Greetings Fellow Jackrabbits – 
It has been a wonderful and yet challenging fall semester at South Dakota State University. We continue to work daily on managing the impacts of COVID-19 on our campus and community, but we have also been able to experience some of the traditional activities that take place at SDSU in the fall. It has been wonderful having students back on campus and in the classrooms and having opportunities to visit with them.
One of the signature events this fall came in September with the opening of the Raven Precision Agriculture Center. The state-of-the-art facility elevates SDSU as a leader in this area and combines the innovation and teaching of our faculty in engineering, technology and agriculture. Leading companies have joined with SDSU to not only support the facility with generous financial contributions, but also to bring research and knowledge to SDSU and work with faculty and students on significant advancements in precision ag. We are truly a leader and driving the future of precision agriculture in South Dakota and beyond.
The fall has also included hosting Jacks Bash 2 with headliner Zac Brown Band. Our Jackrabbits football team hosted Lindenwood for the Precision Agriculture Bowl, Dairy Drive and the 2020 Hall of Fame Game, honoring those inducted last year but not recognized due to the pandemic. Early this month, we also were excited to celebrate the formal opening of our beautiful new American Indian Student Center.
The SDSU Foundation held several impactful events during the fall, including the endowment of the Jerome J. Lohr College of Engineering dean position with a $5 million gift from the college’s namesake. Later the same week, the Duane Sander Professor in Engineering Innovation and Entrepreneurship was announced. Yucheng Liu, the mechanical engineering department head, became the first person to hold the position and will do amazing work in the college. Each of these announcements are in this edition of STATE Magazine.
In addition, One Day for STATE was held in September. The goal was to have more than 5,000 unique donors during a 24-hour period, raising money for scholarships, facilities and important initiatives of the university. The day finished with more than 5,400 donors and over $1.94 million raised. The generous contributions unlocked $700,000 in challenge funds. Thank you to everyone who participated. The gifts truly make a difference.
It was a special time as each of these events created a vibrant campus, allowed us to gather with students, faculty and friends and reminded us about what we missed in the past year. We also know we must remain vigilant in our efforts with COVID-19 and monitor the impacts the pandemic has on our campus and community. We have encouraged those eligible to explore getting vaccinated.
Please enjoy the remainder of your fall season. The holidays will be here before we know it, and we will turn our attention toward spring semester and another commencement ceremony in May.
Thank you for being a part of SDSU.
Go Jacks!
Sincerely,Â
Barry H. Dunn
President
