Greetings Fellow Jackrabbits –
A lot has happened since the last edition of the STATE magazine. At that time, our students completed their spring semester online and most of our employees were working from home. We were making decisions about the fall semester and developing plans to bring our students, faculty and staff back in the fall for on-campus instruction.
The responsibility to fulfill our land-grant mission of providing the benefits of access to higher education is critical during these times. The pandemic has impacted us all—personally, mentally and, for some, physically. Providing on-campus instruction isn’t about a return to normal as much as it is about keeping our students on track to earn their degree. To do this, we needed to plan, prepare and execute protocols to give our students the best academic experience possible while working to ensure the health and safety of everyone.
Hundreds of hours of work, by many employees, resulted in nearly 60 approved plans by our JacksRBack Task Force. Residential life, classrooms, dining services, wellness, counseling, athletics, tutoring and advising all had to be adjusted and altered within the new COVID-19 guidance to give everyone the best opportunity possible for a successful semester.
South Dakota State University’s enrollment for fall 2020 is 11,405 students, a decline of approximately 1% from last year. This is better than we anticipated given the pandemic, as well as enrollment trends and regional demographic forecasts.
Our domestic student enrollment remained the same and our freshman class of students from South Dakota increased by 81 from last year. The decline in enrollment was only in our international enrollment, which, as we know, was a group of students who experienced pandemic-related challenges in coming to the United States.
SDSU set an all-time high of 81% in our retention rate of students from their freshman to sophomore year through intentional advising, enhanced programming, scholarship optimization and increased student engagement. Retention is an important metric for many stakeholders—including parents and policymakers—as it is a measure of a university’s performance. Student retention is the first key step in ensuring student success and graduation.
The students who graduated from SDSU this year, as well as those who will graduate in the future, are the next generation of health care workers, teachers, business professionals, engineers, leaders in agriculture, counselors and more. They will serve critical roles in helping our nation recover in a post-pandemic world. It is the responsibility of this university to provide access and opportunities to all citizens of our state. Many of them are featured in this edition of STATE Magazine.
Our goal this semester remains to have on-campus instruction until the Thanksgiving break. We continue to monitor the impact COVID-19 has on our campus and take necessary actions to keep our campus safe and healthy. To date, our students, faculty and staff have responded well to the challenge.
As we move through the rest of the semester, our attention will turn toward spring and the semester ahead. Our planning and preparations will give us another opportunity to keep our students in the classroom and recognize another graduating class this spring. But, like many of you, I look forward to the day when we can enjoy one another’s company in the traditional settings we are used to experiencing at SDSU.
I thank you for your continued support and all that you do for SDSU. As the SDSU Foundation says, “we are one.â€
Sincerely,
Barry H. Dunn
