As ETSU’s campus sees a return to normalcy and growth in student population, President Brian Noland shared his hopes and concerns for the upcoming semester and academic year.
“I’m extremely excited about the start of this academic year because it is truly the first academic year in which things return to normal,” said Noland. “Last year we began with remaining and significant concerns about COVID, but as we start this year, even though COVID, as well as monkeypox, are in the public sphere, I feel much better about where we sit as a region starting the fall.”
3,000 students, primarily freshmen, are living on campus this semester. With housing exceeding capacity, this has presented both pros and cons for the institution.
“We’ve not been in this position for a number of years. In fact, it was just two years ago we purposely took housing to 50%,” Noland mentioned. “When we took housing to 50%, there was a pretty significant financial implication associated with that. So we had to hit pause on a number of renovation activities that we had planned for revenues to catch back up.”
Noland also shared news of a new residence hall coming in the near future.
“This year we will spend a lot of time with students talking about their desires for a new hall, what they would like to see in a new hall, and then we’ll determine the location and placement of that new residence hall,” said Noland. “We won’t start construction this year, but this year would be the planning for program, amenity, site selection.”
He spoke on his plans to hold ETSU Athletics accountable and touched on the firing and resignation of former head women’s basketball coach, Simon Harris.
“I really want to focus on our student athletes and {interim Athletics Director} Dr. (Richard) Sander is going to place his emphasis there,” Noland added. “The aspects with Coach Harris, it’s kind of hard to describe. The actions he took were not my expectations, and as a result, we’ve done the things we’ve done in the past couple of weeks. I look forward to working with Dr. Sander and all the coaches as we move through the fall and prepare students to excel in the classroom, on the playing field and in the community.”
Noland is excited to launch a university-wide equity and inclusion initiative called Moon Shot. This initiative aims to “remove systemic barriers for students,” according to their website.
“We were selected by the Educational Advisory Board to be a part of this initiative that’s focused on closing equity gaps across the region and at the institution,” said Noland. “I’m excited for the work that we’ll launch around community outreach and engagement as part of SACS’s 10-year reaffirmation of accreditation process.”
The president’s advice to students: go all in and immerse yourself in ETSU and its community.
“For seniors who missed something because of COVID, make up for that lost time,” Noland stated. “Likewise for juniors. Use this year as the year to get as much out of this experience as you possibly can. It’s a different ETSU than they started at, both physically as well as academically. I really, really look forward to this year being a year in which a lot of the seeds we planted during COVID finally come to bloom.“
