As campus began bustling with the chaos of early move-in and eleventh-hour preparations on Monday, ETSU President Brian Noland sat down to discuss the start of the new academic year.

“Each year brings its own energy; each year brings its own set of opportunities,” Noland said. “The year will take on a culture of its own as our students arrive.”

This year’s unique culture has already begun to form as several tangible changes were made on campus over the summer.

“As we look at things that students are able to see, touch and feel, probably the biggest change for the fall is the opening of the new building and the space adjacent to Carter and Nicks,” Noland said. “The new Academic Building is simply stunning architecturally, but I cannot wait to see students in the building — to see how they take advantage of the space.”

The new academic building is not the only major architectural change on campus, with renovations on Brown Hall set to continue into January, when the portion of Brown Hall under construction will be reopened and the other half subsequently closed.

“I think there will be a lot of discussion this year about a potential new residence hall, as well as the potential in time for another parking garage,” Noland said, reflecting on discussions at the Student Government Association retreat in Sevierville last week.

Limited space within residence halls has displaced many incoming students into nearby hotels for the past several years. This year, Noland said only 40 to 50 students will begin the semester in the Carnegie Hotel, compared to the 120 nearby hotel beds that were used last year, according to Housing Director Richard Swearingen in an interview on WJHL.

“We made some structural changes to housing placements this year, really giving priority towards incoming students,” Noland said. “We hope to have all those students on campus pretty early in September, whereas last year we had students who were still in off-campus placements well into mid-October.”

This year’s class of more than 2,200 incoming freshmen is one of the largest in ETSU’s history.

Noland gave advice to these students: “Get engaged and involved with the life of the institution. You know, if all you do is get up in the morning, go to class and then go back to your residence hall or wherever it is you live, you’ve missed the experience.”

Kendall Grosser/East Tennessean

The 2026-27 academic year is also exciting for ETSU outside of the undergraduate world. More than 70 students are beginning at the Bill Gatton College of Pharmacy, while 100 students are starting at Quillen College of Medicine.

“That’s the largest class of incoming medical students we’ve had in our history, and it’s a class that has the highest MCAT score in the history of the university,” Noland said.

Another change the president cited in ETSU academics this year is the focus on the engineering program at the university. By the end of the academic year, he hopes to have presented a proposal to the Board of Trustees to build out the portfolio of the current university engineering programs.

“It’s a year where we are going to look at academic programs. It’s a year where we’re in the early phases of implementing our new research strategic plan. It’s a year in which we’re going to get Brown Hall moving, and we’re also about to break ground on a new building for our Health Sciences programs, and we’ll finalize the planning for the student life village,” Noland said. “We’re in a pretty strong position. This is an institution with some wind in its sails, and I’m excited to see what our students, faculty and staff are able to accomplish this year.”

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