President Gonzalez shares updates for the coming Academic Year
The following message was shared with OHIO faculty and staff on Aug. 18, 2025.
Dear OHIO Colleagues,
It鈥檚 hard to believe we are only one week away from the beginning of another academic year! As we all begin to prepare for another beautiful and busy fall season in Athens, I wanted to share some of the milestones and priorities that are on my mind for the year ahead.
That list includes both exciting, strategic work to move our institution forward and challenging, complex initiatives. So, before I dive into the list, let鈥檚 ground ourselves in the incredible positive momentum we鈥檙e continuing to experience as a University. Later this month, we will welcome another accomplished group of students, and while final counts aren鈥檛 in quite yet, this class just might set another record. Our retention also continues to trend up with our total enrollment on track to rise above 30,000.
In case you missed it, Carnegie included OHIO among the list of 鈥淥pportunity Colleges and Universities鈥 in its new 鈥淎ccess and Earnings鈥 classification released this spring 鈥 one of only 21 R1 institutions in the country to also earn that distinction. I recorded a video about our newest classifications if you鈥檇 like to learn more:
This is all great news for OHIO, and as we head into this new year, I hope you will share my optimism about what鈥檚 ahead and recognize all the opportunity in front of us even in the midst of challenges.
Within that context, here are a few of the priorities on my mind for this year:
- Dynamic Strategy 鈥 It鈥檚 year two of a three-year plan, which means we continue to make significant additional progress. We have lots of exciting work happening to that end: On August 15, we hosted a summit in partnership with the John N. Gardner Institute for Excellence in Higher Education focused on developing a new classification for excellence in teaching. This fall, we鈥檒l welcome 13 new research faculty as part of our strategic hiring initiative, begin work on a strategic roadmap for research in energy and the environment as we move toward the development of a Carbon Materials Innovation Hub and launch new tools to align and support community engagement. These initiatives are just the tip of the iceberg, and we will need to engage more of our faculty and staff as we work to accelerate progress this year.
- Innovation and Efficiency 鈥 We are continuing to see cost escalations that are outside of our immediate control: increasing costs of employee health benefits, rising energy costs, escalating costs of necessary software and subscriptions, just to name a few, and the state鈥檚 investment in higher education is falling behind inflation. At the same time, we want to be able to invest in innovative new strategies and ideas, which means we need to find ways to operate more efficiently so we may continue to make strategic investments.
- Shifting Faculty Representation 鈥 On August 8, the University and the new faculty union had its first meeting to begin negotiations toward a new contract that will govern the employee relationship between the University and approximately 800 of our faculty. As those negotiations continue, we also are beginning work to determine how we will ensure ongoing shared governance and fair representation for faculty not represented by the union.
- Student Belonging and Retention 鈥 While tackling these major initiatives, we cannot lose sight of the reality that students must be at the center of our focus. Our success is dependent on their success here at OHIO and far beyond. With that in mind, and given some of the operational changes required by the Advance Ohio Higher Education Act, we will spend time and energy this academic year reimagining how we best support every student and continue to drive retention toward graduation.
Over the coming weeks and months, my leadership team and I will share more about each of these priorities, including ways you can provide input and support. These topics will find their way into articles in OHIO News and presentations during University Updates. I will also talk more about each at my State of the University Address, set for 10 a.m. on September 24.
I also want to recognize and celebrate that while these are a few of the topics on my mind, I know your energy is largely focused on other important work that drives our institution forward 鈥 for faculty, on scholarship, research and teaching; for staff, on your unit goals and initiatives that support our larger academic enterprise; for everyone, on our students and their success. It is your work and your commitment to our students that will continue to drive our incredible momentum as an institution.
Thank you for all you do for OHIO and for those we serve.
Forever thankful,
Dr. Lori Stewart Gonzalez
President