Housing and Residential Life kicked off a pilot mentoring program for first generation students with 12 faculty/staff mentors and 19 students. With leadership from Graduate Assistant Elena Calderon, the department held the first “Day of Dreams” event on April 7 to highlight the needs and opportunities for our 1079 students. The start of spring also brought an energy and water savings competition in the halls. After taking baseline data, the halls competed to see which could save the most water and energy. In total, the students saved 169,633.9 (9.9%) gallons of water and 24,061.8 kWh (7.5%) over the 3 week period.
The Downtown Student Gallery opened in the lower level of Brewster Hall on April 30 with a signature exhibition featuring the work of national artists on the theme of “Small Towns”. The exhibit is curated by faculty in Visual Communication Design (Melinda Breen, Travis Masingale, and Ginelle Hustrulid). The gallery space will be managed through Student Affairs and open in the afternoons M-F 3-5 pm. The Small Towns exhibit runs through June 14. Future exhibits are planned. The venue will be an excellent opportunity for many exhibits and will involve EWU students in all facets of the gallery’s operation.
This is a critical time for Admissions. Calling campaigns and targeted communications are in full swing to ensure a strong entering cohort for fall 2015. PEC and the Deans have been enlisted in monthly calling campaigns for undecided students, in addition to the regular, robust calling campaigns.
Financial Aid disbursed 2,500 awards to new freshmen and transfer students. These will continue throughout the admissions cycle. Total aid disbursed for the spring quarter to continuing students was $40 million.
The first cohort of students in the College of Health Science and Public Health will be moving to the semester model in fall 2015. Registration begins May 18. Selected departments moving to semesters for fall 2015 are Dental Hygiene (on-line BS and MS), Masters of Occupational Therapy, Masters in Public Health, and the new graduate certificate in Health Policy Leadership.
Through generous donations, the VRC established a VRC scholarship to begin fall 2015. This now makes four scholarships for veterans and service members at EWU.
Spring is a busy time with many themed weeks (Pride, Diversity, Sexual Assault Awareness) and culminating receptions and activities for academic achievement and co-curricular events (Luau, Pow-Wow, club sport finals, etc.), as well as student government elections. Stay tuned to hear the latest on the new student leadership!
Commencement will be held June 13 for the last time on Roos Field. 2016 commencement will be at the Spokane Arena. New this year will be student speakers who were selected for the honor through a competition. This replaces the remarks by the ASEWU president (who will still have a role to introduce the student speaker).
