Thee Pathway, our new general education program, is the result of the work of a majority-faculty committee whose membership spanned across all five academic colleges. The committee held 19 meetings between 2020 and 2022 to conceptualize, design, and propose the general education program that the Undergraduate Curriculum Committee ultimately approved. I appreciate the efforts of the committee members and all faculty, staff, and students who participated in the various surveys administered throughout the process to share ideas and feedback. We have already started seeing the positive impact of the new curriculum. Still, our important work around student achievement, retention and persistence has to continue in order to improve our graduation rates.
We will also continue to focus on improving safety on the JSU campus. As an urban institution located in a large city, we know JSU is not immune to the possibilities of crime, so campus safety will remain a top priority for my administration. I am grateful for the collaborative efforts of JSU Public Safety and City of Jackson law enforcement keeping violent crimes to a minimum on campus.
Important improvements in the area of safety, including hiring additional officers, enhancing the emergency blue phone system, improving lighting, installing more security cameras on campus, and just recently, on February 1, 2023, JSU Public Safety held an Active Shooter training for faculty and staff. In March of 2022, I testified on Capitol Hill and in a “Making Communities Safer, Including the Campuses of HBCUs” forum with Vice President Kamala Harris to ensure that security threats to our campus were part of the national conversation. These efforts have resulted in additional funds that will be used to enhance JSU’s campus safety.
We will continue to invest in resources related to mental health, problem resolution, positive engagement, and collegiality. Under my administration, we have added resources to the Latasha Norman Center and increased our mental health partnerships in the city and state. Our Division of Human Resources has significantly increased the number of external training for administrators and faculty that promote a healthy work environment, including: Cuts Like a Knife: Incivility Kills Morale; Teambuilding for Employees; and Coaching for Superior Employee Performance: Techniques for Supervisors.
Continuing to improve in these and other areas will require more purposeful and productive communication. In response to the feedback that I received from the JSU Family, we will implement a plan for elevated engagement between my administration and the JSU community that centers around three key areas: shared governance, communication, and support.
Shared governance, academic prominence and student success are mutually agreed upon, realistic and achievable goals essential to our institution’s success. While there has been great progress under my leadership, I remain fully committed to continued efforts to engage with members of the JSU community to enhance all aspects of the institution.
I look forward to continuing to work with the JSU family, and welcome the opportunity for continued dialogue regarding specific issues and initiatives that align with the institution’s mission. As always, we encourage ideas on how we may continue to make JSU a destination campus where people desire to teach, learn, and work.
In closing, I extend appreciation to the many individuals who reached out over the past week to show support and affirm their respect for the work that JSU faculty and staff are doing to elevate our beloved institution. I am honored to serve as your President and to partner with you in our collective efforts to better Jackson State University. I look forward to your sustained support as we ELEVATE JSU.
Sincerely,
Thomas K. Hudson, J.D.